Course Description
Biographies and autobiographies to explore a variety of themes and issues in American history. Emphases will differ depending on instructor: focus may be nineteenth century, twentieth century, women, race, southern autobiography, etc.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Extra readings and papers will be expected of graduate students in the class.
Athena Title
AMERICAN LIVES
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course is designed to expose students to the value of individual lives, as captured by biography or autobiography, and serve as unique windows into a range of historical events and experiences. It is designed so that different instructors can adapt the course to his or her own area of expertise and thus provide students with very different perspectives on American history through the lives of those who shaped it or were shaped by it. A 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.
Topical Outline
For my American Lives course (focused on Southern Autobigraphy), the works read fit into the following broad categories: Slave Narratives Civil War Memoirs Emancipation and Reconstruction Black Women in the Jim Crow South Black Men in the Jim Crow South White Southerners in the Jim Crow South Civil Rights Memoir Environmental Memoir Appalachian Memoir Southern Jewish Memoir
Syllabus