HENK03915U English - Free topic 17: Virgin Land and Vampire Nation: US History from Discovery to Civil War (exam form A,B,C) NEW TITLE

This course is a survey of the major political, economic, social, and cultural developments of American history from the moment of European discovery and early globalization efforts through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Contact among Europeans, Indians, Africans, and Asians in a large geographical crucible of discovery and settlement created a rising superpower in the aftermath of a brutal, necessary war to decide what kind of nation this nation would be. Many voices imagined different outcomes as freedom, equality, and order were defined and redefined. Major problems of race, class, gender, and culture conflicted, compromised, and established patterns of change and continuity that affect national, transnational and global interaction in 2016. Students will read and interpret primary and secondary materials in literary, art, historical, and political texts to interpret American exceptionalism and cultural comparisons that inform the present. Course objectives include a firm grounding in US society and analytical thinking through historical method. There will be a “film night” seven times during the semester to analyze how film distorts memory and history.