DISSENT IN AMERICA

Catalog description

This Special Topics course examines the different ways Americans have expressed dissent in politics, resisted structures of power, and built movements for change. Particular attention will be paid to how the tradition of dissent both challenges and expands American national identity and political ideals. Key figures like Henry Thoreau and Martin Luther King, Jr. will be studied, but so will the dissenting ethos of important social movements, like those for Gay Liberation and Environmental Justice. The course will use traditional texts as well as the visual mediums film and photography in studying dissent.