History 450 - JYW Seminar in History

This seminar trains students in historical research techniques and the writing of history, and fulfills the University's Junior Writing requirement. See the History Department course description guide for various sectional sub-titles and descriptions.

Open to Seniors and Juniors in History, Middle East and Judaic majors only. Open to Seniors and Juniors in History, Middle East and Judaic majors only.
"American Gridiron Football and History"
This Junior Writing Seminar examines the history of American gridiron football from its earliest days as a college game in the late 19th century to the present and its professional leagues in the United States. The class studies the rise of sport as a leisure activity and then industry, the creation of major college conferences, the sport on the high school level, and the rise of the NFL. One of this class?s organizing concepts is that football, perhaps more than any other sport or form of entertainment, is uniquely American in its organization, relationship to violence, its embrace of heteronormative gender identities, labor relations, and economic relationship to local, state, and national governments.