GINT 840 Jerel A. Rosati
Fall 1991 Gambrell 313
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SOCIETY AND INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT
PURPOSE
The course is designed to provide you with a strong foundation to understand the nature of contemporary American society and intellectual thought. The focus of the course is on the HISTORY AND HISTORICAL PATTERNS of American politics and intellectual thought.
REQUIREMENTS AND GRADES
The requirements of the course are class participation (50%) and a final examination (50%). Grades are based on the quality of knowledge, quality of analysis, and effective communication demonstrated--in other words, the level of understanding demonstrated. An A represents "excellent" understanding.
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY AND STRATEGY
My teaching philosophy and strategy is to engage in what I call a class dialogue in which information, knowledge, and thought will be generated through lecture/background, discussion, and, in particular, the Socratic method. The class dialogue emphasizes the importance of student participation and "active learning" as a means to improve one's interest, information, knowledge, and skills.
The class is organized around the required readings. I expect every student to come to class prepared for I will regularly call on you to discuss the required readings. Therefore, every student should be able to summarize and analyze each assigned reading by addressing the following questions:
1. What is the author's purpose?
2. What is the basic theme(s) or argument(s) of the reading?
3. What are the most important events, information, concepts, etc. discussed in the reading?
4. How powerful or weak is the argument and the evidence? Why?
In other words, I expect every student to absorb both the themes and history of each reading.
COURSE TOPICS AND READINGS
PREREQUISITE
Courses in GINT 740, GINT 741, GINT 760
Read, before the course, Godfrey Hodgson, America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon, What Happened and Why (New York: Vintage, 1976)--its key themes to be discussed the first week
1. HISTORICAL THEMES AND PATTERNS
James MacGregor Burns, The Crosswinds of Freedom, Volume 3 of The American Experiment (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)--to be read for the first week
2. HISTORICAL THEMES AND PATTERNS CONTINUED
Steve Fraser and Gary Gertsle, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (Princeton University Press, 1987)
3. AMERICAN LIBERALISM DURING THE COLD WAR
Richard H. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s & 1950s (Harper and Row, 1985)
4. REMNANTS OF THE LEFT
Maurice Isserman, If I Had a Hammer... The Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left (Basic Books, 1987)
5. THE AMERICAN CENTURY AND THE FIGHT FOR VIETNAM
David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (Random House, 1969)
6. THE WAR AT HOME BEGINS: THE MOVEMENT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Vintage, 1986)
7. THE RISE OF THE NEW LEFT
James Miller, Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (Simon & Schuster, 1987)
8. LIFE IN THE COUNTERCULTURE
Keith Melville, Communes in the Counterculture: Origins, Theories, Styles of Life (William Morrow, 1972)
9. THE RISE OF CONSERVATISM
George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, Since 1945 (Basic Books, 1976)
10. THE POLITICS OF CHANGE
Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Harvard University Press, 1981)
11. EVERYDAY LIFE AND POLITICS IN POST-CONSENSUS AMERICA
J. Anthony Lukacs, Common Ground: The Turbulent Lives in Three American Families (Vintage, 1986)
12. MODERN TIMES AND THE REAGAN RESTORATION
Gary Wills, Reagan's America (Penguin, 1985)
13. HISTORICAL AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN SOCIETY
Robert Nisbet, The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America (Harper & Row, 1988)
14. THE FUTURE OF INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT
Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe (New York: Basic Books, 1987)