History | The Old South: New Directions in Race, Class & Gender
A369 | 24832 | Myers
A portion of the above section reserved for majors
Above section open to undergraduates only
This course is designed to provide students with an in-depth
understanding of life in the American south from 1790-1865. Over the
course of the semester, we will go beyond traditional examinations of
the region, which focus almost exclusively on enslaved African
Americans and plantation owning whites, to engage in a more complex
analysis. By bringing the lives of Native Americans, enslaved and
free blacks, working class and elite whites, slaveholders and non-
slaveholders, urban dwellers and rural landholders, into conversation
with each other, we will attempt to construct a more complete
portrait of life in the old south.
Utilizing a mix of source materials, we will thus examine how
southerners daily grappled with issues of race, class, and gender and
struggled to create a lived reality that reflected their own
understanding of power, liberty, equality, rights, and citizenship.
Using both primary documents (written in the past by those who lived
through the events in question) and secondary sources (written by
modern historians studying past events), we will not only learn about
the past through the words of those who lived it, but also sharpen
our ability to evaluate, analyze, and interpret the arguments of
leading historians in the field of southern history.
Lecture Attendance is mandatory and the course will require an
average of 100 pages of reading per week. Class time will involve
lectures, discussions, and films, and students will be evaluated
through their participation in class discussions, short written
assignments, in-class examinations and a 7-10 page research paper
based on a topic relevant to the overall focus of the course.