2020-2021 Academic Catalog 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
2020-2021 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HIST 316 - Special Topics in US History


Content & topics vary by semester and instructor; May be repeated one time for credit.

SPRING 2020 Topic: SEM: Television, Social Justice, and Modern American History

Since the 1950s, television has been an important medium for political discourse and a powerful venue for shared cultural experiences. News programs, talk shows, and comedy-variety shows have raised awareness of injustices through different ways of informing and entertaining their audiences. Sitcoms, science fiction, and dramas, from the 1970s search for social “relevance” to HBO’s more recent serials, have sparked conversation by presenting complicated and controversial issues to broad audiences. Children’s programs like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood have tried to enact different visions for an ideal American future. In this course, we will consider ways in which television has promoted and hindered social justice through the content and aesthetics of programs, how they have presented social groups and issues, and how they reflected and affected public discourse. We will also look behind the scenes, to see how television producers, corporate sponsors, government regulators, media critics, and social activists have tried to use television as a tool to change American society. This course will have a collaborative public history component: creating an exhibit and research guide for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. As a class, we will be among the first scholars to study some of the thousands of public television programs that WGBH and the Library of Congress have recently digitized, and we will create a publicly available resource to help researchers, educators, journalists, and activists better understand and use television for social justice.

FALL 2019 Topic: Puerto Rico and the U.S.  

People often call Puerto Rico “the oldest colony” because the U.S. occupied the islands in 1898 and have governed them for over a century. This intermediate course studies the island and its dynamics as an “unincorporated possession” of the United States. Rather than a simple U.S./Puerto Rico binary, readings track intersecting lines of power, which include the U.S. military but also insular criollos, various independistas and political activists, and international investors. Puerto Rico celebrates a rich history and cultural heritage, and it has a modern role in the economic, military, and demographic developments of the U.S. Narratives of its backwardness or marginality have obscured this vital role. Primary sources and literature as well as secondary articles will also explore experiences of the Puerto Rican diaspora and consistencies and changes over time, like the recent shift of migration from the Northeast to the South and the “braindrain” caused by the 2014-2015 fiscal crisis and 2017 Hurricane Maria.

 

 

 

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically