300-400 level courses are on special topics and are more advanced. They often presuppose some basic knowledge in the field and should be more difficult courses than courses at the 1-199 levels. The department is trying to insure that some 400 level courses, although substantially more difficult, are also small in size; they thus may be suitable for graduate students.
HIST 379 Modern American Cultural and Intellectual History
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
What did Americans believe over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how did their assumptions and convictions change? There is no single answer to these questions, and this course surveys the often contentious debates among Americans about everything from progress and modernity to race, social order, economy, gender, science, and the nation itself. A primary goal is to place ideas in their social and cultural context, and to investigate why certain beliefs took hold at particular moments. The last century has witnessed dramatic shifts not only in cultural attitudes but also in the groups that have been able to shape them. Thus, we will examine the intellectual production of both elite and popular thinkers: philosophers, social theorists, scientists, and religious leaders as well as journalists, novelists, advertisers, workers, and immigrants. The course requires close readings of a broad array of primary materials, including academic treatises, reform tracts, political speeches, fiction, photographs, and film.
