what were they thinking? us intellectual history seminar and digital editing practicum, fall 2021 @ suny brockport.
Overview
How have Americans thought about themselves and their world? How do ideas matter to history? Is there such a thing as “the American Mind”? How have Americans contested who is part of it? We explore a diversity of past voices that remain relevant today through primary sources and historical scholarship. Students read selected sources and studies in US intellectual history, engage in extensive discussion, and develop a set of analytic writing assignments. To develop employable, professional skills, students also pursue editorial/research assistantships in the course on a book roundtable for the online US Intellectual History Journal, acquiring editing, research, project management, and digital production skills in the process (no previous editorial or digital experience required). Graduate students will complete a “digital sidebar” project (timeline, map, playlist, annotated bibliography, or other component of book roundtable.
Course Material
Available at Brockport bookstore, bookseller of your own choice, and on reserve at Drake Library.
Required:
- Kevin Mattson, We’re Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) **focus for USIH Journal book roundtable**
- Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019)
- Jeremy McCarter, Young Radicals In the War for American Ideals (New York: Random House, 2017)
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, ed., How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012)
- Additional essays, readings, films, and multimedia materials on course website
At Library Reserves:
- David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper, eds., The American Intellectual Tradition, Volume I: 1630 to 1865, 7th edition
- David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper, eds. The American Intellectual Tradition, Volume II: 1865 to the Present, 7th edition
Learning Goals
The study of history is essential. By exploring how our world came to be, the study of history fosters the critical knowledge, breadth of perspective, intellectual growth, and communication and problem-solving skills that will help you lead purposeful lives, exercise responsible citizenship, and achieve career success.
Course Learning Goals
In this upper-level history course, students have the opportunity to learn about:
- historical facts concerning US history
- historical interpretations concerning US history
- the field of intellectual history as part of the historical discipline
- how history relates to the present
- how to think, write about, and discuss ideas about the past and present
- how to notice and analyze change and continuity over time
- how to notice and analyze structures of power, how they have developed over time, and why they have
- how to handle historical complexity through close analysis, paraphrasing, and interpretive questioning
- how others have interpreted and debated the past (historiography)
- how to frame your own historical questions
- how to develop close, accurate, compelling interpretations of historical evidence yourself
- how to improve your skills of developing a historical narrative
- how to use evidence to develop a historical thesis, an argument-driven, evidence-based historical narrative
- how to paraphrase effectively
- how to use source citation using Chicago Manual of Style effectively and accurately
- how to connect your historical inquiry to useful, employable professional skills (editing, research, project management, writing, and digital publishing)
History Department Learning Goals
- Articulate a thesis (a response to a historical problem)
- Advance in logical sequence principal arguments in defense of a historical thesis
- Provide relevant evidence drawn from the evaluation of primary and/or secondary sources that supports the primary arguments in defense of a historical thesis
- Evaluate the significance of a historical thesis by relating it to a broader field of historical knowledge
- Express themselves clearly in writing that forwards a historical analysis.
- Use disciplinary standards (Chicago Style) of documentation when referencing historical sources
- Students will identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments as they appear in their own and others’ work
- Students will write and reflect on the writing conventions of the disciplinary area, with multiple opportunities for feedback and revision or multiple opportunities for feedback
- Students will demonstrate understanding of the methods social scientists use to explore social phenomena, including observation, hypothesis development, measurement and data collection, experimentation, evaluation of evidence, and employment of interpretive analysis
- Students will demonstrate knowledge of major concepts, models and issues of history
- Students will develop proficiency in oral discourse and evaluate an oral presentation according to established criteria
General Education Learning Goals
- Students will identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments as they appear in their own and others’ work.
- Students will write a short paper or report reflecting the writing conventions of the disciplinary area, with at least one opportunity for feedback and revision or multiple opportunities for feedback.
Evaluation
- Student info card and course contract – 5%
- Book review essay – 10%
- Midterm essay: primary-secondary source analysis – 15%
- Final essay: primary-secondary source analysis – 15%
- USIH Journal book roundtable project
- Editorial/research work –
- Contact letter to roundtable writers – 5%
- Editorial assistant report 01 – 5%
- Editorial assistant report 02 – 5%
- Digital work –
- Scholar interview (audio file and transcription)
- — or —
- For graduate students and interested undergraduates, digital sidebar development (timeline, map, audio or video playlist, bibliography, image and caption development, short sidebar writing). – 20% (Draft – 5%)
- Editorial/research work –
- In-class presentations and participation – 20%
Schedule
The instructor may adjust the schedule as needed during the semester, but will give clear instructions about any changes.
UNIT 01 – What Were They Thinking?
Week 01 – 08/30 and 09/01
- 08/30: Introductions
- 09/01: What does it mean to ask “what were they thinking?,” or what is intellectual history, anyway?
- Materials:
- Peter Gordon, “What is Intellectual History? A frankly partisan introduction to a frequently misunderstood field,” unpublished manuscript, 2012
- Daniel Wickberg, “The Idea of Historical Context and the Intellectual Historian,” American Labyrinth: Intellectual History for Complicated Times, eds. Raymond J. Haberski and Andrew Hartman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 305-322
- Brandon R. Byrd, “The Rise of African American Intellectual History,” Modern Intellectual History (2020), 1–32
- Optional:
- Kiara M. Vigil, “Introduction: A Red Man’s Rebuke,” Indigenous Intellectuals: Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the American Imagination, 1880-1930 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 1-33
- Materials:
- Due 09/03: Student info sheet and course contract due (see assignments for prompt)
Unit 02 – We’re Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America
Week 02 – No class on 09/07 (Labor Day) and 09/08
- 09/08: Mattson, Preface and Prelude, pp. ix-10 — Discuss USIH Journal Roundtable plan — How to contact your writer draft emails
- Due 09/13: Roundtable writer choice requests (see assignment for prompts)
Week 03 – 09/13 and 09/15
- 09/13: Mattson, Ch 1, pp. 11-81
- 09/15: Mattson, Ch 2, pp. 82-173
- Due 09/20: Contact roundtable writer (see assignments for prompt)
Week 04 – 09/20 and 09/22
- 09/20: Shalon van Tine Zoom Visit: Being a Research Assistant; Mattson, Ch 3, pp. 174-239
- 09/22: Mattson, Ch 4 and Epilogue, pp. 240-292
Unit 03 – The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History
Week 05 – 09/27 and 09/29
- 09/27: Ratner-Rosenhagen, Introduction, Ch 1, and Ch 2, 1-50
- 09/29: Ratner-Rosenhagen, Ch 3 and Ch 4, 51-96
- Due 10/04: Book review (see assignments for prompt)
Week 06 – 10/04 and 10/06
- 10/04: Ratner-Rosenhagen, Ch 5 and Ch 6, 97-132
- 10/06: Ratner-Rosenhagen, Ch 7, Ch 8, and Epilogue, 133-180
Unit 04 – Young Radicals In the War for American Ideals
Week 07 – 10/11 and 10/13
- 10/11: McCarter, Introduction and Part 1, pp. xiii-52
- 10/13: McCarter, Part 2, pp. 53-104
- Due 10/18: Midterm essay (see assignments for prompt)
Week 08 – No class on 10/18 (Fall Break) and 10/20
- 10/20: McCarter, Part 3, pp. 105-156
Week 09 – 10/25 and 10/27
- 10/25: McCarter, Part 4, pp. 157-248
- 10/27: McCarter, Part 5 and Epilogue, pp. 249-324
- Optional: Reds, dir. Warren Beatty (1981)
- Due 11/01: Editorial assistant report 01 (see assignments for prompt)
Unit 05 – How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Week 10 – 11/01 and 11/03
- 11/01: Taylor, Introduction, The Combahee River Collective statement
- 11/03: Digital editing workshop
Week 11 – 11/08 and 11/10
- 11/08: Taylor, Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith
- 11/10: Digital editing workshop
- Due 11/15: Editorial assistant report 02 (see assignments for prompt)
Week 12 – 11/15 and 11/17
- 11/15: Taylor, Demita Frazier, Alicia Garza, Comments by Barbara Ransby
- 11/17: The Examined Life, dir. Astra Taylor (2006)
Week 13 – Thanksgiving – No Meetings
Unit 06 – Digital Editing and Wrapping Up
Week 14 – 11/29 and 12/01 – Digital editing workshops/The Examined Life
- 11/29: Digital editing workshop
- 12/01: Digital editing workshop
Week 15 – 12/06 and 12/08 – Wrapping up
- 12/06: Wrapping up; Dr. Kevin Mattson Zoom Visit
- 12/08: Wrapping up
- Due 12/13: Digital sidebar draft for graduate students and interested undergraduates (see assignments for prompt)
Final – 12/17
- Final essay (see assignments for prompt)
- Scholar interview and/or (for graduate students and interested undergraduates) digital sidebar (see assignments for prompt)
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