To provide students who have no previous background in the subject with a fundamental
acquaintance with the the historical, religious, political, economic and social
traditions of East Asia, a foundation upon which they can build in future studies.

The principal objective of the course is to teach students to think critically for
themselves about the relationships between the past and the present, to learn to ask
questions of the past that enable them to understand the present and mold the future,
and to become attuned to both the limitations and possibilities of change.  The
course seeks to acquaint students with the ways in which past societies and peoples
have defined the relationships between community and individual needs and goals, and
between ethical norms and decision-making.

In general students will be expected to: 

1. read a wide range of primary and secondary sources critically.

2. polish skills in critical thinking, including the ability to recognize the
difference between opinion and evidence, and the ability to evaluate--and support or
refute--arguments effectively.

3. write stylistically appropriate and mature papers and essays using processes that
include discovering ideas and evidence, organizing that material, and revising,
editing, and polishing the finished papers.

Myths and Models
Choice and Coercion in Early America
We the People
The Invention of Ethnicity
From Famine to Feast?
Making White Ethnics
Making Borders
Barbarians at the Gate or Inside It
Barring the Gates (or Not)
Out of This Furnace
The Great Wave
Inventing Modern Man
Blood and Nation
Mass Culture and Immigrant Culture
The President Wants You to Organize
Constructing Borders and Aliens
Perpetual Aliens
Immigration and the Cold War
An Immigrant Revolution?
Struggles in the Fields
Families and Cultural Borders
Families and International Borders
Lockdown