HIST 352 Original Sins: Race and Freedom in Early America
This seminar-style class explores the intersection of race and freedom in early America. In doing so, it addresses some of the most enduring questions in American life, questions that have become urgent and timely as Americans debate how to confront their past. The colonial and founding eras we will explore have been at the center of the debate: they are time periods in which some of the country's greatest achievements and failures took place. What is the relationship between the two? By reading and discussing the work of historians exploring those topics - and putting it in explicit conversation with modern pop culture and debate on the subject - we will try to answer that question, and, more broadly, try to understand what roles history can and cannot play in creating a more just present.