Faculty First Year Seminars 191COMM4 - Radical America: the history

The widespread popularity of the 2016 presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, is unprecedented in U.S. history. Polls of Millennial indicate a greater preference for a European social democracy-styled economy over capitalism. Yet long-term anti-communist ideology in the U.S. has largely buried a rich, diverse, yet hardly known homegrown U.S. socialist tradition. This includes early 19th-century Utopian socialism, post-Civil War railroad worker general strikes, early 20th century farm-labor alliances and municipal socialism, 1930s Communist organizing, the Federal Theatre Project, the Hollywood Ten, SDS, and the Black Panthers. Through a series of readings and media offerings, we?ll discuss the distinctiveness of these varied radical movements, their political critiques, utopian visions, and how they resonate today. Weekly reading response notes will feed discussion and presentations representing some of the issues and personalities animating these radical traditions.

Freshmen Only