A17. Five Pivotal Moments in US History (Railton) (Friday)

As pressing as our national debates might seem to be in the present, we can’t fully engage with them, or with any other American conversations, until and unless we have a fuller and richer sense of our past.  In this course, we’ll focus on five moments about which we know far too little – viewing and discussing primary, multimedia texts that relate to them, engaging with their many contexts; and adding our own perspectives into the mix throughout.  Moments include: Women’s Suffrage; the 1876 Centennial; the Chinese Exclusion Act; the Wilmington coup and massacre; the Bonus Army march; and the American Indian Movement and Native American Rights.

GROUP LEADER:  Benjamin Railton is Professor of English and American Studies at Fitchburg State University.  He is the author of four books, most recently History and Hope in American Literature:  Models of Critical Patriotism, 2016.  He also maintains the daily AmericanStudies blog, contributes public American Studies scholarship to many other sites including Huffington Post, and is a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.