HI 215 History of American Thought

(17) Tues 3/23 Thoreau: Transcendentalism
Reading: Thoreau, Walden (entire)

(18) Thurs 3/25 Pragmatism
Reading: Menand, Ch 13 “Pragmatisms” and William James, Pragmatism Lecture II: read at Project Gutenberg online, pp. 16-29, or here’s a 12-page PDF of the same text

(19) Tues 3/30 Civil Disobedience, Civil Liberties
Reading: Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (if your edition of Walden does not contain it, you can read it online here); King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” MLK/Malcolm X book pp. 74-90

(20) Thurs 4/1 From the Bench – Curriculum Unit due
Reading: Whitney v. CA (1927) – About the Case, Full Text
or
Korematsu v. US (1944) – About the Case, Full Text
(Aside: here’s the discussion of lawyers considering which case I should have you read)

(21) Tues 4/6 Howl: the 1960s, Liberty and Liberation
Reading: to get a sense of the voice of protest and proclamation in the 1950s/1960s, the bold yawp of a new generation, I’d like everyone to read Alan Ginsberg, “Howl” (1956). If you prefer, you can listen to Ginsberg reading his poem aloud in a 2007 special event.

Then, I’m giving you a short list of other manifestos (and consider what IS a manifesto, anyway? – and why did this era see so many of them?) and I hope that you’ll read at least 2-3 of them if not all. Think about where and why these statements were written, published, and publicized.

Young Americans for Freedom, Sharon Statement (1960)
Students for a Democratic Society, Port Huron Statement (1962)
“No More Miss America!” (1968)
Black Woman’s Manifesto (1970)
Poet Power (1968)
Indians of All Nations, Proclamation to the Great White Father and his People (1969)
James Foreman/ SNCC, Black Manifesto (1969)