To complete the module, students need to attend the Lecture, one Issues Seminar (Seminar 1a or 1b) and one Key Documents Seminar (Seminar 2a or 2b)
Lecture: American Horizons – North American History in a Global Context II: From the Civil War to 2001
Monday, 5 - 7 pm, HS 5
Prof. Dr. Olaf Stieglitz
The lecture explores how the unfolding of American history after the Civil War shaped American society and thus the country’s political culture, its institutions, and the different social groups living together in the United States. Topics to be covered include Reconstruction politics in the South, the rise of corporate America, the changing international role of American politics and culture, mass immigration and its impact, reform and civil rights movements, the globalization of American culture, and many more. The course thus integrates global, transatlantic, and international developments to better understand the nature of the American experience and its impact on international affairs.
To get full credit for this class, students must pass a final written exam (in-class or at home test) in form of an essay.
Seminar 1a: Sources of Wealth and Roots of Power – Historical, Societal and Global Dimensions of United States Economic & Political Culture
Thursday, 3 - 5 pm, NSG 322
Tobias Schlobach
Perhaps more than in any other country, the economy and economic issues seem to play a prominent—if not dominant—role in U.S. society and political culture, being widely perceived as—if not the—key factors of influence on the country’s history, as well as its domestic and foreign policy. Dating back to even before independence, this peculiar interrelation between economic and political issues has consistently and decisively influenced the country’s development ever since, with repercussions echoing in many of today’s important issues, like the strive for social and climate justice, globalization, international treaty-making and alliance-building, or military efforts abroad.
This seminar will explore U.S. history from an economic and political, and social perspective, contextualizing it with the global settings in which it unfolded. Using both key individual moments and essential broad developments in U.S. and global history as backdrop and context, we will examine the material and structural settings and conditions that shaped U.S. economic and political culture, including the challenges and (r)evolutions involved in this process, as well as their implications for U.S. domestic and foreign policy to this day.
Seminar 1b: Conspiracy Narratives in the United States: From the Lost Cause to Loose Change
Thursday, 11am - 1pm, GWZ 2 5.16
Danson Wolfe
In this seminar we will approach post-Civil War North American History through the lens of Conspiracy Theory. Using this lens, such topics as American Imperialism, immigration and internal migration, the Red Scare(s), the War on Terror, the Space Race, and social upheaval and reform, among others, will be addressed regarding their historicity alongside the social narratives told then and now. The course strives to provide a contextual overview combined with analytical training that will aid scholars in their understanding of the society, history, and politics of the United States, past and present.
Praxis Seminar 2a - 2b
either 2a) Tuesday, 9 – 11 am, NSG 114
Heather Pruessing
or 2b) Wednesday, 1 - 3 pm, NSG 305
Dr. Eleonora Ravizza
This tutorial will complement the module’s lecture and seminar by offering further exposure to a diverse collection of primary documents from contemporary American history, politics, and society. The goal of this course is to solidify students’ understanding of the lecture and seminar content, while simultaneously improving critical and analytical skills through discussion and written assignments.
Overall module responsibility: Prof. Dr. Gabriele Pisarz-Ramírez
Module organization & coordination: Prof. Dr. Gabriele Pisarz-Ramírez
The module is designed to facilitate the acquisition of skills that prepare students to write a BA thesis in the near future. It will assist them in taking the necessary steps for developing a research project. This includes adequate ways of identifying the subject matter of a research project; researching relevant scholarship; formulating a research question; delimiting the body of material to be analyzed, determining appropriate research methods, and thus finding the topic for a scholarly project. Students will be required to design a research project; this includes submitting a short annotated bibliography during the course of the semester and a poster presentation as well as a term paper at the end of the term.
