The Ideas that Made America

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

America is a nation animated by ideas. Yet it has proven impossible for Americans to arrive at any type of intellectual consensus. The history of ideas in America is best understood as a series of clashes between competing visions: democracy vs. republicanism; free vs. slave; science vs. religion; individual vs. society. This course traces a long intellectual arc from the Puritans to the Culture Wars to understand the ideas that diverse Americans have drawn upon to comprehend their world and act in it. We will analyze how ideas get applied to politics to support power; how ideas can also undermine and undercut power; and how ideas move across borders and through time. Between Puritan theology and postmodern critique, we will read "The Founding Fathers," abolitionists, the transcendentalists, Darwinists, the pragmatists, and the progressives. We will scrutinize the social, racial, gendered and political positions of the intellectuals who have produced our canonical texts. In addition to the written word, we will consider how photographs and films have constructed the contested figure of "The American Intellectual" as a role of prestige, authority, and cultural power. Lectures and discussions will take up topics such as religion, democracy, equality, liberty, resistance, violence, constitutionalism, and freedom. Most importantly, we will ask, time and again: What makes an idea American?