HI 215 History of American Thought

For our discussion of Guelzo, “Is There An American Mind?” National Review May 25, 2009

Prezi/ Course Intro

This website serves as the hub for Tona Hangen’s course, “History of American Thought,” for the Spring 2014 semester at Worcester State University (TR 10 – 11:15 am) – Room Sullivan 108

Reading for Tues, Jan 21: Guelzo, “Is There An American Mind?” (PDF)

The textbooks for this course are listed under the “Readings” tab above.

From this website, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended intellectual history and writing resources on the web.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and therefore you should either bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Feedly) to stay up to date with all the course news and updates. To subscribe, just click on the orange RSS symbol in the sidebar. I leave up the previous semesters’ information as an archive for my past students. You can safely ignore any post tagged “Spr2010.”

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on Tuesday, January 21st, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu

(Last post of Spring 2010 semester)

By mutual agreement, here is how the last unit will go.

(27) Tues 4/27 – Discussion day on Gender

(28) Thurs 4/29 – Discussion day on the American Dream

(29) Tues 5/4 – Papers due
Food, festivity, and final thoughts on “the American idea”

As you wind down your learning journal ePortfolios, consider what you’ve learned in this class and also *how* you’ve learned in this class. I’d also be curious to know what you wanted to learn but didn’t – what didn’t we cover, or get to, that you hope to explore further? What ideas, themes, or readings have been essential to your learning, or most meaningful for you personally?

(22) Thurs 4/8 Settlement and the Urban Intellectual – Big Idea chosen by today
Reading: Menand Ch 12 (285-333) and Ch 14 (377-408)
In-class link: “The Dream of America”
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(17) Tues 3/23 Thoreau: Transcendentalism
Reading: Thoreau, Walden (entire)
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(13) Tues 3/2 Female Emancipation
Reading: JSM book, “On the Equality of the Sexes” + “Gleaner Contemplates the Future Prospects…” (pp. 176-189)
In-class link: our Twitter discussion with Bonnie Hurd Smith
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(8) Thurs 2/11 Abolition – Speech chosen by today
Reading (all online): David Walker’s Appeal (1829) – read at least the excerpt posted here (here’s the full text, if you’re curious for more), Frederick Douglass – read excerpts from three speeches, and Angelina Grimke, “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” (1836) – it’s a bit long, so read more for general principles and her recommendations for action
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The new issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas, the flagship academic journal for intellectual history, is hot off the presses this month. I thought you might be interested to see the table of contents. You can read all issues since 2005 as a full-text e-Journal, using WSC’s Academic Search Premier database through the library catalog, if you want to read more.
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(1) Tues 1/19 Course Intro Day – I’ll hand out the syllabus, or you can download the PDF here. We’ll talk about some of the thinkers that we will meet in the course, and learn how to use the course tools.
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Here are the books for the Spring 2010 semester.
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