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USU
FACULTY SEMINAR PRESENTATIONS
2006 PROGRAM, JUNE 5-9
held at the American
West Heritage Center
Faculty members from Utah State University’s Department of History will offer discussions of ten historical topics tied to their areas of research. The talks will cover a wide range of subjects and approaches. Some discussions will introduce new areas of historical study; most will review recent scholarship on a range of issues; many will provide background material and context for a number of subjects; others will offer fresh examinations of familiar historical topics.
All of the seminars are scholarly in nature. Professors will design the presentations as they would for senior undergraduate courses or introductory graduate classes. The seminars address key elements of historical thinking and critically explore questions of evidence, methods, analysis, and interpretation.
The seminars are also meant to be useful for teachers in our school districts. Professors recognize the curriculum demands that teachers face. Their presentations will also offer recommendations to teachers about key books and articles in the field, reliable websites, informative films and videos, and possible lesson plans.
Professors recognize, however, they do not have specialized training in pedagogy. The teachers from our school districts are the experts in that field. Ultimately, they will best determine how to draw on information from seminars for classroom use.
The seminars will touch on the six informing themes of the Bridgerland PATHS project: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, IDENTITIES, ENTERPRISE, POWER, and LAND. (For more information, click on the link below for “Key themes explored in Bridgerland PATHS.”)
Here is the schedule of seminars for the PATHS program. If you have any questions about the presentations, you may e-mail the professors at the addresses noted below. If you would like to learn more about the professors themselves (what they study, where they received their academic training, what they’ve written, and the courses they teach), click on the internet links provided.
MONDAY, June 5, 9 am
Mexican Americans and the U.S-Mexico Borderlands in American History
Lawrence
Culver
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: lawrence.culver@usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/culver/indexculver.htm
This presentation will contribute to the key topics of Equality, Identities, and Land. It will provide a broad overview of the history of Mexican Americans and the Southwest Borderlands, beginning with the hybrid Native American and Spanish origins of post-conquest Mexican culture, and concluding with contemporary immigration issues. It will encourage participants to consider the place of Mexican Americans within American history, from their central roles in U.S. labor and immigration history, to their struggles for Civil Rights. The presentation will also use the histories of New Spain and Mexico to think about history comparatively, such as contrasting Spanish and British colonial experiences. Finally, this presentation will utilize the history of Mexican Americans to reconsider race in American history. Rather than simply a narrative of black and white, the annexation of the Southwest created a multicultural and multiracial society, with Mexican Americans and Asian Americans – as well as Native Americans – complicating the binary view of race held by most white Americans in the eastern U.S. prior to 1848.
MONDAY, June 5, 2 pm
The Stories behind the Stories of the Civil Rights Movement
Jennifer
Ritterhouse
Associate Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: ritterhouse@hass.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/ritterhouse/indexritterhouse.htm
How did Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus turn into a thirteen-month boycott and result in a federal court decision prohibiting segregation? Had blacks ever used boycotts to fight segregation before? Who was A. Philip Randolph and why was he recognized as an elder statesman of the civil rights movement at the March on Washington in 1963?
This presentation provides depth and historical context for two of the iconic moments of the civil rights movement: the Montgomery bus boycott and the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech. At issue is the question of how change really happens—and thus how we can teach the history of the civil rights movement in ways that both honor individual heroes like Parks and King and acknowledge the movement’s broader lessons in politics and social change.
The presentation will address PATHS themes tied to Liberty, Equality, and Identities.
TUESDAY, June 6, 9 am
Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Governments
Frances B. Titchener
Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: frant@hass.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/titchener/indextitchener.htm
This seminar will examine the ways government worked in ancient Greece
and Rome, tying into PATHS themes connected with Liberty, Equality,
Identities, and Power. Social Studies Level 6: Ancient World Civilizations
and European Influence, is particularly concerned with ancient Greece
and Rome, aiming to "identify the roots of democratic and republican
forms of government" (Objective 6060-0403). But the example of
the ancient world has value for all teachers of American History,
providing a sort of complete story, one which underlies so much of
western civilization in general:
-United States History I aims to examine the basic structure of the
Constitution, including the roles and functions of the branches of
government, and its checks and balances (6120-0603), as well as to
analyze the rights, liberties, and responsibilities of citizens (6120-0604).
-American Government and Law compares "different political systems,
their ideologies, institutions, processes, and political cultures"
(6300-0403)
-United States Government and Citizenship "investigate[s] the
responsibilities and obligations of a citizen" (6210-0401) and
"ways in which responsible citizens take part in civic life"
(6210-0402).
This presentation will look at these systems, institutions, and responsibilities,
comparing the nature of advisory bodies, presiding magistrates, and
peoples' assemblies at different times in the history of ancient Greece
and Rome. Special attention will be given to the role of citizens
in decision-making.
TUESDAY, June 6, 2 pm
The British Constitutional and Religious Roots of American Civil Society
Norman
L. Jones
Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: norm.jones@usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/jones/indexjones.htm
link: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/
The
presentation will focus on two related topics:
-religious divisions in England that were exported to America, and
-the British Civil War and its constitutional effect in America.
The talk will address PATHS themes of Liberty, Equality, and Identities.
WEDNESDAY, June 7, 9 am
The Money Revolution and the American Middle Class
Timothy
Wolters
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: twolters@hass.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/wolters/indexwolters.htm
This presentation contributes primarily to the PATHS topic Enterprise, although it also helps illuminate the topics Equality and Identities. Specifically, the presentation will explore why, at least since the early 1970s, approximately 90% of Americans have defined themselves as middle class, even though this is an economic (not to mention statistical) impossibility. It will argue that the self-identified American middle class has been both driver and passenger of a money revolution that began in the 1950s and continues to this day. In short, the history of the money revolution is a history of financial innovation (credit cards, discount brokerages, money markets, defined-contribution retirement plans, etc.), a history of the larger forces (fiscal and monetary policy, inflation, financial deregulation, etc.) that made such innovations not only possible but probable, and a history of the evolving attitudes that led a majority of Americans to embrace these innovations.
WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2 pm
Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf
Denise
Conover
Senior Lecturer
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: conoverd@hass.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/conover/indexconover.htm
The
presentation, focused on PATHS themes of Liberty and Power, will:
1. examine primary source material regarding each president (Truman,
Johnson, Bush) in their decisions to conduct military operations;
2. examine the historiography of these presidential decisions;
3. ascertain the constitutional issues surrounding these presidential
decisions for military conflict without a congressional declaration
of war;
4. determine American public acceptance of presidential decisions.
THURSDAY, June 8, 9 am
Whose West?: Perspectives and History
Colleen
O'Neill
Associate Professor/Associate Editor
Department of History/Western Historical Quarterly
Utah State University
e-mail: colleen.oneill@usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/oneill/indexoneill.htm
This session will encourage participants to think about how geographical perspectives shape the stories we tell about the West. It was the "West" for pioneers who traveled here from the East. But, the same place was the "North" for Mexican migrants. And, for Chinese Migrants, it was the East. Native peoples who inhabited this region assigned other geographical meaning to the landscape. Students will critically examine a variety of historical maps for the specific cultural narrative they embody, and try to ascertain what they say about the social, political and cultural dynamics of the time period. The seminar addresses PATHS themes of Equality, Identities, and Land.
THURSDAY, June 8, 2 pm
Teaching Environmental History
Christopher
A. Conte
Associate Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: cconte@cc.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/conte/indexconte.htm
The environmental history seminar will introduce teachers to this newly emerging historical field, which surveys the dynamic interactions of humanity and nature. Conte’s presentation will argue for a place for environmental history in the primary and secondary school curriculum in order to exposes students to historical actors, including the biophysical world, usually beyond the reach of most standard textbooks. The talk will cover the field’s central tenants and introduce several key sources that can be adapted to the classroom. The seminar focuses primarily on the PATHS theme of Land.
FRIDAY, June 9, 9 am
The Shifting U.S.-Mexican Border
James
Sanders
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: jsanders@hass.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/sanders/indexsanders.htm
Handouts
Historians have begun to recognize that it is increasingly impossible to teach the history of the United States as a story isolated from the rest of the world. While, of course, many U.S. history textbooks begin with the Aztec, the Maya, the Inca and Columbus, very soon after the Spanish Conquest, the lands and peoples that would make up Latin America disappear from the narrative. Yet, Latin America’s, and especially Mexico’s, history is integral to understanding many aspects of the U.S. experience.
We
will focus on three moments that have defined the U.S. Mexican Border.
First, we will explore the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, and
how slowly a border emerged between Spanish and English zones of settlement.
Second, we will examine what Mexicans sometimes call the War of the
U.S. Invasion and the U.S. refers to as the Mexican War. Each side’s
moniker for the conflict alone reveals the deep differences in historical
views about the war. The U.S.-Mexican War was much more important
than simply a pre-cursor to the Civil War, involving U.S. westward
expansion, slavery, the meaning of republicanism, and the incorporation
of the first Mexican-Americans. Of course, it radically reshaped the
border as well. Finally, we will investigate the history of the border
and immigration, not so much from the U.S. point of view, but from
Mexico’s, to help us understand the motivations and histories
of many of Utah’s newest students. Of course, as more and more
Mexican-Americans make Utah their home, “their” history
will become “our” history.
FRIDAY, June 9, 2 pm
Understanding Islam in the Classroom
Peter
Mentzel
Associate Professor
Department of History
Utah State University
e-mail: pmentzel@hass.usu.edu
website: http://www.usu.edu/history/faculty/mentzel/indexmentzel.htm
The presentation will acquaint teachers with the basic doctrines and
interpretations of Islam. With this general background, teachers may
be able to discuss more effectively classroom topics that touch on
Islam and its adherents.
The study of religion in the public classroom is always filled with
difficulty. But, as with the discussion of any other creed, the approach
will be "non-essentialist." In other words, the presentation
does not propose the "True" or ultimate definition of the
religion. Instead, the focus rests on the ways in which adherents
have constructed their belief systems -- and the multiple uses to
which those beliefs have been put.
The first part of the presentation will focus on a history of the
religion and its major features. The second part will examine how
Islam has been interpreted by Muslims over the past century. The goal
is to convey an idea about the history of "fundamentalism"
and at the same time recognize that "Islam," like other
major religious traditions, remains open to a wide range of interpretations.
Prof. Mentzel’s discussion will focus on the PATHS theme of
Identities.
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