Course Description
Analyzes racial and gender ideologies in American expansion,
1607-1989: race-based slavery; narratives of captivity among
American Indian tribes; literature of the frontier;
turn-of-the-century segregation and imperial conquest; Cold War
sex panic; understandings of Asia from 1941 through the Vietnam
era; United States interests in the Middle East.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students are required to complete an additional, 25-
page historiographical essay on one of the specific topics we
explore or research a 25-page primary-source-based paper on an
additional topic/event related to the course themes.
Athena Title
Race Gender and Empire
Prerequisite
Any HIST course or ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1102S or POLS 1101 or POLS 1101E or POLS 1101H or POLS 1101S
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the history of race, gender, and empire by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of race, gender, and empire shaped diverse social and cultural attitudes toward race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and empire, wealth, and power, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to generate their own research question or topic, locate suitable primary and secondary sources, and synthesize their ideas in novel ways.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate their independent research projects in stages and to give and receive constructive feedback through the peer review process.
Topical Outline
- Week 1: What is an empire?
- Week 2: Old World Antecedents: Rome, China, Britain
- Week 3: Captivity Narratives
- Week 4: Race-based Slavery in Colonial Virginia: Legal and Religious Development
- Week 5: Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday
- Week 6: The Literature of Expansion in the Early Republic: The Davy Crockett Trickster Tales
- Week 7: The Spectacle of the Closing Frontier: Buffalo Bill's Wild West
- Week 8: Scientific Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist
- Week 9: American Empire: Cuba, the Philippines, and Hawaiï
- Week 10: Immigration Policy: Free White Persons, Chinese Exclusion, and the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924
- Week 11: Cold War Sexual Orthodoxy
- Week 12: The Lavender Scare
- Week 13: Cold War Orientalism
- Week 14: Why Are We in Vietnam?
- Week 15: The Vietnam Syndrome and Central America policy in the 1980s
- Week 16: Black Radicalism, Anti-colonialism, and the Middle East
- Week 17: American Conservatism and the Holy Land
Institutional Competencies
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, interpersonal, or visual form.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
Social Awareness & Responsibility
The capacity to understand the interdependence of people, communities, and self in a global society.
