Mar 28, 2024  
2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog This is not the most recent catalog version; be sure you are viewing the appropriate catalog year.

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HIST 115 - What is an American? [GEUS]


This course asks students to consider what it means to be an American by examining issues of diversity. It investigates United States history from contact to the present through categories of difference such as class, race, and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability.

Credit 3 hrs May not be repeated for additional credit
Grade Mode Normal (A-F) Course Rotation Fall, Winter, and Summer (irregularly)

To understand most clearly the issues surrounding diversity in the United States, one of the key goals of the General Education  program at Eastern Michigan University, historians believe that students must understand the historical development of diversity: how the categories of race, ethnicity, gender, class and sexuality, among others, have been constructed and re-constructed over time. History 115 will explore why, throughout four centuries of the development of the United States. Americans have struggled over how (or whether) to make the words of democracy into reality in a land of diversity. Accordingly, the class will examine the conflicts presented when people of so many diverse backgrounds, values and options try to accomplish their separate and collective ambitions within a framework of democracy and capitalism. We will examine why too many men and women in each era were denied equality, and we will examine the slow but steady progress toward a “more perfect union” that gives voice, extends toleration and offers equal opportunity to all of its people regardless of color, race, creed, national origin, gender and sexuality.

Through historical perspective, students will understand the difficult questions that have confronted people of every generation and the accommodations made through law, institutions and changed social habits. By understanding past tragedies, success’s, mistakes and wise choices, students will be better citizens of the present and guardians of the future. Therein is the primary goal.
Notes -
Previously listed as HIST 115 - Making American Society: Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Historical Perspective
Updates Course Rotation added 1/2015; Course title and description change 7/2014, effective Winter 2015


Summer 2024 Course Sections

Fall 2024 Course Sections




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