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KEY TOPICS FOR PATHS SEMINARS |
Over
its three-year course, the PATHS project will work with teachers
in local school districts exploring six key topics in American history.
The PATHS board believes that the topics selected:
a. fit the standards and objectives
of Utah’s U.S. history core curriculum for K-12,
b. cover many of the central
issues in American history, and
c. reflect the teaching and
research strengths of the USU History Department:
The six topics:
• LIBERTY • EQUALITY • IDENTITIES • ENTERPRISE • POWER • LAND
Liberty
This category examines the central political values of American life, taking into account the critical events, documents, structures, and struggles related to those principles:
• The American Revolution
The imperial relation with Britain; new circumstances after 1763; colonial protests; efforts at reform and reconciliation; radicalization of popular protest; ideological commitments of “Patriots”; the logic of the British position; reorganization of governance; military struggle; the debate over the “revolutionary” character of the struggle.• Constitution
Earlier experiments in national governance; the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, its background, its debates, its compromises; the ratification process—and calls for further reform; the institutions of national government; the roots of the Bill of Rights; early debates over the interpretation of the Constitution; current debates over “originalism.”• The multiple meanings of “liberty”
The changing national and cultural constructions of “liberty” over time.• Nature of the “nation”
The problematic character of the American “nation” (the “United States of America” as a singular or plural entity; early debates over the meaning of the nation and union—and the relation of these debates to liberty.• Slavery
Human enslavement and republican liberty; efforts at justifying and extending slavery; the origins of anti-slavery efforts.• Reform movements
The periodic, organized efforts to reinvigorate Revolutionary ideologyand extend liberty to groups excluded from its protections and benefits.
Equality
Within this category, PATHS will examine the quality of diversity that has always characterized American society . . . and the quest by different groups to realize more fully their rights and potential. Discussions will focus on the following topics:
• Race
Focusing on Native Americans, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics; the conflicts of these groups with the racialized sentiments of mainstream, white Americans; the conditions these groups encountered; the responses they developed; the legal, Constitutional, social, and cultural changes that developed over time.• Gender
The varying statuses of women from colonial to contemporary times; special attention to shifting legal conditions and ideological assumptions; contests among groups of women; multiple approaches to change (particularly in education, social reform, religion).• Ethnicity
Exploration of different white communities from Europe and Western Asia, the communities they formed within America, and the conflicts which have arisen among them.• Class
The struggles of workers, the poor, and the underclass in American life from colonial times to the present; questions of equality that often center on conflicts between capital and labor; the organization of these groups.
Identities
This category examines the ways in which Americans have imagined and expressed their senses of being, their notions of belonging, and their understandings of community:
• Cultures
Examination of the multiple and varied voices of America, pointing to distinctions among cultural groups as well as common, shared themes• Verbal, visual, and oral culture expression
Examining literary, artistic, musical, architectural, and folk expression; attention, too, to the character and content of cultural expression in the inter-mountain West from the diverse peoples who have inhabited this space.• Region
The ways in which geographic location has generated distinct identities within American life; folkways and traditions of particular areas of the U.S. (especially the West).• Religion
Attention to the roots, faiths, and practices of varying creeds within American life—viewed from a critical, historical perspective (not an attempt to evaluate and judge doctrinal claims); the struggles among different religions and denominations; new religious movements that emerged in America; Constitutional questions concerning the relation of church and state.• Childhood
The experience of being a child in America and the different meanings this has taken on for varying groups; the rhythm, pace, and expectations of a child’s experience; the history of education (topics that might all resonate particularly with teachers and students).
Enterprise
This category examines the economic experience of Americans in terms of markets, commerce, development, performance, and public policy:
• Capital
Money, its formation, its distribution, and its central institutions; discussions of national debt, balance of trade, foreign investments.• Labor
The history of working peoples; their contributions to national wealth; the nature of their labors; efforts to organize; conflicts among workers; the shifting nature of labor in modern America; attention to the laboring groups of the intermountain West.• Technology
Key innovations in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation, and electronics that have shifted the course of economic activity; attention to the agricultural, mining, and industrial activities of the inter-mountain West.• Agriculture
Examination of the various agricultural regions of America; key crops; agricultural techniques; the rhythm and pace of agricultural life; the social life of farming communities; problems in agricultural production; collective, state, and federal efforts to address the problems of American farmers; the development of corporate agriculture; the “family farm” in American life and lore; the character of farming in the Great Basin area; the
contentious issue of water in the development of the American West.• Economic expansion and collapse
The patterns of boom and bust in the American economy; the roots of economic expansion; the breadth of economic deprivation.• Laissez-faire principles
Ideological commitments to the operation of a “free market” with a minimum of intervention from public agencies; key exponents of such principles; the actual relationship of government agencies to the economy; the costs of non-intervention.• Welfare state capitalism
Reform efforts directed at economic instability and injustice; critiques of capitalism; the development of welfare state capitalism in the early 20th century; the rise of “entitlements” in contemporary America.
Power
This category examines the application of American force, intervention, and influence on perceived crises both abroad and at home:
• Foreign policy and diplomacy
The shifting and convoluted course of America’s engagement with the rest of the world; development from a minor player in world affairs to a major power (from local to hemispheric to international commitments); internal debates over foreign policy (during the Revolutionary period, the early 19th century, during the Civil War, and especially from the Spanish-American War to the present); debates over “isolationism”; economic intervention abroad; the “global” economy and international engagement.• The military
Its development over time; early suspicions of a standing army; reliance on militia; the shift to a permanent military force; the emergence of a military-industrial complex.• War at home
Military struggles within the United States; colonial rebellions; slave uprisings, the Revolution, frontier conflict, the Civil War, labor unrest, race riots, militant protest.• War in the world
From imperial wars of the colonial period to the war on terrorism today,an examination of the themes that have marked America’s military encounters overseas.• International conflict, domestic policy, and domestic change
Analyzing the effects of war on the “home front”; the ways in which military struggles have shaped the economy, politics, society, and culture of America for centuries; businesses and livelihoods connected to the military in the nation as a whole (and the West in particular)
Land
This category examines issues tied to the history of the West and the roles this region has played in the history of the nation:
• Environment
Key themes in the relatively new discipline of environmental history; interpretive works; approaches to the study of the environment; case studies of the American West.• Frontiers
Focus on the “new Western history” with its examination of the American West as a point where different “frontiers” met; an attempt to redirect the narrative of the West from a simple tale of American expansion westward to a history in which varied peoples inhabited (and sought) a place on Western lands.• Borderlands
Attention to the specific areas where different societies collided and coexisted with one another; struggles for dominance; struggles for equality and justice.• Water
Examining the importance of this valuable resource to a wide variety of groups; how different societies have dealt with the problems of aridity; how different societies have owned, distributed, and used water; the conflicts and accords resulting from these decisions.
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