THE SYLLABUS
Lecture/Discussion: Tuesday-Friday,
8:30 - 9:45 a.m.
Place: Battelle-Tompkins 148
| Instructor: Robert Griffith Office: Battelle-Tompkins, 139 |
| Office Hours: Mondays & Wednesdays, 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. & by appointment. |
| Tel: 202-885-2419 e-mail: bgriff@american.edu Instructor's Home Page |
Click on these to navigate the web site for History 207:
| About the Course | The Schedule | The Assignments | Assessment |
While
this syllabus is reasonably complete, I will make alterations in it from time to
time as circumstances change or as new opportunities for learning present
themselves. I will normally identify such changes with the icon:
1) to provide students with a basic understanding of the history of the United States since 1945, including: domestic politics, the rise (and fall) of the Cold War, the economic, social and cultural changes that have shaped American life over the past half century, and the new challenges of a fully globalized, post 9/11 world;The course is based on extensive readings, on lectures and discussions (both real and virtual), as well as on the use of the AU Library, museums and the world wide web. You will be expected:
2) to help students develop an informed understanding of historical practice -- the interplay of history and memory, the multiple voices and perspectives that comprise the past, the role of evidence, how history is created or "constructed" by historians, museum curators, movie makers and many others; and of "historiography" -- the every changing conversation among historians as they argue and debate the past.3) to help students develop those critical intellectual skills that will allow them to continue to learn from the past, a goal that includes increasing their familiarity with the AU Library, various databases, and information available on the open web; and
4) to help students learn to better communicate their knowledge to others, both orally and especially in writing.
1) to attend class regularly
2) to keep up with all assigned readings
3) to complete in a timely fashion a series of written class assignments. For details, see Assignments.
4) to actively participate in discussions (both real and virtual)
5) to take a final exam that will include two parts: one designed to test your understanding of the basic material; the other to test your ability to integrate, evaluate and communicate what you have learned.
For more details, click on Assessment.Blackboard: Blackboard, the University’s “course management software,” provides a wonderful means of enhancing the seminar's interactivity by "virtually" expanding the seminar beyond the limited time and physical space in which it "actually" meets. In geek speak, we refer to these latter characteristics as "asynchronous" and "aspatial." Blackboard provides a virtual classroom environment where you may find a link to this syllabus and other course materials, including readings available via the Library's Electronic Reserve, as well as materials that I may add under "Course Documents." Blackboard also provides "discussion forums" in which you will be required to post your weekly assignments and comment on the work of your classmates. There is a Discussion Board for the entire class, but there are also "group" discussion boards (see below). To access Blackboard, click on http://blackboard.american.edu/. Login, your Eaglenet ID and Password. Note: To access materials on Electronic Reserve, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You can download this version of Adobe Acrobat free at www.adobe.com or at https://my.american.edu/ (click on technology, then download software).
The Importance of Community: Because scholarship is a collegial as well as an individual enterprise, you will be asked to share your work with others at every stage: seeking (and offering) advice and revising your work in light of the comments by your classmates, the instructor and others. Your grade for the course will be based not only on the quality of your own work, but on the quality and helpfulness of assistance that you lend to your classmates. To better help one another, I am assigning each of you to a small group. You will be expected to read and comment on the work of one another each week. However, you are also strongly encouraged to work with one another outside of these class assignments, and to work with other members of the class who may not be in your group. To locate your group, click on Groups and then "Group Pages."
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Additional Resources: a variety of articles, excerpts from books, charts, graphs and web based materials.
AU Library -- the AU Library's home page, a good place to begin your library searches. If you haven't done so already, you will need to familiarize yourself with the library itself, as well as its many databases and search engines. For additional information, click on Using the Library. See also the Library's "Virtual Tour."
Endnote, Zotero: If you've not already done so, I strongly urge you to begin taking notes on what you have read in a systematic fashion. Happily, there are many new tools to help you do this by simplifying and automating library research, note-taking and, especially, the footnoting of papers, books and articles. The AU library has acquired a site license to EndNote, a powerful bibliographic tool with note-taking capability. You can download free copies of this powerful program at: http://www.american.edu/technology/sites/helpdesk/content.cfm?id=2302. Alternatively, you might consider downloading and familiarizing yourself with Zotero, a free, open source note taking and bibliographic program that works as an extension to the browser, Firefox. For details, click on: http://www.zotero.org/. Acquiring and learning to use either of these tools will pay terrific dividends not only in this course, but in future courses you may take.
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Click here to navigate the Schedule for week beginning:
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Tuesday, January 13: Introduction to the Course: The Idea of Modern (Postwar) America
Friday, January 16: Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of Postwar AmericaRequired Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 1, pp. 1-25.
Major Problems, chapter 1
On "The Idea of Postwar America" see Postwar Table.Today, download fill out the attached "questionnaire"; then copy paste it into the Entire Class Discussion Board.
Required Reading:
Major Problems (2nd edition, 2001), chapter 2 (e-reserves).
Boyer, Promises to Keep, pp. 26-34.
Additional Documents:
Discussion by the "Target Committee," May 10-11, 1945 at:
http://www.dannen.com/decision/targets.html#D.
A Young Japanese Girl Recalls the Dropping of the Bomb
Voice of the Hibakusha (survivors) at: http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/Additional Resources:
For an outline of the lecture, click on Atomic Bomb Outline.
For a study guide, click on Atomic Bomb Study Guide.
See, especially, the many links on the web page of American University's own Nuclear Studies Institute.
For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.
For recently published works, click on Recent Studies on the Atomic Bombing of Japan.
See, especially, the virtual tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
Assignment One: Due no later than 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 18. Post comments on your Group Discussion Board no later than Monday, January 19.
Friday, January 23: Lecture/Discussion: The Atomic Bomb as History and Memory
Assignment Two: Designing An Exhibition Complete this assignment and post it to your group discussion board no later than
Thursday, January 21. Review what you and the other members of your group have posted before coming to class.
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| "The enormity
of the task...after the wars in Europe and Asia ended in 1945, only slowly
revealed itself. As it did so, it began to appear as just a bit less
formidable than that described in the first chapter of Genesis. That
was to create a world out of chaos... ." Dean Acheson, U.S.
Secretary of State,
Present at the Creation. " If you put a scorpion and a tarantula together in a bottle, the objective of their own self-preservation will impel them to fight each other to the death. For the moment, at least, no understanding between them is possible. . . ." Louis Halle. |
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Friday, January 30: The Cold War & the Forging of the Postwar World
Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 2; Major Problems, chapter 2.
Anna Kasten Nelson, "Illuminating the Twilight Struggle: New Interpretations of the Cold War," Chronicle of Higher Education (June 25, 1999).Additional Resources:
For a broad outline of lectures on the Cold War, click on Cold War Outline.
See also Cold War Study Guide for Major Problems, Chapter 2.
For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.
For recently published works, click on Recent Studies on the Cold War.
For a discussion of web based resources for studying the Cold War, see my article, "Un-Tangling the Web of Cold War History: Or, How One Historian Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Internet," Journal of Multi-Media History (Vol. 3, 2000).Assignment Three: The Origins of the Cold War. Due before 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; comments due before class on Friday.
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| ".... I am waiting
for the American Eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right" Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1958 |
Required Reading:
Boyer, Promises to Keep, Chapters 3, 4 & 5.
Griffith & Baker, Major Problems, chapter 3.
Documents on Post War Politics (from Major Problems in American History since 1945 (1st edition, 1992)
Michael Harrington's The Other America (an excerpt, on Electronic Reserve).
"I'm Waiting" by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti's 1958 poem is widely available on the web, including a copy at: http://www.worldofpoetry.org/usop/dream5.htm.
Michael Harrington, The Other America, excerpt at: http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/1960s/Other%20America%20excerpt.htm
For an outline of the lecture, click on "Many Fifties."
Assignment Four: Politics and Culture in Cold War America: due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; comments are due before class on Friday.
Friday, February 6: Discussion
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Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 7.
Major Problems, chapter 6. Joseph Califano, "What was Really Great About the Great Society," Washington Monthly (October, 1999) at: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9910.califano.html
The First Measured Century at: http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book.htm. Read chapters 10, 11 (on "Politics" and "Government"), and chapter 9 on ("Money'). In the latter chapter, see especially the sections on income distribution and poverty.For a partial listing of Great Society programs, see The Great Society.
For an outline of the lecture, click on New Frontier and Great Society.A primer on political history: For the History of Presidential Elections, see: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections; for party divisions in the Senate and House, visit the U.S. Senate Historical Office website, U.S. Senate Art & History Home Origins & Development Party Division.
Additional Resources:
For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.
View John F. Kennedy's inaugural address on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE0iPY7XGBo
Read and/or Listen to John F. Kennedy's speech at American University at: JFKAU
Read the text of Lyndon Johnson's May, 1964 "Great Society" speech at the University of Michigan.
For recently published works, click on Recent Studies of The Great Society.
Assignment Five: due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; comments are due before class on Friday
Friday,
February 13: The Cold War in Latin
America: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro and the Origins of the Cuban Missile
Crisis
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"We were eyeball to eyeball and the other guy just
blinked... ." Dean Rusk.
"A hard rain's a gonna fall... ." Bob Dylan. |
Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 6
Major Problems, chapter 4.
For a U.S. Senate report on attempts to assassinate Castro, click on Plots Against Castro.
For an audio link to ExComm's initial discussion of the missiles, click on: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/audio.htm
For an excellent introduction to the documentary record on the crisis, including documents relating to the most recent history of the crisis, see the National Security Archive at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/dobbs/index.htm.
For a recent review of a new book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, see: One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War by Michael Dobbs (Knopf, 2008), see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Holbrooke-t.html.Additional Resources:
For an outline of the lecture, see The Cuban Missile Crisis Or, the United States, The Cold War and Latin America
For additional documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, see the Digital National Security Archive, available only through the AU Library's databases; the "open" or "public" version of the National Security Archive (see above) contains only a fraction of the documents held by the archive.
For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.For recently published works, click on New Studies on the US, Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Assignment Six: Cold War/Hot War/Nuclear War: This assignment is not required; however, you may submit it for extra credit (up to 5 points). If you do want to submit it, please post it to your group discussion board (Assignment Six) by Sunday evening, February 15.
Tuesday, February 16: Civil Rights as a People's Movement
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Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 5 (pp. 148-155); chapter 8 (entire chapter); and Chapter 9 (pp. 244-252).
Major Problems, chapter 5.
Police and Fire Department Logs Record an Urban Riot, 1967 (From Major Problems, first edition, 1992).
Photos of the Civil Rights Movement by Charles Moore at: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/moore/mooreIndex.shtml
Robert Kennedy announces the death of Martin Luther King: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCg05pTYt0A&feature=relatedAdditional Resources:
For a sense of the pervasiveness of legal segregation, see this partial listing of "Jim Crow" laws.
For an outline of the lecture, see The Civil Rights Movement as a People's Movement.
For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.
For recently published works, click on Recent Studies of the Civil Rights Movement.
Assignment Seven: due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; comments are due before class on Friday.
Friday, February 20: Discussion
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Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, pp. 55-61, 112-115; chapter 6 (pp. 175-182); chapter 10 (entire).
Major Problems, chapter 9 (entire).
Christian Appy, "The Muffling of Public Memory in Post-Vietnam America," Chronicle of Higher Education (February 12, 1999), B4-B6, available on the Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe database, as well as in in the Periodical Abstracts database. Click on the latter at: http://proquest.umi.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/pqdweb?did=38855799&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=31806&RQT=309&VName=PQD.MyLai - a BBC special report at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/03/98/mylai/64344.stm
The Face of War: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2dEqrN4i0Additional Resources:
See also, The United States and Vietnam: An Outline.
For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.
For recently published works, click on Recent Studies of the United States and Vietnam.
Assignment Eight: Your essay is due before 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; your comments are due before class on Friday.
Friday, February 27: Lecture/Discussion: The United States in Vietnam
The Times They Are A-Changin' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgECKj9LSH4
| Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 9 (pp. 252-262) Major Problems, chapter 7. Jerry Rubin on becoming a "Yippie" A Student Survivor Recalls the Tragedy at Kent State, 1970. The FBI's War on the New Left Additional Resources:
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Friday,
March 6: NO CLASS.
We will make up Friday's class later in the semester.
From the Feminine Mystique to the New
Feminism (and beyond)
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Assignment
Nine: Life Stories. Your essay is due by 5:00 p.m. on MONDAY March
16..
Tuesday, March
17: DISCUSSION: THE
1960S, THE NEW FEMINISM
Friday, March 20: Lecture: Watergate and the [First] Crisis of the "Imperial Presidency"
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Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 12 (pp. 335-346), chapter 13. Major Problems, chapter 12 (available on e-reserves). Additional Resources:
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III. POSTMODERN AMERICA?
| "All that is solid melts into air... ." Karl
Marx
"It's the end of the world, as we know it." R.E.M., Document (1987) "Things are going to slide in all directions...." Leonard Cohen, The Future (1992). |
Introduction: The End of "Modern" (Postwar) America & the Emergence of "Postmodern" America For an overview of the "Postmodern Era, click on Postmodern Overview.
Lecture: The Politics of Postmodern America: Inventing Ronald Reagan, Being Bill Clinton
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| "It is profoundly ironic, a piece
of history to make a deconstructionist's mouth water, that Ronald Reagan,
who came to political power as a representative of a popular urge toward
the restoration of old and understandable American values, did so by campaigning
with the most sophisticated media techniques, so skillfully used as to
make his opponent's campaign look like a creaking Model T.... As Reagan
went on to the presidency, many political observers....commented on how
strange it was that a twice-married movie star, a longtime resident of
the closest thing around to a modern Babylon, could somehow emerge as the
incarnation of the clean-cut simple values of small-town American life."
Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn't What it Used to Be (1990). |
Required Readings: Boyer, Promises to Keep, Chapters 14
Griffith and Baker, Major Problems, Chapter 10, 13 (471-483, 488-500).
For an outline of the lecture on Postwar Politics, click on The Emergence of Postmodern PoliticsRecommended Readings:
Lou Cannon, President Reagan (1991)
Robert Dallek, Ronald Reagan(1984)
Edsall, The New Politics of Inequality (1984)
Himmelstein, "To the Right (1990)
Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movie (1987).
Schaller, Reckoning with Reagan (1994)
White, The New Politics of Old Values (1988).
Friday, March 27: "Ronald Reagan and American Conservatism"
Guest Lecture by Professor Allan Lichtman, whose new book, White Protestant Nation, was nominated for the very prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award. (For details, click on: http://uk.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUKB56492620090125.
Assignment Ten: Old Politics, New Politics: Your essay is due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; your comments are due before class on Friday.
For an outline of today's lecture, click on New Economy Lecture.
See especially, the chart comparing the Old and New Economies: New Economy Chart
Friday, April 3: The Perils of the New Economy: Discussion
| Required Reading
Promises to Keep, pp. 443-448 Major Problems, Chapter 11 (entire). Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America (1988), pp. 3-17. Click on The Great U-Turn. On the current financial crisis, see especially Joseph Stiglitz, "Capitalist Fools," in Vanity Fair (January, 2009) at: http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/stiglitz200901. Additional Resources: John E. Schwarz, "The Hidden Side of the New Economy," The Atlantic Monthly (October, 1998), Internet Version. W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, "America's Move to Mass Customization," Consumers' Research Magazine, available via the University's Periodical Abstracts Database. Joseph Turow, "Breaking up America," American Demographics (Nov 1997), available via the Proquest database. Robert Putnam, "America's Declining Social Capital" at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v006/6.1putnam.html |
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Assignment Eleven: Your essay is due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; your comments are due before class on Friday.
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Required Reading:
Barak Obama's speech on race in America at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/18/politics/main3947908.shtml
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The Changing American Family: "You can have a hell of a time nowadays just trying to answer very simple questions. What, for example, is a family? What is a household? What is a class? I call these zombie categories because they are dead but somehow go on living, making us blind to the realities of our lives. Ask yourself: what actually is a family nowadays? What does it mean? Even parenthood, the core of family life, is beginning to disintegrate under conditions of divorce. Families can be constellations of very different relationships. Take, for example, the way grandmothers and grandfathers are being multiplied by divorce and remarriage (without any genetic engineering). They get included and excluded without any say in the matter. The grandchildren meanwhile have to make their own decisions about their families. Who is my main father, my main mother, my grandma and grandpa? And the answers may vary at different stages of life." Ulrich Beck, New Statesman (March 5, 1999) |
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Assignment Twelve: Multicultural America: Your essay is due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday.
Friday, April 10: No Class.
Tuesday, April 14: New World (dis)Order I - The Promises and Perils of Globalization
| “The concept of
globalization is indeed inextricably bound up with the debate over the
postmodern.” David Lyon, Postmodernity.
"Because we are the biggest beneficiaries and drivers of globalization, we are unwittingly putting enormous pressure on the rest of the world. Americans may think their self-portrait is Grant Wood's "American Gothic," the strait-laced couple, pitchfork in hand, standing stoically outside the barn. But to the rest of the world, Americans actually look like some wild, multicolored Andy Warhol print. To the rest of the world, American Gothic is actually two 20 something software engineers who come into your country wearing beads and sandals, with rings in their noses and paint on their toes. They kick down your front door, overturn everything in the house, stick a Big Mac in your mouth, fill your kids with ideas you never had or can't understand, slam a cable box onto your television, lock in the channel to MTV, plug an Internet connection into your computer and tell you, 'Download or die.'" Thomas Friedman, "Manifesto for A Fast World," New York Times, March 28, 1999. "Out of these troubled
times...a new world order...can emerge." George H.B. Bush, Address to Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis, September 11, 1990.
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For an outline of this week's lecture click on From The Cold War to New World Order.
Required Reading:
Promises to Keep, chapter 15, 16
Major Problems, chapter 14
For the conventional wisdom on globalization, see Thomas Friedman, "A Manifesto for A Fast World," New York Times (March 28, 1999) at: http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/fried99.htm.
For a smart critique of Friedman's thinking, see: Thomas Frank, "It's globalicious!," Harper's (Oct 1999) at: http://coneil.com/cal_frank_globalicious.htmOn the dialectical dynamics of globalization, see Benjamin Barber, "Jihad vs. McWorld," The Atlantic Monthly (March, 1992), 53-63, available on e-reserves.
For a very thoughtful essay that places the first Persian Gulf war in the context of the tangled history of U.S. interests in the region, see Diane B. Kunz, "Toward Our Splendid Little War," Reviews in American History, Vol. 21, No. 2. (Jun., 1993), pp. 335-339, available via "course documents."
For a set of questions to think about, click on Post Cold War America and the World.
Additional Resources:
Andrew J. Bacevich, "Policing Utopia: The military imperatives of globalization," The National Interest (Summer 1999), at: http://www.comw.org/pda/14dec/fulltext/99bacevich.html
Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down (The Philadelphia Inquirer's Online version of the ill-fated 1993 incident in Somalia) at: http://www.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/rang16.asp. For the published version, see Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down : A Story of Modern War (1999).For recommended readings, see the bibliographies in both Promises to Keep and Major Problems.
For recently published works, click on Additional Readings on Globalization.
Friday, April 17: New World (dis)Order II: Lecture/Discussion
Assignment Thirteen: From the Cold War to the New World Order: Your essay is due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; your comments are due before class on Friday.
For additional
questions to assist you in preparing your essay, see America
in a Post Cold War World.
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Tuesday,
April 21: Review Session for Final Examination
The final examination will be in two parts: a take home essay, due on Sunday, May 3; and an in class exam on Tuesday, May 5, from 8:30-11:00 a.m. Today's session (April 21) will be critically important to how well you do on these finals.
To prepare for the final examinations you should:
1. Review the lecture outlines and your notes;
2. Review the essays that you and the other members of the class have written over the course of the semester (I will add each of you to ALL of the groups, so that if you choose, you can sample the essays posted by classmates who are not in your group.)
3. Review especially the documents in Major Problems in American History since 1945.
4. Use the essays in Major Problems and in Promises to Keep as references to supplement your understanding of various issues, events and individuals.
The take home essay will ask you to write on the major themes of the course, tracing connections through time (from the immediate postwar era to the present, as well as drawing connections between the various spheres of politics, international relations, the economy, society and culture.
The in class exam will combine identification with essays: For example: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Eugene Debs, identify each and explain the role they played in the presidential election of 1912; or, to take another example: Prohibition, the National Origins Act of 1924, the Ku Klux Klan - identify each and discuss how they reflected the tensions of the 1920s.
In class on Tuesday, I want you to do the following:
- Bring you textbooks to class and sit with the other members of your group.
- Divide the chapters in Major Problems among you so that each member of the group is responsible for creating questions and answers (modeled on the two examples above) on four or five of the chapters. In addition to the 14 chapters in the print version, please include Chapter 2 (the Atomic Bomb) and Chapter 11 (Watergate) from Major Problems (2nd edition), which may be found on Blackboard under "course documents."
Following class, you should:
- Post your questions and answers on the Entire Class Discussion Board no later than Thursday, April 30. (I have created 16 "fora" for this purpose.) You will receive credit for participating in this assignment of up to 5 -10 points.
The remainder of the class will be devoted to discussing some of the themes that might be on the take home examination.
Friday, April 24:The Empire Strikes
Back: 9/11 and War in Iraq (and elsewhere)
| "This is not, then a class of civilizations or religions, and it reaches far beyond Islam and America, on which efforts are being made to focus the conflict in order to create the delusion of a visible confrontation and a solution based on force. There is, indeed, a fundamental antagonism here, but one which points past the spectre of America (which is, perhaps, the epicenter, but in nonsense the sole embodiment, of globalization) ...and the spectre of Islam (which is not the embodiment of terrorism either), to triumphant globalization battling against itself." Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism (2002) |
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Required Reading: Major Problems, chapter 14 (continued).
Then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney explains why the United States did not invade Iraq in 1991: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY
Mark Danner, "The Secret Way to War," New York Review of Books, June 9, 2005, at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18034
On the conduct of the war, see especially the New York Times review of Washington Post reporter Tom Rick's important book, Fiasco (2006), at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/books/25kaku.html. For a sample of Rick's writing, see also Tom Ricks, "In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam," Washington Post, July 23, 2006 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072201004.html
Assignment Fourteen: War in the Middle East. Your essay is due by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday; your comments are due before class on Friday.
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Tuesday, April 28: (Last Day of Classes): Lecture/Discussion: The Promise and Perils of Postmodern America
Required Reading:
George Bush's Legacy, The Economist (January 15, 2009), at: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12931660
| “The reduction
of everything to fluxes and flows, and the consequent emphasis upon the
transitoriness of all forms and positions has its limits. If everything
that is solid is always instantaneously melting into air, then it is very
hard to accomplish anything or even set one's mind to do anything. Faced
with that difficulty the temptation is strong to go back to some simple
foundational beliefs (whether these be a fetishism of the family on the
right or of something called “resistance” on the left) and dismiss the
process-based arguments out of hand. I believe such a maneuver would
be fundamentally wrong. But while I accept the general argument that
process, flux, and flow should be given a certain ontological priority
in understanding the world, I also want to insist that this is precisely
the reason why we should pay so much more careful attention to what I will
later call the “permanences” that surround us and which we also construct
to help solidify and give meaning to our lives.” David Harvey, Justice,
Nature and the Geography of Difference (1996).
"One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1955; original, 1942).  |
Compare and Contrast the "Modern," Post WWII era with the "Postmodern" Contemporary era. Table One.Think about the possible impact of 9/11. Table Two.
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The in class final examination is scheduled for: Tuesday, May 5, 2009: 8:30-11:00 a.m. Battelle Tompkins, 148. The take-home exam is due on Sunday, May 3.The final examination will be in two parts: The first part will be a take home essay, designed to test your ability to integrate and communicate what you have learned during the semester. It will be followed by an in class exam made up of identification and short essays drawn from the lectures, readings and discussions. For additional information, click on Assessment.
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