Fall 2024 | TR | 11 – 12:15 PM | Professor Phillips
Fall 2024 – Sarah Phillips
| Days | Start | End | Type | Bldg | Room |
| TR | 11:00AM | 12:15PM | IND |
We examine the American West, the mythical landscape of freedom and adventure, as a region of violence, empire, and exclusion. Exploring 300 years of Western history, we focus in particular on Indigenous conquest and the continuities of colonialism. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II.
Additional Course Materials:
Expanded course description: We examine the American West—the mythical landscape of freedom and adventure—as a region of violence, empire, and acute environmental challenges. Exploring three hundred years of Western history, we focus in particular on Indigenous conquest and the continuities of colonialism, and on the region’s distinctive regional trajectory in relation to the nation as a whole. For those interested in topics of racism, inequity, and diversity, we’ll also survey the history of Mexico and Mexican Americans; Asian Americans; borderlands; and immigration restriction.
Readings include: Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History, Louis Warren, God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America, Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go!, Natalia Molina, How Race is Made in America, Andrew Kirk, Doom Towns: The People and Landscapes of Atomic Testing, and Nick Estes, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.
Films include: The Virginian, Red River, and True Grit.
