requirements
This course has three requirements.
1. A term paper.
I want you to write a paper about some prominent intellectual who has had an impact on United States history. How did this person’s perspective change over time? You should read two books by this person, and a biography.
Possible subjects: Jane Addams, Issac Asimov, Edward Bellamy, Ruth Benedict, William F. Buckley, W.E.B. DuBois, John Henrick Clarke, Richard Feynman, Betty Friedan, Buckminster Fuller, Michael Harrington, Richard Hofstatder, Sidney Hook, Irving Howe, William Dean Howells, Jane Jacobs, William James, Thomas Jefferson,Herman Kahn, Walter Lippmann, Margaret Mead, H.L. Mencken, Reinhold Niebuhr, Ayn Rand, Eleanor Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, William Rusher, Margaret Sanger, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Mark Twain.
Requirements: 12 pages long. Use endnotes. Plagiarize and I’ll flunk you and hand you over to the provost.
2. Five summaries of your weekly books.
You will choose five out of the nine books assigned in this course and write summaries of them. The summaries should be two to three double spaced pages in length. The only book you have to write a summary on is Frederickson’s Inner Civil War. You choose the other four yourself.
I will grade all five of these papers on a conventional A-F basis. I will not count your Inner Civil War grade towards the final grade. My grading for that paper will indicate what I expect from you for the rest of the essays.
In these papers I want you to clearly identify the argument of the book, and how the individual chapters of the book support that argument. If you take on The Metaphysical Club, that counts for two essays.
These papers are due the day we will discuss the book in question. You cannot hand them in late without receiving a full grade penalty, and late means ten minutes after class starts.
3. Class attendance.
I expect you to attend all classes. If you think you cannot do this, I urge you to drop the course.
I also expect you to participate in class: to raise issues, ask questions, and to formulate opinions about the readings. Each week I will designate avatars for the next week’s class discussion. That is to say, you will all adopt and become the historical figures explored in the book of the week.
Grades
Your term paper will be worth 50 percent of your final grade. Your five papers will be worth 30 percent. Your class participation and attendance will be worth 20 percent. You will lose substantial credit for missing a class.