kosiorek.html

Office hours: T/TH 11:00-12:00 and by appointment
Bishop 311N
915-7105
kosiorek@olemiss.edu

Course Description: This course will provide you with a better understanding of American history through the end of Reconstruction. Lectures, readings, and discussions will help you learn the major events, movements, and ideas that shaped United States history and how various groups of people created, understood, and reacted to these at the time. Additionally, through the reading of primary sources and a short research assignment, you will learn to develop your own interpretation and analysis of past events and their impact on the people and ideas of the time.

Class Format: The entire class will meet twice a week for one hour and fifteen minutes. Class sessions will generally consist of a mix of lecture and discussion that will provide an overview of the era and themes focused on that week along with description and analysis of specific events and people. Though, as the professor, I will provide the lecture material, your active participation in discussion and preparation for class – by completing the reading ahead of time – are integral parts of the learning experience.

Grading: Your class grade will consist of class participation, including in-class and Blackboard (25%), two exams (25 and 30% each), and your Black Hawk paper and assignment (20%). The class is not graded on a curve.

25% Participation: You will be graded on your participation in class and on the course’s Blackboard discussion board. Your participation grade is based in part on your class attendance. However, your Blackboard assignments and the content and consistency of your in-class contributions make up the majority of the participation grade. Responses in both forums should show evidence of reading and lecture materials, understanding of other students’ contributions, and your own reasoned analysis of the material. Weeks when you have Blackboard assignment are listed in the syllabus. The assignments are posted on Blackboard. You are responsible for getting online, familiarizing yourself with Blackboard, and being aware of the class schedule. You should submit all Blackboard assignments online by the due date noted in the assignment. Any late assignments or assignments not submitted electronically will not be graded. You are responsible for ensuring that the system accepted and posted your response.

25% First Examination and 30% Second Examination: You will have two examinations in this course: a mid-term and a final. Each exam will consist of an essay question and two shorter response questions. The questions will be posted on Blackboard one week before the exams are due. All exams should be typed and submitted as both a typed paper copy in class and an electronic copy on Blackboard.

20% Black Hawk Paper and Assignment: You will earn the final portion of your grade by completing a short research assignment and paper. The assignment gives you the opportunity to identify and locate historical sources on your own and make your own interpretations of the material. It may seem daunting, but it will be easy as long as you do the work. We will discuss the research assignment in more detail during the third week of the semester.

Note on Cheating and Plagiarism: Students are responsible for being familiar with the university policies on cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic misconduct. The policy can be viewed through the Ole Miss website at: https://secure.olemiss.edu/umpolicyopen/ShowDetails.jsp?istatPara=1&policyObjidPara=10817696
or on Blackboard in the course documents section. In the event of plagiarism or cheating in this course, I will usually fail the offender in the course and initiate an academic discipline case.

Required Readings and Texts:
John Faragher, et. al., Out of Many, Volume I.
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Black Hawk, Black Hawk: An Autobiography, ed. Donald Jackson.
Documents and Readings available through Blackboard.

Tentative Course Schedule: The schedule below is tentative. You may notice that we have no topics for the final week of classes. Those class meetings are reserved to get us caught up if we fall behind or spend additional time on a topic.

You are expected to have completed the readings listed for each date before that day’s class meeting. The Faragher readings will set the lectures in context and the other readings will provide the basis for discussion during class. If the readings are not listed as Faragher, Jacobs, or Black Hawk, they can be found on Blackboard.

Week Two:
January 22 – Columbian Exchange and Creation Stories
Required: Chelan, “The Creation of the First Indians”
Hopi, “How the Hopi Reached Their World”
Seneca, “Seneca Creation Story”
Genesis, chapters 1-3 (locate on the web)
Recommended: Faragher, 4-22, 29-45

January 24 – French and English Settlement
Required: Faragher, 50-63, 103-120
? Come prepared to discuss the differences between English colonies in the north and south

Week Three:
January 29 – English Colonists, Native Americans, and Slavery
Required: Faragher, 72-89
Frances Fitzgerald, “Peculiar Institutions”
Recommended: Faragher, 63-67.
Blackboard: Respond to Fitzgerald discussion on Blackboard

January 31 – Mercantilism and Salutary Neglect
Required: Faragher, 89-97, 121-126, 133-138
Black Hawk, 1-31
? Discussion of research projects

Week Four:
February 5 – Periods of Crisis
Required: Faragher, 138-157
Declaration of Independence (Faragher, Appendix, 1-2)
? Bring a copy of the Declaration to class

February 7 – Revolutionary Ideology
Required: Abigail and John Adams’s letters
Blackboard: Respond to discussion of the Adams’s letters

Week Five:
February 12 – Revolutionary Experience
Required: Faragher, 180-186
Examine John Singleton Copley’s “Watson and the Shark”

February 14 – Military History of the Revolution
Required: Faragher, 164-174
Due: First Black Hawk assignment

Week Six:
February 19 – America under the Articles of Confederation
Required: Faragher, 174-180
? First Exam questions available

February 21 – The Constitutional Convention
Required: Faragher, 195-211
Recommended: Faragher, 191-195

Week Seven:
February 26 – The Early Republic and Foreign Affairs
Required: Faragher, 220-239
Due: First Exam

February 28 – Tariffs, Internal Improvements, and the Second Party System
Required: Faragher, 245-265
Begin Reading Jacobs

Week Eight:
March 4 – Markets and Industry
Required: Faragher, 305-320
Continue Reading Jacobs

March 6 – The Southern Economy
Required: Faragher, 274-279, 289-295
Continue Reading Jacobs

Week Nine:
March 18 – Slave Life and Resistance
Required: Faragher, 279-289
Finish Jacobs
? Bring Jacobs to class

March 20 – Race and Sectionalism in the 1820s and 30s
Required: Faragher, 295-298, 335-344
Recommended: Faragher, 325-335
? Bring Jacobs to class
Blackboard: Respond to discussion of Jacobs

Week Ten:
March 25 – The American West
Required: Faragher, 349-360, 363-365
O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity”

March 27 – The Compromise of 1850
Required: Faragher, 360-363, 366-370, 375-382
Chu, “The Demon and Daniel Webster: Drinking in the Antebellum Senate”

Week Eleven:
April 1 – Kansas and the Sectionalism of the 1850s
Required: Faragher, 382-385
Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

April 3 – Immigration and the Republican Party
Required: Faragher, 385-387
Washington Monument documents and images
Blackboard: Contribute to discussion of monuments

Week Twelve:
April 8 – The Crisis of the Late 1850s
Required: Faragher, 387-391

April 10 – Union, the Election of 1860, and Secession
Required: Faragher, 391-397

Week Thirteen:
April 15 – The Union and the Confederacy
Required: Faragher, 400-426
Blackboard: Respond to discussion of the experience of the Civil War

Week Fourteen:
April 22 – Emancipation and the Transformation of America during the Civil War
Required: Faragher, 435-449
Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address”

April 24 – Reconstruction, Retreat, and the Compromise of 1877
Required: Faragher, 449-469
Due: Final Black Hawk papers

Final Exam:
Please check the final exam schedule. Your final exams will be due at the end of the final exam period.

His 313
US Intellectual History to 1900:
The Formation of American Culture and Identity

Course Description: In the decades after the Revolution, many of the nation’s political and cultural elite believed it was essential that the new republic define a national identity free from European influence. Both before and after independence, folks across the colonies and, later, country fashioned lives for themselves and their families, in a less deliberate process of establishing a culture and identity for the new nation. Together, these efforts constituted a continual quest to invent and elaborate a distinct culture. In this course we will explore this emergence of American identity, ideas, and culture from the colonial period through the end of the nineteenth century, with a focus on the role of nature and historical understanding and both the image and involvement of Indians and Blacks in this development. We will examine and discuss works by Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Catlin, Frederick Douglass, and other intellectuals, as well as the more obscure writings and contributions of women, Blacks, middling whites, and Indians who augmented American culture throughout this period.

Class Format: The class meets every Tuesday and Thursday during the semester. Generally the class will start with a lecture interspersed with discussion that will introduce the topic, place the readings in context, and provide additional material. The second half of most class sessions will involve more in-depth discussion of the readings and primary documents and images provided in class.

Grading: Your class grade will consist of class participation (25%), a take-home exam (25%), a final exam (25%), and a group assignment and paper (25%). The class is not graded on a curve.

25% Participation: You will be graded on your participation in class and on the course’s Blackboard discussion board. Your participation grade is based in part on your class attendance. However, the content and consistency of your in-class and Blackboard contributions make up the majority of the participation grade. Responses in both forums should show evidence of reading and lecture materials, understanding of other students’ contributions, and your own reasoned analysis of the material. Starting with the third week of the semester, I will open a discussion on Blackboard each week. Like with in-class discussion, you are expected to participate in these online, ongoing discussions. Your initial contributions to a Blackboard discussion should take place before Friday at 5pm each week. Additional contributions made after this time will be counted towards your participation grade, but initial contributions will not.

25% Examinations: You will have two examinations in this course: a mid-term and a final. Each exam will consist of two essay questions. The questions will be posted on Blackboard one week before the exams are due. All exams should be typed and submitted as both a typed paper copy in class.

25% Group Assignment and Paper: You will earn the final portion of your grade by completing a group assignment and primary research paper. The two assignments are related, though you will write and submit your research papers on your own. The research paper gives you the opportunity to identify and locate historical sources on your own and make your own interpretations of the material. The group assignment will require you to organize a class discussion. We will arrange groups and discuss the assignment and paper in more detail during the third week of the semester.

Note on Cheating and Plagiarism: Students are responsible for being familiar with the university policies on cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic misconduct. The policy can be viewed through the Ole Miss website at: https://secure.olemiss.edu/umpolicyopen/ShowDetails.jsp?istatPara=1&policyObjidPara=10817696
or on Blackboard in the course documents section. In the event of plagiarism or cheating in this course, I will usually fail the offender for the course and initiate an academic discipline case.

Required Readings and Texts:
The following are available through the bookstore:
Conn, Steven. History’s Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century.
Cooper, James Fenimore. Last of the Mohicans.
Daley, James. Great Speeches by African Americans.
Demos, John. Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays.
Frederickson, George. The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate On Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914.
Lincoln, Abraham. Great Speeches.
Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind.
Rowlandson, Mary. The Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives.
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays.

Other documents and texts will be available on Blackboard. Though you do not have to, I recommend printing these documents out to make it easier to read and take notes on the article.

Tentative Course Schedule: The schedule below is tentative. You are expected to have completed the readings listed for each session before class meets that day.

Week One:
January 17 – Encounters in America: Indian and European Views

Week Two:
January 22 – North America as Wilderness and Home
Readings: Nash, Ch. 1-2 (pp. 8-43)

January 24 – Religious Crisis and King Philip’s War
Readings: Demos, begin reading, finish at least from pp. 3-54

Week Three
January 29 – The Indian in the Colonial Period
Readings: Finish Demos

January 31 – The Captivity Narrative
Readings: Rowlandson, pp. 58-86

Week Four
February 5 – The Black Revolution
Readings: Bethel, Ch. 1 (pp. 29-52)

February 7 – The Contradiction of Black Enslavement and Revolutionary Liberty
Readings: Fredrickson, Ch. 1 (pp. 1-42)
Speech from book?

Week Five
February 12 – Black Community: Distinctness and Belonging
Readings: Bethel, Ch. 3-4 (pp. 85-118)
Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?” in Great Speeches by African Americans, 11-12
Cooper, begin reading – you will be expected to have it finished by next week

February 14 – The Different Shades of Abolition
Readings: Frederickson, Ch. 2-4 (pp. 43-129)
Continue reading Cooper

Week Six
February 19 – The Hybrid Nation: Citizenship, Identity, and Belonging
Readings: Bethel, Ch. 5 (pp. 119-139)
Continue reading Cooper

February 21 – Indians and American Identity
Readings: Conn, Ch. 1 (pp. 1-34)
Finish Cooper

Week Seven
February 26 – Nature’s Nation
Readings: Nash, Ch. 3-4 (pp. 44-83)

February 28 – Images in Antebellum America
Readings: Conn, Ch. 2 (pp. 35-78)

Week Eight
March 4 – American Transcendentalism
Readings: Nash, Ch. 5 (pp. 84-95)

March 6 – The Nature of Emerson and Thoreau
Readings: Emerson, “Nature”
Thoreau, “On Walking”
First Exam Due

Spring Break

Week Nine
March 18 – The West in Politics and the Press
Readings: Fredrickson, Ch. 4-5 (pp. 97-164)

March 20 – The Masculine Image and Female Experience of the West

Week Ten
March 25 – Daniel Webster and Visions of America Identity
Readings: Webster, “Plymouth Oration”

March 27 – William Apess and the Native American Response
Readings: Apess, “Eulogy”

Week Eleven
April 1 – Ralph Waldo Emerson and American Distinctiveness
Readings: Emerson, “The American Scholar”

April 3 – Frederick Douglass and America’s Promise
Readings: Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Recommended: Bethel, Ch. 6-7 (pp. 145-184)

Week Twelve
April 8 – The Civil War and the American Mind
Readings: Lincoln, “The First Inaugural” and “The Gettysburg Address”

April 10 – The Cultures of Reconciliation
Readings: Fredrickson, Ch. 6 (pp. 165-197)
Bethel, Epilogue (pp. 185-194)

Week Thirteen
April 15 – The Two John Muirs: Americans and Nature in the Late 19th Century
Readings: Nash, Ch. 6-8 (pp. 96-140)
Muir, “A Wind Storm in the Forest”

April 17 – Feminine Nature, Masculine Wilderness
Readings: Nash, Ch., 9-10 (pp. 141-181)
Research Papers Due

Week Fourteen
April 22 – The Idea of Race
Readings: Frederickson, Ch. 7-9 (pp. 198-282)

April 24 – Darkness and Civilization: Science and Race

Week Fifteen
April 29 – Race, Religion, and the Indian in the West
Readings: Conn, Ch. 5-6 (pp. 154-229)

May 1 – Imperialism and America in the Twentieth Century
Readings: Fredrickson, Ch. 10-11 (pp. 283-332)