American Social Thought to 1865

Catalog description

Sophomore standing or permission of instructor. This course examines American intellectuals and American thought from the colonial period through the Civil War. By focusing on the lives and works of individual thinkers, students will consider the various ways in which intellectuals responded to the challenges of their times. Themes of the course will include European images of the New World, Puritan thought, the Great Awakening, revolutionary ideology, sources of romanticism and nationalism in the early 19th century, and the impact of the Civil War on American thought.