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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

Information in the Degree Programme Tables may still be subject to change in response to Covid-19

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of History, Classics and Archaeology : History

Undergraduate Course: The United States in the 1960s (HIST10103)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of History, Classics and Archaeology CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThe course examines major aspects of politics and society in the United States during the 1960s. As a unifying theme, it investigates the nature of political liberalism in the United States, analyzing the goals and achievements of liberal politicians. The course also examines a series of liberal and radical challenges to 'consensus liberalism'.
Course description In examining major aspects of the 1960s in the United States, the course concentrates on the nature of American political liberalism during this period. It analyses the goals and achievements of liberalism politicians, together with a series of liberal and radical challenges to consensus liberalism. In seeking to understand the change that the United States experienced during this period and its consequences, the course's coverage sometimes includes developments that both precede and follow the decade itself. The topics discussed in the course include: the concept of 'consensus liberalism' and the decline of the liberal consensus; John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier; Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society; the civil rights movement; Black Power; student movements and the New Left; the counterculture; second-wave feminism; the emergence of the Vietnam-era antiwar movement.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Students MUST NOT also be taking The American Civil Rights Movement (HIST10155)
Other requirements A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Before enrolling students on this course, Personal Tutors are asked to contact the History Honours Admission Secretary to ensure that a place is available (Tel: 503780).
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesVisiting students must have 3 History courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses. Enrolments for this course are managed by the CAHSS Visiting Student Office, in line with the quotas allocated by the department. All enquiries to enrol must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. It is not appropriate for students to contact the department directly to request additional spaces.
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, command of the body of knowledge considered in the course;
  2. Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship;
  3. Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material;
  4. Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, the ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence;
  5. Demonstrate independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
Reading List
Core Texts:

Van Gosse, Rethinking the New Left: An Interpretative History (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007)

Howard Brick and Christopher Phelps, Radicals in America: The U.S. Left since the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)

Selected Other Works:

Jeffrey A. Turner, Sitting In and Speaking Out: Student Movements in the American South, 1960-1970 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010)

Amy Sonnie and James Tracy, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power (New York: Melville House Publishing, 2011)

Ibram H. Rogers, The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Simon Hall, American Patriotism, American Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010)

Michael S. Foley, Front Porch Politics: The Forgotten Heyday of American Activism in the 1970s and 1980s (New York: Hill & Wang, 2014)

Marjorie J. Spruill, Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women¿s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics (New York: Bloomsbury, 2017)
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsUS in 1960s
Contacts
Course organiserDr Kate Ballantyne
Tel:
Email: kate.ballantyne@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Lorna Berridge
Tel:
Email: Lorna.Berridge@ed.ac.uk
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