The United States Experience
Prerequisite: Completion of HONR 101, HONR D101, HONR 102, and HONR D102. Restricted to students in the Honors Program.
This course examines the question, "Who are we in the United States of America?" Students approach this question using multiple texts and visual materials that address social, political, and cultural aspects of the U.S. experience. The course illustrates the main contours of American society and the American story and explores the ways in which our self-image as a people reflects and contradicts reality.
Outcomes: Students will understand the role of key social processes such as the frontier experience, industrialization, immigration, religious pluralism, and the struggle for equality in the development of a distinctive American story; They will learn to use available public sources to conduct research on aspects of the American experience.
Prerequisite: Completion of HONR 101, HONR D101, HONR 102, and HONR D102. Restricted to students in the Honors Program.
This course examines the question, "Who are we in the United States of America?" Students approach this question using multiple texts and visual materials that address social, political, and cultural aspects of the U.S. experience. The course illustrates the main contours of American society and the American story and explores the ways in which our self-image as a people reflects and contradicts reality.
Outcomes: Students will understand the role of key social processes such as the frontier experience, industrialization, immigration, religious pluralism, and the struggle for equality in the development of a distinctive American story; They will learn to use available public sources to conduct research on aspects of the American experience.
Prerequisite HONR 101, HONR D101, HONR 102, HONR D102. Restricted to students in the Honors Program
Tier 2 Societal Knowledge
Restricted to Students in the Honors Program.
There are countless ways to describe ¿The US Experience.¿ It is different for different people, in different parts of the US, and at different times. American theater has a rich history of trying to answer the question of what it means to be ¿An American.¿ In this course we will study several plays that explore the question. Some we will read, some we will watch on video, and some play we will attend live in various Chicago theaters. Examining other people¿s struggles with the US Experience will inform our own concept of national identity.
Spring 2023 Course Description:
Like many nations, religion played a central role in the founding and development of the United States. One thing that makes the U.S. distinct from many other industrialized nations, at least in the Global North and West, is that religion continues to play a huge role in our collective national life and in the lives of many individuals, families, and communities. This remains true even as many of the traditional indicators of religiosity ¿ such as belonging to a religious congregation or claiming a religious identity ¿ decline fairly rapidly. This course will examine both of these dynamics: it will present an overview of religion in the life and history of the U.S., and it will examine how at the present moment religion can be both `declining¿ and `flourishing.¿ We will explore these issues through a focus on several contemporary areas of contestation in American life ¿ politics, the environment, immigration, gender/race.
Class Details
Class Availability