2010-2011 Academic Catalog

Dec 21, 2024

2010-2011 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

WS 037 - 19th-Century America Through Women’s Eyes

Type of Course: First-Year Seminar

How is our understanding of the past transformed when we look at it through women’s eyes? This seminar explores the major developments of 19th-century American history industrialization, slavery, westward expansion, immigration, and reform, as captured in women’s narrative writings, diaries, letters, autobiographies and autobiographical fiction. Its goals are three-fold: to introduce students to history as a lively scholarly discipline (as opposed to a timeless and fixed story of the past); to familiarize students with the central questions of women’s history; and to train students in the reading, analysis and critique of primary sources. What will emerge at the end of our investigation is an understanding of the ways in which the experience and production of history are shaped by gender and, in turn, how the experience and production of gender are shaped by history. Fulfills the Historical Perspective.

Cross Listed: HIST 037

Instructor: Ms. Richter

When Offered: Offered periodically

Faculty: Amy Richter, Ph.D. - Associate Professor of History