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HIS 573.02 Prof. Susannah U. Bruce |
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ATTN: This is the brief
version of my HIS573 syllabus for Spring 2008.
Your full syllabus will be available under "Course
Documents" in Blackboard
when the semester begins,
You can access that when you have enrolled in the course.
Meanwhile, please start
ordering your books and contact me with any questions.
Welcome to HIS573! This three credit-hour course is designed to provide graduate students with an in-depth study of the era of the American Civil War. Due to my areas of interest and expertise, the main themes in this course will involve military and political history with additional studies in the social and cultural history of the Civil War era.
To get the most out of this course, please read through my "Questions to Consider for HIS573" document. This includes additional online readings as well as focused and broad study questions for the entire Civil War era. We will use these to guide your study of this complex age and to help you understand what you should know when you complete this course. Also, as you work through this guide, you may get ideas for your research paper. I do not grade your work on this--it is simply meant to help you and to inspire seminar discussion.
Required Texts: (Listed in the order they are
assigned)
NOTE:
See online book ordering tips at the bottom of this list.
Nelson, Scott and Carol Sheriff. A
People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil War, 1854-1877.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Sears, Stephen W. Landscape Turned Red: The
Taylor, Amy Murrell. The Divided Family
in Civil War America. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005.
Woodworth, Steven E. Davis & Lee at War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
1995.
Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Bruce, Susannah U. The Harp and the Eagle:
Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865. New York:
NYU Press, 2006.
Bleser, Carol K. and Lesley J. Gordon. Intimate
Strategies of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Reardon, Carol. Pickett's Charge in History and Memory Chapel Hill:
Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. University of Chicago Press, 1996. 6th Revised edition--MUST BE THIS EDITION NOTE: This book should sit beside your computer. It's the short version to the Chicago Manual of Style and essential for any historian.
NOTE: You can find all of these texts at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and in used bookstores that you can search at sites such as abebooks.com and bibliofind.com. Remember when ordering used books that you may want to find a copy that is "fine" or better, which is usually quite easy to do, available at a reasonable price, and nicer than a moldy, highlighted, or otherwise flawed text.
Course Description: While this is an online course and we will never physically meet together for class, you will have ample opportunity for scholarly discussion and debate via the Discussion Board in Blackboard. Students will write a review of five of the assigned books (2-3 pages or 750 word limit each; also, do not review the main text, A People at War or the writing guide by Kate Turabian). You will also read online and print readings and research and create an annotated bibliography and historiographical abstract on a topic that I approve.
The first 3/4 of the course will focus on the assigned readings and reviews, while the final fourth will be reserved for researching and writing your annotated bibliography paper and discussing this with me. Your grade will be based on these assignments. Your discussions in Blackboard are not graded--this is simply an opportunity, an invaluable one, for you to discuss ideas relating to the course with your classmates.
Finally, the list of "Broad Questions to Consider" that I give you is a large one that includes recommended online primary source readings, as well as some secondary sources, and basic questions to guide your reading of the main text, A People at War. You will not be reviewing this book, but I want you to read it carefully since McPherson covers the essential periods and issues for this class. The questions I have created, listed under "Course Documents" in Blackboard and via the link above, are both specific and general, helping you to understand what you should be learning from the book and offering you a sense of the larger theories to consider -- indeed these queries are much like those we will discuss if I am on your graduate committee during your written and oral examinations. You do NOT submit answers to each of these questions for a grade; they simply guide your reading and enhance your learning process in this course.
Course Objective: In this course we will study the leaders and events that led America down the road to Civil War. We analyze the politicians, commanders, and common Americans who experienced this crisis, their successes and failures, and how these individuals influenced the outcome of the war. The required texts will shape our discussion. The annotated bibliography will enhance your ability to conduct historical research via databases, online primary source material, and published works acquired through our library or interlibrary loan (basic program in our Newton Gresham Library that allows you to request books on loan from other libraries) draw thoughtful conclusions, grounded in evidence, from your readings. Please review this "Basic Research Tips" document that I have created. It includes links to some of the best online primary source materials available (and don't forget to do your own Google searches). I do NOT want you to use random websites for information because the web has few peer-reviewed sites that measure the quality of information available. With that said, however, there are some outstanding repositories of primary source materials from which you glean outstanding information.
I hope that in the process of researching and writing an annotated bibliography on a topic that I have approved (I encourage you to discuss this with me early in the course), you will learn how to conduct research, how to briefly (2-3 sentences per source) summarize its worth, and also learn more about historiography (or the works related to a particular topic that shape our understanding of that topic. For more on historiography, you MUST read "Historiography: What the Heck is It?"
It is my hope that you will not only learn a great deal from this class, but find it an enjoyable experience through this opportunity to develop your personal interests in Civil War history. Make no mistake, however, you will have to work hard and there is no whining. Always remember--you not only volunteered for this class; you're paying for it. So make it worthwhile.
Getting Started -- First Steps for this Class:
1. Contact me via e-mail IMMEDIATELY after you have registered for the course. We will stay in touch primarily through e-mail and Blackboard, and to avoid confusion please USE YOUR SHSU EMAIL ADDRESS throughout the duration of this course. If you do not have one yet, you may contact via email by your current address, but be sure to request a SHSU email account (free to you as a student) as soon as possible (see step 3).
2. Start purchasing your books ASAP. This is your responsibility, no excuses, and they are listed above in the order they are assigned.
3. Sign up for an SHSU email account--I do not accept messages from accounts other than SHSU. I know it's not convenient, but we have to do this due to problems with viruses/worms. Your SHSU email account is the one you will use for the class, to access Blackboard, and it is essential for you to have this to use the databases at SHSU's Newton Gresham Library. These will allow you to read numerous articles online, some of which I may require for the class, but many of which will be useful for other courses in our graduate program. I suggest you peruse the library's Databases and Index's for History page. In particular, I recommend the databases JSTOR (thousands of online articles, book reviews, etc. from leading academic journals) and America: History and Life (great research tool for articles, books, book reviews, etc.). NOTE: These databases are essential for writing your research paper. Also, check out the Civil War-era Newspapers Database as well as Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876. To activate your computer account, click here and follow the instructions (your pin is your birth day, month and year with no spaces or slashes, i.e. if you were born on January 1, 1970 it would be 010170). As long as you are registered for this class, you can acquire this account. Then, when you try to enter these databases available to you as a member of the SHSU community, you just type in your user name and password and you're in.
4. I realize that you have outside commitments, other classes, work, family, etc., but in order to successfully complete this course you will have to assign a high priority to it. This course is demanding and requires you to exert a considerable degree of self-discipline and self-motivation. The pay-off for this hard work, I hope, comes in a rewarding learning experience that should spark new interests in various aspects of American history.
Go to BlackBoard for complete syllabus when the semester begins