His 350L (39665), Spring 2010
M 2-5, MEZ 1.104
Prof. Neil Kamil, GAR 2.146, Office Hours tba
“Pluralism” in Early America
Pluralism (1933): The existence or toleration of diversity of ethnic or cultural groups within a society or state…
Diversity (ca. 1340): The condition or quality of being diverse, different, or varied; difference, unlikeness.
Boundary (1626): That which serves to indicate the bounds or limits of anything whether material or immaterial; also the limit itself.
Interaction (1832): Reciprocal action; action or influence of persons or things on each other.
--Oxford English Dictionary
How to write a history of cultural pluralism? Did it exist in colonial America? Has pluralism ever really existed in practice as defined by the OED? What are some other words—perhaps ones that come from the colonial period itself—that might better account for variations, interactions and historical conditions on the ground? Through what methods and perspectives have a number of creative historians concerned with such questions addressed them in their regional studies of everyday life in early America? The goal of this reading and research seminar is to trace the social, cultural, racial, tribal, economic, and religious origins of what we now call “multiculturalism,” in myth and reality, as it was (or was not) lived and experienced in early America. In so doing, we will read widely and try to encompass the new histories of race and slavery and Indian and European encounters in our inquiries.
This seminar meets the substantial writing component. Every student is expected to engage the assigned weekly readings closely and attentively and to produce a 2-page (maximum) weekly critique as well as a 5-page research prospectus at the end of the semester. The weekly critiques are intended to help students formulate questions and consider problems they discover in the readings. Each week, three students will be chosen to read aloud their papers at the beginning of class to stimulate discussion. Final project: students will prepare a 5-7 pp. research prospectus on an aspect of the course of the student’s choosing.
I do not grade according to strict percentages, but approximately 65% of your grade will be determined by the quality of your weekly papers and final project and 35% by active participation in class discussion.
Week two: Basic Problems and Methods
Handouts: available for sign out (outside GAR 2.146):
Thomas J. Archdeacon, “The Formative Period, 1607-1790,” in Becoming American: An Ethnic History, 1-26
James Axtell, “Ethnohistory: An Historian’s Viewpoint”; “The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America,” in The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, chapts 1 and 3; and “Colonial America without the Indians,” in After Columbus: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America, chapt 11.
Week three: The Indian Perspective Facing East
Daniel K. Richter, Facing East From Indian Country
Week four: Middle Colonies (a classical perspective)
J. Hector St John de Cr’evecoeur, Letters From an American Farmer (electronic resource UTCAT)
Week five: Middle Colonies (NY)
Daniel Horsmanden, The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741
Week six: Middle Colonies (NY and slavery)
Shane White, Somewhat More Independent
Week seven: Middle Colonies (PA)
James Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier
Week eight: Upper South (VA)
April Lee Hatfield, Atlantic Virginia
Week nine: Lower South
Readings on French in SC and LA, tba
Week 10: West Indies (Jamaica)
Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire
Week eleven: The Southwest
Ramon Guttierez, When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (electronic resource UTCAT)
Week twelve: The Southwest (Film, 1996)
John Sayles, “Lone Star”
Week thirteen: Student presentations of final research prospectus