<< >> ^

AST2100/3100

Dissent in American society

I Mylchreest

8 points
* One lecture and one 2-hour seminar per week
* First semester
* Clayton and Caulfield

Objectives Students completing this subject should be familiar with the nature of dissent in American society, and have used a range of primary and secondary texts, and various disciplinary perspectives to achieve that understanding.

Synopsis This subject will examine religious, political, and cultural dissent as ideology and practice in the United States from the 1600s to the late twentieth century. Topics will include evangelicals and fundamentalists, revolutionaries, socialists, communists and anticommunists, environmentalists, the Ku Klux Klan, black nationalists, and the antiwar and counterculture movements.

Assessment Written (4000 words): 60%
* Examination (2 hours): 40%
* Second-year students will write a long essay which can use primary sources but will rest on secondary research, but third year students will base their research essays on primary documents and demonstrate their familiarity with the topic's historiography.

Prescribed texts

Bennett D The party of fear UNCP

Haley A The autobiography of Malcolm X Penguin

Moore R L Religious outsiders and the making of Americans OUP

Schultz B and Schultz R It did happen here U California P

Steinbeck J The grapes of wrath Penguin

Stowe H B Uncle Tom's cabin Penguin

Thoreau H D Walden and civil disobedience Penguin

Twain M A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court Penguin

Recommended reading

Brinkley A Voices of protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression Random House

Gitlin T Years of hope, days of rage Random House

Navasky V Naming names Riverrun Press

Salvatore N Eugene Debs: Citizen and socialist U Illinois P

Young M B The Vietnam wars: 1945-1900 Harper Collins

Walters R American reformers 1815-1860 Hill and Wang


<< >> ^
Handbook Contents | Faculty Handbooks | Monash University
Published by Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168
Copyright © Monash University 1996 - All Rights Reserved - Caution
Authorised by the Academic Registrar December 1996