Research Seminar (395-0-20)

Topic

The Modern American Presidency

Instructors

Michael J. Allen
847/467-3979
Harris Hall - Room 342
Michael Allen researches the relationship between ideas and action in US politics and diplomacy. His book Until The Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War examined the legacies of American defeat in the Vietnam Wars through a history of the POW/MIA movement. His current book The Center Ring: The Making and Breaking of the Liberal Presidency examines the relationship between liberal reform and presidential power from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon.

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L28: Mon, Wed 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Topic: The Modern American Presidency

Once negligible in size and power, the American presidency has grown to employ four million people worldwide and come to possess the ability to intervene in anything anywhere at any time while countervailing forces like Congress, the fifty states, and foreign governments have declined in independence.

Paradoxically, as the American presidency grew, historians lost interest in it. Presidents and the presidency once loomed large in historical research and writing. But with the rise of social history, then cultural history, then the turn toward global history, presidents and the presidency fell out of fashion among professional historians, even as it remained ubiquitous in our lives.

Fortunately, political history has recently reemerged in ways that invite new attention to the presidency and suggest new approaches to its study. This seminar will introduce students to classic and more recent scholarship on the history of the presidency. And it provides students the opportunity to write an original research paper on a question of their choice related to it. Students will define, research, and author a written work of 15-20 pages along with a short oral presentation of their findings. Course parameters are broadly defined to allow history majors to fulfill their research seminar requirement as they choose so long as they investigate something having to do with this sprawling and powerful institution and its complex history.

Learning Objectives

To identify and articulate an original or unresolved research question of interest to educated readers in modern US history; To locate empirical data relevant to that question with which to make persuasive arguments, choosing the evidence best-suited to the question posed; To engage in reasoned and reasonable dialogue with other parties interested in that question verbally and in writing; To develop problem-solving and detective skills, adapting to unanticipated developments, dead ends, and constructive criticism; To produce clear, concise prose that is faithful to the demonstrable evidence and accessible to educated readers; To arrive at a deeper, fuller understanding of historical research practices and methods that can be adapted to various ends.

Evaluation Method

Class Participation (25%); Preliminary Writing Assignments (25%); Rough Drafts (15%); Oral Presentation (5%); Final Paper (30%)

Class Notes

History Major Concentration(s): Americas
History Minor Concentration(s): United States

* Intended for history majors but open to anyone with a strong background and interest in history.

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Registration is restricted to History Majors and Minors only until the end of pre-registration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone who has taken the prerequisites (if any) Freshmen may not register for this course.