Politics in America

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Description

An interdisciplinary study and critical analysis of the ideological, social, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of politics in the United States. We will begin with a study of the idea of politics and ideology on historical and philosophical terms. We will study and critically analyze the founding documents of the United States and its history through the 19th century, paying close attention to issues that are still influencing political discourse today. The quite complex issues that America tackled in the decades before the Great Depression will then be studied and the subsequent history of American politics up and through the Cold War. We will then closely examine the political landscape through the rest of the 20th century, again, acutely considering issues and topics that continue to shape debate today: consumerism; demographics; 50s and 60s counter-cultural movements; the Civil Rights movement; the Vietnam War and Watergate, among other things. These investigations will form the critical architecture for the rest of the course, which will concentrate on specific issues that are crucial for understanding politics in America today: Liberalism and Conservatism; religion; immigration; race; the military; education; the role of money in politics; the environment; the role of government; capitalism; elections and the electorate; Congress; the Presidency; the Supreme Court; and the role of the media, among other things. Throughout the course we will also examine media products that depict various facets of politics in America.

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Lectures

1. Introduction: Politics and America

2. From Polis to Politics: Politics before America

3. America’s Documents: The Declaration of Independence & The Constitution

  • The Founding Fathers and the American Experiment

4. America’s Documents: The Amendments & the Federalist Papers

  • The Course for America and Its Discontents

5. America from 1776 to the Civil War: Nation and Expansion

  • Frontiers, Conflicts, and the Great Awakening

6. The Civil War and Reconstruction: Slavery and Its Aftermath

7. The American Renaissance (?) and the Gilded Age

8. From WWI to the Great Depression

  • Prohibition
  • The Vote
  • Capitalism & Socialism

9. WWII and the Cold War: From Victory to Nuclear Race

10. The Bright 1950s: Suburbia

  • White Flight
  • Consumerism and the American Dream

11. The Other 1950s: Rebellion

  • Civil Rights and the Birth of Counter-culture
  • Rebels with a Cause
  • Rock & Roll
  • The Beat Generation and the Search for Authenticity

12. The 1960s: Optimism and Decent

  • Vietnam, Assassinations, and the Radicalization of the Counter-culture
  • JFK, LBJ, MLK
  • Hippies
  • Women and Gays
  • The Drug and Sexual Revolutions
  • 1968

13. The 1970s: Watergate, Oil and the End of the 60s

14. The 1980s: Reagan and Neo-conservatism

  • The Moral Majority and the Yuppie Revolution

15. 1990s to 2008: Clinton and the New Left

  • 2000
  • 9/11 and Afterwards
  • Obama and the New Right
  • Libertarianism II

16. Liberalisms

17. Conservatisms

18. Immigration & Race

  • The Protestant Work Ethic
  • Blacks, Irish, Catholics, Jews and “Illegals”

19. Religion and Politics in America

  • Abortion, the “War on Women,” and “God Hates Fags”

20. The “Military Industrial Complex”: Defense and Capitalism

  • From Nukes to Drones
  • The “War on Terror”
  • Surveillance, Security, and Privacy

21. The Branches of Government: Congress, POTUS & SCOTUS

22. Education in America

  • Private Education, Public Education
  • Home Schooling
  • Testing and Common Core
  • ESL
  • Texas Schoolbooks
  • STEM

23. Money and Politics: Elections, Corporations and People

24. Politics and the Media

25. 2016: Issues and the Media

26. 2016: Issues and Realities

27. 2016: The Race for What?

28. Conclusions: 2024?

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