AST2100

Dissent in American society

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

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 idealogy 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.

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 texts

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