HIST 208 — American Biography
This course serves as an introduction to reading and writing biography as an historical genre. By examining biographical techniques, this course evaluates biography as a method of narrating and interpreting the past. To do so, this course focuses on the history of political protest and social activism in the United States, investigating such topics as the radicalism of the American Revolution, utopianism, abolitioni sm, Progressivism, the labor movement, the struggle for African American freedom, feminism, the movements of the New Left, and environmentalism. Exploring the lives and times of the figures who created and sustained the nation’s tradition of radical reform while assessing a range of original historical sources will provide students the chance to understand the challenges – and rewards – of crafting historical biography. Prerequisite(s): ENGL-080 or ENGL-101 or appropriate placement Corequisite(s): none