Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature straniere e Culture moderne

This laboratory class aims to expose students to the historical events and institutions of the United States of America. Students will learn to develop skills in reading, analyzing, and critically engaging with historical texts, both primary and secondary sources. Particular attention will be paid to practical knowledge: students will learn specific techniques of interpretation and be introduced to appropriate forms and qualities of academic writing.

Development of critical thinking and skills for individual study and learning. Development of critical and analytical tools to understand U.S. history and culture. Development of practical skills: students will learn how to write an academic essay.

Lecture, seminar, and discussion of the texts under examination. Demostration of the practical skills necessary to interpret sources and write academic prose.

Students wil be required to write academic essays based on the intepretation of primary sources as selected by the professor.

US History 1844-1877: Racialization and Politics in Expansion, War, and Transformation: This class has two major components. The first is a period of American history, presented as a body of factual knowledge that students must learn. The second is practical, an examination of how that knowledge is constituted. In every lesson, students, working together, will analyze historical texts, learning specific strategies of interpretion of primary and secondary sources and how to use those sources to construct a historical narrative and support an academic thesis. For example, students will analyze the differences in two versions of the Emancipation Proclamation in order to understand how the documents reveal the historical forces influencing President Lincoln in 1862.

Inserire qui il testo in inglese (massimo 4000 caratteri). Non eliminare l’indicazione “English” tra le parentesi quadre; è necessaria per la creazione dell’etichetta di visualizzazione del testo in inglese. Una volta inseriti i testi eliminare queste indicazioni in modo che non risultino visibili agli studenti.

Students will read part of a comprehensive American history textbook, amounting to just over 100 pages:

America's History for the AP Course, 8th ed., edited by James A. Henretta, Eric Hinderaker, Rebecca Edwards, & Robert O. Self (Boston/New York: Bedford/ST. Martin's, 2014).

Individual primary sources will be studied each lesson, letters, speeches, and excerpted narratives, amounting to a few pages.  For example, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address or selected passages from David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World.

All texts, including the excerpted textbook, will be provided in .pdf form.