Office: 406D Morrill Office Hours: W2-3 and by appt. Call 355-9300 (310 Auditorium)

This course is a graduate research seminar in modern United States political history. The focus will be on collective action and mass politics. Our readings will encompass a wide range of approaches and span the course of the twentieth century. We will look at how, when, and why Americans have acted together politically and in what ways this has changed over the last hundred years. Seminar discussions will center on how historians have explained political behavior.

September 4: Charles Tilly, Readings from From Mobilization to Revolution (photocopies). Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment.

October 16: Christopher Tomlins, The State and the Unions. (Additional Readings TBA)

DETAILED PAPER OUTLINE IS DUE

October 23: George Lipsitz, Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition; William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights.

October 30: Todd Gitlin, The Sixties.

November 6: No meeting (Research Week)

November 13: Faye D. Ginsburg, Contested Lives and Kristen Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood.

November 20: TBA

November 27: No Meeting (Research Week)

December 4: Paper Presentations.

Paper due December 16.

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HISTORY 812 COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

This class is a readings, discussion, and research seminar. Both attendance and participation at seminar meetings are essential, as is participation on HST812, the electronic discussion list for this course. Discussions will center around the readings. Class participation will count for 25 percent of the course grade.

The major written requirement for this class is an independent research paper which will count for 75 percent of the course grade. Paper proposals are due on September 12. Proposals must be approved and may have to be modified to ensure that each student is undertaking a meaningful project that can be completed within one semester. A bibliographic report following a proscribed form is due on September 26 and a detailed paper outline is due on October 10. Each student will present their project orally to the seminar during the final weeks of the semester. The final paper is due on December 15.

HST812 DISCUSSION LIST:

This course has an electronic discussion list to facilitate further discussion. All members of the class are expected to participate in this electronic discussion list. Before we meet each week, everyone will be expected to post a response to the week’s readings on HST812. I also expect students to utilize the list to extend our discussions beyond the classroom after we conclude our in-class discussion.

The list is unmoderated so that messages submitted by class participants are immediately distributed to other class members.

This discussion list is linked to a website to facilitate retrieval of messages(http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst812). The HST812 logs which are stored on this site will allow class participants to look back over past conversations on the discussion list and comment upon them. The Web site includes a variety of additional information relevant to HST812 course materials including the course syllabus.

To subscribe to HST812, send an e-mail message to listserv@h-net.msu.edu

with no subject and only this text:

sub HST812 firstname lastname

Your request should look something like this:

sub HST812 John Smith

You will receive a confirmation that your request has been received.

To unsubscribe, send this message to LISTSERV@h-net.msu.edu

unsub HST812

If you have any questions or experience any difficulties in attempting to subscribe or unsubscribe, please send a message to me at Mark@mail.matrix.msu.edu