HIST 472
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Course Proposal
2/2/17 8:49 AM
New Course Proposal
Proposed by: Trevor Getz
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone:
APD only
HIST 472
Catalog number:
Processed by/date:
Bulletin year: &lI 20
Course ID
HIST 472
Type
Regular
CEL Only?
No
Abbreviated course title
Courts and Politics in US
Course long title
The Courts, Politics and Social Change in U.S. History, 1 880-2000
How will this course advance student time to the
degree?
Elective in a major/minor
Access Restrictions
Intended for all students
Grading system
P
Repeatable
No
Anticipated frequency of offering
Once a year, Fall
Staffing classification
Cl Large Lecture (3 units)
Cross-listing
None
Course funding
Tenured or tenure-track faculty, lecturer, other: Long-term lecturer with
entitlement
—
Plus-minus letter, CR/NC
Long description
Examination of watershed moments in American history through court cases from the late 19th and 20th centuries. The cases will
include the Haymarket Anarchists trial, the Scopes trial, the Korematsu internment case, the Loving decision of 1967 and Roe v.
Wade. Each case will open a Window on American life.
Prerequisites
History 214 and upper division standing, or consent of instructor
Concurrent enrollment
None specified
https://courseproposal .sfsu.edu/course/review?print
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HIST 472
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Course Proposal
2/2/17 8:49 AM
New Course Proposal
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Course Outline
Course outline
Week One: Introduction
Why court cases? What can we learn from studying them?
Week Two:
Lecture: Labor and Radicalism after the Civil War: The Big Tent of the Knights of Labor and the
Haymarket Episode
Week Three:
Lecture and discussion
Reading: James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided
Gilded Age America. Read all. Paper #1 due.
Week Four:
Debate: The Transcripts and Historiographical Controversy
Readings: Selected Transcripts and Timothy Messer-Kruse, excerpts from The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and
Justice in the Gilded Age; Roundtable discussion: Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists in Labor: Studies in the Working-Class History
of the Americas, Fall 2012.
Point-counterpoint paper due.
Week Five:
Lecture: 1920s culture and politics: The Scopes Trial
Week Six:
Film: Inherit the Wind or The Monkey Trial
Week Seven:
Debate and Discussion
Reading: Jeffrey P. Moran, The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents
Week Eight:
The Japanese Internment: The Story of Fred Korematsu
Film: Of Civil Rights and Wrongs
Lecture and discussion
Week Nine:
Reading: Alice Yang Murray, What did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean? Selected Readings.
Transcripts and discussion.
Week Ten:
Lecture: Political dissent during the era of WWII: The Red and Brown Scares
Week 11:
Jim Crow and the Meaning of Herrenvolk Democracy
Film: The Loving Case
Week 12:
Listen to oral arguments before the Supreme Court
Reading: Peter Wallenstein, Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia (Landmark Law Cases & American Society)
Discussion
Week 13:
Lecture: The Feminist Movement and the History and Meaning of Abortion Rights
Week 14:
Film: She is Beautiful When She’s Angry
Week 15:
https://courseproposal.sfsu.edu/course/review?print
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HIST 472
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Course Proposal
2/2/17 8:49 AM
Listen to oral arguments before the Supreme Court
Debate and discussion
Reading: N.E. H. Hull and Peter Hoffer, Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History; Roe vs Wade
transcripts.
Student learning outcomes
1. Demonstrate a basic understanding of historical ways of knowing, historical methods of research writing, and the concept of
historiography
2. Identify, read, interpret, and discuss trial transcripts and historians analyses related to various themes in US history
3. Think critically of the historian’s craft and historical argumentation.
4. Analyze the role of the court system in facilitating and/or inhibiting social and political change in modern U.S. history.
5. Understand developments in U.S. history concerning freedom of speech and its limits, the right to marry, the relationship of
science, religion, and the state, and the politics of abortion rights.
Program Learning Objectives
• Students must demonstrate the ability to analyze and interpret primary and secondary sources about historical issues
(Associated with SLO 1,2,3)
• Students must demonstrate knowledge of cultural and expressive institutions, traditions, economies, and societies across diverse
historical contexts, including the history of the US and at least two other world regions. (Associated with SLO 4,5)
• Students must be able to identify ethical issues in academic historical research and the uses of history outside the discipline,
including the implications of social justice and the well-being of local and/or global communities (Associated with SLO 3)
Evaluation procedure to be used in determining final grades
1. Five papers on the assigned readings. Two papers are book reviews on the Wallenstein and Hull and Hoffer books. Three
papers are responses to two or three analytical questions based on the three other assigned books (10 points each; Total 50%).
Book reviews are to be three to four pages long and structured in the following way: the first paragraph will consist of a brief
summary of the book’s main argument(s). The next page or two of the paper will discuss how the author makes and supports that
argument. (How is the book structured? What kind of evidence is used and how is it used? This can be, though is not limited to, a
chapter by chapter summary.) The final section of the paper will be your analysis of the book. (Does the author make a convincing
case? Does the author ask and answer the questions raised effectively? Are there issues that the author should have raised but
didn’t? Did you like the book and why or why not?) All papers must be double spaced, 11 pt., with one inch margins and a title
page. The three analytical question papers are to be two to three pages long.
2. Class participation (30%). There are two components to this requirement. First, students are expected to participate in class
discussions on a regular basis (10%). Second, students will be assigned as debate participants for two out of three total debates
(20%). Each student will be assigned a “pro” or “con” position around a particular statement. Students will work together in two
teams to establish arguments based on the assigned readings. Each official debate participant will submit a written “point
counterpoint” outline on one major argument in the assigned debate. No additional reading will be required. Example debate
statement: The Haymarket Defendants were guilty as charged. Historians have been wrong and the court correct.
3. Final Exam. (15%) This essay exam will ask the students to make an argument about the role of the courts in American history
by comparing two of the cases covered in this class. This will require students to explore how the courts operate as agents of
change and/or as enforcers of the status quo; how the courts, embedded in their particular time and place, react to and change the
social forces, movements, and ideas of an era.
List of textbookslreading assignments
1. James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age
America.
2. Jeffrey P. Moran, The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents
3. Alice Yang Murray, What did the Internment of Japanese Americans Mean? Selected Readings.
4. Peter Wallenstein, Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia (Landmark Law Cases & American Society)
5. N.E. H. Hull and Peter Hoffer, Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History, 2nd Edition (Landmark Law
Cases and American Society) 2 Rev Exp Edition.
https://courseproposal.sfsu.edu/course/review?print
Page 3 of 4
HIST 472
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Course Proposal
2/2/17 8:49 AM
Instructions and Signatures
In order to have your course proposal approved, you must submit the form to your department chair or director for his/her signature
on this page. The form must then be forwarded to your associate dean for approval. If you need to revise this form after printing, you
can login at https:/lcourseoroosal.sfsu.edu/submissions/1O871 to view, edit, and print this submission.
Consultations
Department/Program
Chair/Director
Date
Department/Program
Chair/Director
Date
Approvals
Department/Program Chair/Director
College Dean (or Designee)
University Provost (or Designee)
https://courseproposal .sfsu.edu/course/review?print
/
Date 2/fr4-”/ 7
Date
/
Date
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