History 797PR - ST-Imperial America:1848-Now

This graduate seminar explores the expansion and assertion of American imperial power from the US-Mexican War to the "global war on terror." Students will be introduced to the widest possible conception of US "foreign relations" by evaluating the cultural, economic, political, and strategic factors that shaped American policy and by analyzing the lived experience of empire building and anti-imperial resistance at home and abroad. We will give special attention to how ideas of "American exceptionalism" and other official justifications of US policy can be read and re-read when scrutinized in relationship to ideas about (and experiences of) race, nationality, gender, class, religion, and sexuality. Students in the 700 level of this course will need to conduct their own original research paper.

Open to Doctoral and Masters History students only.