week 5: show & tell (anna) – reframing the american history course

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one of the things we tried to do for every class was to have someone share something in relation to the topic of the week. in my show & tell, i decided to share the syllabus i re-wrote for the modern american history course at the college. having just taken my first history course here, i felt compelled to re-write the syllabus for a final project in ed14 (intro to ed). this was the product that materialized through the release of many, many weeks of pent up frustration.

I look back at this syllabus and am reminded of how both confusing, joyous, and freeing reimagining learning pathways and destinations can be. it also grounds me; theory doesn’t always mirror praxis, as I’ve learned in our student-led course.

Screenshot of google doc says, "ED14 Part I-A: Unit Overview & Map Unit Title: Who are we? Why are we here? Where can we see ourselves in history? Target Audience: Those who are familiar with some version of American history, students in the Modern American History course at this College Topic: The Recent Past: American History Themes/ Big Ideas: Ahistoricism Ideology (capitalism, communism, what’s in between and beyond) Crises as portals, “a gateway between one world and the next” (Arundhati Roy, The Pandemic is a Portal) Honoring the multiplicity of truths Identity formation, reclamation, and celebration Students as active agents in history-making and changing Honest, critical, intense self-reflection and and examination of one’s positionality Relationality and interdependency and means in which we move together The necessity of interdisciplinary approaches Imagining history as humanizing and tangible Accountability to one another and the environment"
Screenshot of google doc says, "Part I-B: EUs/EQs Enduring Understandings What do you want students to remember 10 years from now? There is no such thing as an unbiased version of history. By virtue of how history is made, that is, it is an account of people’s experiences and what they were able to witness, history is constantly being made, discovered, and remade. The history we often do know of is a product of power imbalances. Just as knowledge production and educational institutions were made, and continue, to provide resources for a small privileged population, it is important to be weary that the sources and viewpoints we examine in class will offer only a very small snippet of the vast range of truths that exist; especially in a classroom setting at a PWI, that is Swarthmore College. We will touch upon the idea of the production of salience in informing what we know and what we don’t know to ground and inform our practice as historians. Contrary to its apparent intended purpose, the field of history has a tendency, as well as a long record, of serving a dehumanizing agenda. The process of making history ahistorical, that is, decontextualized from a deeper and more critical analysis of a certain event or structure, is something we have become accustomed to and oftentimes, comfortable with. Ahistorical learning perpetuates harmful understandings of the past, the present, and limits our ability to imagine and dream about a safe, life-affirming, community-based, [I challenge the reader to insert another tenet we should work towards in this class and beyond, here], and justice-driven future. As people who have crossed multiple physical and metaphysical borders over an enormous expanse of time being that we are naturally migratory beings, we recognize that our histories are interconnected and it is the histories we choose to preserve and study, regardless of dominant destructive and covert programs that aim to erase our identities, that help us in our life-long journeys to understanding who we are and what we will do to share and embody our truths. We must do this with humility and willingness to actively self-reflect on our experiences, beliefs, affinities, and biases. We must be willing to listen and join in conversation when we are called upon. We must also recognize that participation looks different for every individual and must thereby provide and support sufficient alternative modes and spaces to contributing to the (un)learning we aim to do together. You will never know everything there is to know about history which is why it’s important to develop habits in which historicizing ideas and events becomes second-nature. Asking why and how something has occurred is essential to nurturing the innate historian each of us are, by virtue of wanting to know more about ourselves and each other, and therefore be able to care for and support one another. I’ve added this fifth point simply as a place-holder for possible understandings that might arise throughout the course, in recognition that curriculums are just a starting point and always subject to change."
Screenshot of google doc says, "Essential Questions What questions will create the “doorway” to your study and set the stage for high level thinking? What do we, as individuals of very different backgrounds and experiences, bring to the class? What kinds of identities are present and not present in the room? What does “history” mean for each of us? What does American history mean to us? What kinds of thoughts, images, feelings, and other reactions does American history evoke? What does Criticality (Muhammad, 2020) mean to historians? How do we, as historians, pursue radical care and develop a classroom community that is safe, honest, culturally relevant and responsive, thoughtful, and critical of the conditions in which we live, as well as those conditions that have led to our ability to be in the presence of each other? As Audre Lorde wrote in A Burst of Light, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” What does radical self and community care look like in the context of this class? What has the study of history been and what could it be? Why must we study history to better know ourselves and each other, and by extension, why is it important to understand who we are, who our ancestors were, and how the events of the past, present, and future are all interconnected?"
Screenshot of google doc says, "Part I-C: Curricular Map (Sequence of Lessons) What is history? How have you understood history and its relevancy to today? What does it mean to learn about American history and why are you in a position to study it? Students will reflect on their experiences and understandings of history, as well as examine what they hope to gain from this course. This lesson aims to produce a tangible end-of-the-course aim for each individual student (which could emerge as a final project idea) using historical research, as history is a pursuit of understanding who we are and how we go forward. We frame our understanding of this course objective through Saidya Hartman’s Venus in Two Acts, when she writes, “As a writer committed to telling stories, I have endeavored to represent the lives of the nameless and the forgotten, to reckon with loss, and to respect the limits of what cannot be known… As I understand it, a history of the present strives to illuminate the intimacy of our experience with the lives of the dead, to write our now as it is interrupted by this past, and to imagine a free state, not as the time before captivity or slavery, but rather as the anticipated future of this writing” (4). Reading: Venus in Two Acts by Saidiya Hartman Moving Backwards, Starting with Us: What Happened in 2021? We’re constantly looking for things to relate to, and transfer what we’ve learned for self-fulfilling purposes, whatever they may be. What we, and the people around us have experienced in our lifetimes are key to understanding how history is known and constructed. This lesson asks students to think about some of the events in the news that have felt the most critical to them and to the world recently (recently can mean a range of different things, we all experience time differently). We will ask what kinds of current events matter to us and why, as well as how we can use the events we both do and don’t follow to frame the class going forward (or in this case, backward). This lesson aims to honor and appreciate the different identities and interests of the classroom, examine and bring into question the philosophical nature of history, including how we know the things we know, why we believe the things we believe, and finally, become more prepared to delve into historical narratives that seem more arbitrary and disconnected than they really are. For the instructor, it is another chance to get to know the students on a deeper level, as well as open the door to a course schedule that respects and affirms the needs of the collective whole. This lesson aims to allow students to come up with a course schedule we could follow given their own understanding of American history. They can structure the timeline/ order of events in any structure they would like. Given the vast range of knowledge each student is bound to have, each student will be given an opportunity to submit an anonymous form with some of the events they believe are essential to cover in the course given what they already know, and things they would like to learn more about."
Screenshot of google doc says, "Viewing: Instagram page @socialstudies4socialjustice and other social media platforms in which students may obtain information from. The following lessons are some key ideas I have laid out but are subject to change in acknowledgement of the fluidity of needs of the class. They are also a baseline in which students themselves will be asked to conduct their own research and develop reflections to share with the class on the day of. Every week, there will be one group that is selected to be prepared to lead the class through additional materials they found and/ or developed in dialogue with me and other necessary interlocutors."
Screenshot of google doc says, "Pandemic as a Portal? (from Arudhati Roy’s Financial Times article) What did the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic look like for you? What did it look like for others? Whose lives were and are most vulnerable to the virus? What does media fail to capture and how can we aim to broaden the scope of representation? This lesson will examine what it means to understand the pandemic as a portal into both our histories and futures, as well as some of the ‘major’ events surrounding the pandemic, including the resurgence of the BLM movement following George Floyd’s murder, the surge of AAPI hate crimes, the January 6 capitol riot, and the global economic recession. We will also take this class time to introduce the topic of what “crises” have meant in the context of American history, as well as how this term helps us understand the reproduction of knowledge and the salience of certain kinds and forms of information. Supporting Materials: History Won’t Help Us Now by Howard Markel (The Atlantic) Unfinished by Yi Wei (Swarthmore Voices) Angela Davis Speaks on Racial Inequities Exposed During the Pandemic (YouTube) The Universal Right to Breathe by Achille Mbembe, Translated by Carolyn Shread (Critical Inquiry) What Does it Mean to be American? How do we talk about 9/11 in America? Abroad? This lesson examines the events that precipitated the war on terror and what that meant for individuals who appeared to be “Middle Eastern, Arab, or Muslim” (Volpp, 2003). We will assess the kinds of events that are deemed national tragedies and form an argument to understand why 9/11 was and is considered the most salient American tragedy of the 21st century. We will also learn about and employ one of anthropology’s foundational concepts: cultural relativism, as a tool for enhancing our ability to interpret history. This lesson will also examine what ‘being American’ means by using our own experiences which will lead into the next lesson about identity politics. Supporting readings: First Writing Since by Suheir Hammad The Citizen and the Terrorist by Leti Volpp Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others by Lila Abu-Lughod"
Screenshot of google doc says, "Identity Politics vs./ & Intersectionality This lesson examines recent debates between identity politics advocates and critics, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, the mind behind intersectionality, in forming an understanding of how historically marginalized groups have advocated for themselves and the ways in which solidarity movements have shaped our understanding of power in the US. This lesson also necessitates recalling the effects of the Vietnam War and the growing antiwar movement across the country. Supporting Readings: Black Panthers, Red Guards, and Chinamen: Constructing Asian American Identity through Performing Blackness by Daryl Maeda Queens in Exile, the Forgotten Ones by Sylvia Rivera The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde Capitalism v. Communism (and everything in between and beyond) We tend to talk about capitalism and communism without actually talking about what these ideologies even mean. Considering how much of the history we are taught pursues militaristic objectives to preserve “freedom” and “safety” from communist rule, it is a good idea to undergird a firm understanding of these buzz words. We will trace these ideologies from their conception, examine the wars that were precipitated under the guise of ideological underpinnings (including the Vietnam War, Korean War, and a series of US interventions in Latin America), and assess how they have come to be understood by today’s citizens. Supporting Materials: Under Capitalism, There’s No Such Thing as a “Fair Days’ Wage for a “Fair Day’s Work” by Hadas Thier (Jacobin) Chapter 28: “Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated,” Capital by Karl Marx Joseph McCarthy on Communism (1950) Memory of the Forgetten War: Four Deeply Personal Accounts of the Korean War (kanopy) Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social Citizenship Under the 1944 GI Bill by Margot Canaday"
Screenshot of google doc says, "The Expansion of US Empire and its Implications for Indigenous Peoples’ Lives and Wellbeing We examine settler-colonialism and what that has meant for indigenous people and their lands as well as what triggered and foresaw the American militaristic urge to expand into the west and overseas. Supporting Materials: Wars of Civilization: The US Army Contemplates Wounded Knee, the Pullman Strike, and the Philippine Insurrection by Priscilla Murolo Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism, The Antiannexation Struggle by Noenoe K. Silva Pollution is Colonialism by Max Liboiron The Intelligence of Plants Robin Wall Kimmerer (On Being with Krista Tippett podcast) Flag Burning in Crum Henge: A Reclamation of the Indigenous Spirit (Swarthmore Voices) A Call to Reinvigorate Student Support for Environmental Justice in Chester (Swarthmore Voices)"
Screenshot of google doc says, "Finale: The Teach-In We conclude the class by examining the history of teach-ins in the US. Every member of the class will be called upon to reflect and share their experience as a participant of the class. This lesson will examine the ways in which the class could be improved to better meet and understand the needs of every person. In particular, this lesson aims to examine what it means to be operating as a contributing and contradictory member of the College and how we move forward in a sustainable and loving mindset where we affirm the truth of abundance when in comradery with one another. Supporting Materials: “The First U of M Teach-In (March 1965)” in Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965-1972 “ Teach-In” (Wikipedia, refer to the references section in particular) “‘When History Wakes’: A New Beginning” in Freedom Dreams by Robin D.G. Kelley Voices Timeline https://swarthmorevoices.com/content-1/2021/12/5/beating-heart"

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