History 791PG - S-Hist./USSocPolcy,Pol/Gender

This interdisciplinary course, designed for students in both Political Science and History, will concentrate on approaches to the study of the history of U.S. public policy aimed at addressing social and political inequalities. We will explore the methods, findings, and controversies in research about public policy in American politics, history, and political science from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives and approaches. Readings will focus our attention on policies aimed at the overlapping axes of marginalization on the basis of gender, race, class, and sexuality, in particular. Throughout the course, we will analyze the ways in which policy, over time, has come to address issues and discrimination in intersectional ways, defining politically-relevant categories, identities, and forms of marginalization, such as gender, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and ideological and partisan identification. Students will write a short reaction paper every other week, make two short presentations, and write a research paper that they will present to the class.

Open to Doctoral & Masters students only.