IN THE CLASSROOM:

HSS571 | Youth Power/Youth Protest: Social Protest Movements in US History

The right of self-determination and the determination of one’s destiny. The end of job, housing, and employment discrimination. The end of police harassment, arrest, violence, and murder. These demands represent just a fraction of those articulated by social protest movements in United States history. Ordinary young individuals united to instigate change beyond conventional political networks. They formed organizations, used violent and nonviolent means to express their rage, and fought for their right to exist in the United States free of oppression and repression. This course will delve into the dynamics of Black Power, Gay Power, Brown Power, Red Power, and Yellow Power movements in the United States, focusing particularly on the pivotal role youth played in these organizations. For your final project, you will offer solutions and strategies to a present-day issue using historical context and examples from the past.

IN THE CLASSROOM:

Natural Causes: How Climate Change Wrote History | HSS593

The impact of human activity on the behavior of the earth’s climate has become one of the overriding concerns of the modern world, making climate change the central environmental problem of our time. Anticipating the impact of climate change on modern civilization, however, is not an easy exercise. Past climate change can help us to understand it as a catalyst for change that humans were not aware of, and can then help us to decide the role humans have played in the current environmental situation.

Through a series of case studies, we will investigate how civilizations have been influenced by weather and climate change. Starting with a historical overview of broad changes in climate, students will investigate specific instances when weather has influenced the course of history. How, for example, did winter weather protect Russia from invasion by first Sweden, then Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany? We will then expand our scope to examine the larger and longer-term influence of climate shifts on the course of regional civilizations such as the Maya in Central America, the Tang Dynasty in China, and the Harappan/Indus Valley civilization. The third group of case studies will examine the impact of global climate shifts on the interaction between civilizations on a continental scale. Examples could include the rise and spread of the Mongol civilization from central Asia to Eastern Europe and eastern Asia. We will end the term by examining the possible consequences of climate change on the future course of modern civilization.

IN THE CLASSROOM:

Fashion in History | HSS595

“There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous,” remarks Anna Wintour in the 2009 film The September Issue.

Fashion studies is an interdisciplinary field, but one that retains a study of the past as central. It asks the question, “Does what people wear matter?” More than any other facet of material culture, an interest in fashion is often dismissed as trivial or seen as an emblem of superficiality. However, clothing represents far more than narcissism or the physiological need to cover oneself for warmth and safety. From headwear to footwear, fashion can communicate what we do, who we think we are or would like to be, where we are from, and what we care about. Fashion can be used as a lens to consider change.

Using iconic fashion items from history, this course will explore what they communicate about global cultures, historical moments, social and political status, economic clout, gender, and identity.

IN THE CLASSROOM:

Senior Research and Writing Seminar | HSS495

For one-year students. This course emphasizes the skills needed to successfully complete Andover’s upper-level history electives. It will share with other humanities classes an interest in how language and evidence are used—and misused—to make arguments. Our primary focus will be learning how to research and write persuasive essays and papers, and we will benefit from frequent visits and access to the campus’s Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. This course is organized around a series of contemporary themes: the duties and obligations of citizens in the 21st century, global poverty, human rights, and war and peace.

IN THE CLASSROOM:

House Divided: Political Polarization, Nixon to Obama | HSS573

With ever-deepening divisions along partisan, ideology, and identity lines, this history course examines political polarization from Nixon to Obama. To explore whether the country has indeed entered a Second Civil War, the course draws from multiple historical developments associated with this era of political polarization. The course first examines how electoral politics and campaign strategies since 1972 and thereafter significantly transformed American conservatism and liberalism, impacting the political fortunes of the Republican and Democratic parties. The course will evaluate how the politics of race, identity, and economic inequality contributed to Republican and Democratic Party orthodoxy and what factors, if any, disrupted tribal affiliation in the era.

Additionally, coursework will consider the grassroots nature of political polarization and how historical developments such as the rights revolution, family politics, tax revolts, the war on drugs, and suburban politics influenced the country’s bitter partisan and cultural divide in the past quarter-century. Finally, the course will assess how cable news, talk radio, and the internet both exacerbated partisan divides and stoked backlash, paranoia, and conspiratorial thinking. Student assessment includes in-class written work, out-of-class paper(s), a moderate-length research paper, and participation in class discussion.