American History and Society 4219-ZP005

obligatory courses

The course gives students a foundation for understanding the rationale, methods and results of the study and interpretation of America. The course discusses primary texts that are crucial for understanding of past and present American society and politics. Each class focuses on a particular theme and a selection of primary texts that have shaped American identity and are still debated by the American public

Upon completion of the course, the student will have:
KNOWLEDGE:
- understands the mechanisms of forming a multicultural American society and the values and ideologies produced by it, as well as the emergence and functioning of social and political trends in US society and culture
- understands the formation of norms and rules prevailing in the United States and their legal, economic, cultural, and social determinants
- understands the historical processes that led to the establishment of the United States and shaped its further development of statehood
- is familiar with the cultural products of America, works with primary sources understanding the contexts of their creation
- understands the principles of academic ethics, including respect for intellectual property

SKILLS:
- able to understand, analyze, discuss, and contextualize Americanist sources
- can describe social and cultural phenomena in the United States using basic theoretical tools from the fields of history and sociology
- can prepare presentations and deliver them orally, using sources and under the supervision of a lecturer
- can prepare selected types of short written assignments on specific issues related to the history and society of the USA and formulate theses based on various sources

SOCIAL COMPETENCES:
is ready to collaborate and cooperate in a group, discussing selected issues related to the history and society of the United States
is ready to use acquired knowledge to formulate understandable opinions on the history and society of the United States

1. Regular class attendance and participation in class discussions.

In-class contribution is a significant part of the grade. Active participation in class means that students have read the required readings and will engage in class discussions by making comments on the topic of the day. Students are encouraged to experiment and try to formulate answers on the syllabus topics.

Throughout a semester student may get up to 10 points for active participation in class discussions. Note that you will not get any points merely for being present. Attendance is the basic prerequisite of passing any course.

Attendance: A student enrolled in an ASC class is allowed to miss no more than two class meetings in a given semester (no medical documentation is required). In case of further absences medical documentation must be presented to the instructor and the student is obliged to arrange with the instructor how to make up for the classes missed. If absences are due to causes other than illness (e.g., travel for research purposes), the student should notify the teacher at least a week before the planned absence and make arrangements concerning the required make-up work. Instructors have the right to fail students who have missed more than two class meetings for reasons not related to health.

2. Three short (250-300 words) responses to one of three questions prepared by instructors for each class. Each student signs up for one of responses within each of three following sets of classes: classes 2 through 4, classes 5 through 9, classes 10 through 14. The schedule of students’ responses will be decided at the first class meeting. Responses should be submitted to the section’s discussion forum by 10AM on the working day preceding the class when the topic is to be discussed. You may get up to 10 points for each response (30 in total during the semester).

3. End of term test. It may consist of multiple choice questions, true/false, fill in the blank questions, and short essays. You may get up to 40 points for completing the test. Details to come in January. NOTE: The discussion questions should serve as a guide to what is important about the text(s) and to what may become the subject of a question or two on the final test.

4. A 15-minute presentation concerning a specific topic, based on assigned readings. The content of the presentation should be consulted with the lecturer. Each student prepares presentation individually or with a co-presenter. The presentation should be submitted to the instructor’s email by 10AM two days before working day preceding the class when the topic is to be discussed. The final version of the presentation is based on instructor’s recommendations. The detailed instructions of preparing presentations are included among the course materials at e-Kampus. You may get up to 20 points for the presentation.

The final grade will be calculated as follows:

Less than 60 points: 2
60-67: 3
68-74: 3+
75-82: 4
83-89: 4+
90 and more: 5

The course materials include on-line sources, scanned texts available on e-Kampus platform and the movie American Graffiti available in the ASC library.

Obligatory and suggested readings are available under each topic topic.

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

• Description of 4219-ZP005 in USOSweb