Undergraduate Course: The Age of Jefferson: Republicanism in the United States, c.1776-1826 (HIST10154)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | This course contextualises and explains the emergence of republicanism in eighteenth-century America through the study of Thomas Jefferson's life and his substantial documentary legacy. Students will closely read Jefferson's writings and place them in context. The course will focus on primary sources while grounding their reading in the rich historiography on Jefferson and his time. |
| Course description |
The course considers Jefferson's role as a republican theorist, partisan political leader, and as a state governor, Secretary of State, Vice President, President of the United States. It will examine the origins, limits and achievements of republican government in early America. Although students will focus on the career and writings of Thomas Jefferson, the course is intended to introduce students to the major concerns and questions - political, ideological, and social - which shaped Jefferson's world and his various contributions to it. It places Jefferson's thinking and life in the context of the Atlantic world and the Enlightenment. Among other themes it considers Jefferson's thinking with respect to democracy, westward expansion, the global republican movement, the transatlantic revolutionary tradition, and race and slavery.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Command of the body of knowledge considered in the course;
- Ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship;
- Ability to understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material;
- Ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence;
- Independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers.
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Reading List
Andrew Burstein, Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (New York, 2005).
Andre Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York, 2010).
Francis D. Cogliano, Emperor of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson's Foreign Policy (New Haven, 2014).
Francis D. Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Edinburgh, 2006).
Francis D. Cogliano, ed. Thomas Jefferson Companion (Oxford, 2012).
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello (New York, 2008).
Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville, 1997).
Kevin J. Hayes, The Road to Monticello (New York, 2008).
Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, 6 vols. (Boston, 1948-81).
Peter S. Onuf, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, 2007).
Merrill Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (New York, 1960).
Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, 1970). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Skills in research development and analysis
Oral communication skills, through seminar discussion
Experience in consolidating historical evidence and written arguments
Written communication skills |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | |
Course secretary | |
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