American Revolution

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Americans argue over the events, meaning, and legacies of the American Revolution as if it happened recently, not almost 250 years ago. This seminar examines the age of the American Revolution, considering the war itself and the revolutionary transformation of America between 1754 and 1800. It investigates both those who were left out of the new nation’s republican experiment and those whose lives were unmistakably and irrevocably altered. The seminar analyzes the upheaval of the war and its aftermath in the lives of men and women, free and enslaved, loyalist and revolutionary. The class explores the creation of the new republic, the enactment of republican values in many aspects of American society, and the bitter conflict over the legacy and meaning of those values. The seminar concludes with some attention to other revolutionary movements in the era. The class will take advantage of our location in Washington DC by exploring how the origins of both the city and the university speak to major themes of the revolutionary era. Students will have the opportunity to visit and evaluate an area museum, to take a walking tour of Georgetown (both the university and the neighborhood), and, funding and schedule permitting, to take an excursion to a local historic site.