Citizen Nation

Thanks to everyone who brought rough drafts and gave their time as peer reviewers – I think that helped all who participated in the paper conferences on Nov 7th.

Here’s what’s coming up –

Mon 11/12 – no class (Veteran’s Day)

Wed 11/14 – Rights Revolution. Reading: GC 240-264 + RP 205-217
Consider – what were the specific goals and strategies of the different sides in the civil rights movement? What was accomplished in the 1950s and 1960s? What was not accomplished? WHO accomplished it, and how? I.e. who should (and who usually does) get the credit for the civil rights movement’s achievements? How does this movement connect to broader policy and history trends regarding citizenship, including immigration and naturalization which we have just finished discussing?

David Chappell puts it this way in his book Stone of Hope (which I’m reading with a different class this month): “The movement created disorder so severe as to force a reluctant federal government to intervene–on the side of black southerners, which was more surprising then than it seems in hindsight today. The movement did all this with remarkably few casualties. The peculiar racial institution of the twentieth century South was destroyed by means considerably short of a civil war. That makes its destruction in many ways a more rather than less impressive achievement than the destruction of slavery.”

Monday 11/19 – We Shall Overcome (film clips, mostly). No reading, Research Paper is due as a printed stapled paper in class.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving break!

Monday’s class has light reading but will be a hands-on workshop with some sources and materials for understanding the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. That internment included both born-citizens and immigrants who were (as we have discussed) legally unnaturalizable. Please read the brief essay by David Goldstein-Shirley, and bring your laptops to class to use in group work.

Reading: “Enemies in their Own Land,” by David Goldstein-Shirley (PDF)

There will be several soapboxes also, and of course keep an eye on the election news!

Link: What’s left at the Tule Lake camp, courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle

Two examples for today – Wong Kim Ark & Bhagat Singh Thind

This is the course website for “Citizen Nation” at Worcester State University in Fall 2012, which can be taken as History, Political Science, or Women’s Studies (as well as for Honors credit). I also used this website when I taught the course in the Spring 2012 term and I’ve left that course material up as an archive for the students in that semester. Continue reading →

Monday 4/23 – The State of Things. Applying RV Ch 9 to the Massachusetts story. Also, last soapboxes. You will get your research papers back. Continue reading →

I revised the reading schedule til the end of the semester because of our missed class day. Some deadlines and reading assignments have been moved around, so toss the old Page 4 and use this one instead. If you were in class on Monday, April 2, then you got a paper copy of this new schedule. If not, download the new schedule as a PDF – it’s also linked in the left hand sidebar in case you need to reference it again.

The new reading for Wed 4/4 is GC p. 240-264 and RV p. 205-217

There is no class today (Wed 3/28). We will have our peer review session on Monday, 4/2 instead and I will make some adjustments to the reading schedule and post a revised syllabus later. Please review the paper guidelines carefully and make sure by April 2 to have at least 8 pages and your bibliography written plus a statement of what still remains undone or where you feel you’re having trouble. Use the critical thinking and information literacy rubrics to self-assess your research and paper-drafting process (they are attached to the guidelines).

I am happy to read anyone’s early draft, either virtually by email or in office hours on Thurs or Fri (assuming we are back to our regularly scheduled programming then).

The final version of the paper will be due on MONDAY, APRIL 9 instead of April 4th.

Take care,
Prof. Hangen

On Wednesday we’ll be talking about research papers, research strategy, and writing for the entire class time. There’s no assigned reading.

Some of you have asked me what to bring. Just bring what you have. It’s okay if it isn’t at full page length by this point, or if you haven’t got all your sources yet, or if you are only partway through writing/outlining. Bring whatever you have (preferably printed out, it’s easier for someone to read & mark it that way), just so you’ll have something to work with in pairs or small groups.

Mon 2/20: No Class

Wed 2/22: Democracy in Practice II. Reading: GC Chapter 4. Due in class: Citizenship Exam Reflection paper. Download the guidelines here (Word doc).

Mon 2/27: The Disenfranchised. Reading: Jeannette Wolfley, “Jim Crow, Indian Style” (PDF) and RV Chapter 5

Wed 2/29: We attend Worcester’s Naturalization Ceremony. It is at noon in Mechanics Hall, but we need to be there at least by 11 am. Please arrange to be free to go that day if AT ALL possible; I am happy to send a note of explanation to a professor if there’s a conflict (but of course I cannot require you to attend). We will not have a class that day, the ceremony takes the place of class.

This course is a seminar on the history and meaning of American citizenship, organized around several guiding questions: Who counts as an American? How do we decide as a society? What does it mean to be an American citizen? What rights, privilege, and responsibilities are part of that definition? In the founding generation, citizenship was limited to property-owning white men, and since that time, struggles to expand American citizenship have been at the core of the American story. How did the specifics of that struggle unfold over the course of American history? Continue reading →