This course examines the interactions between race and sport in the twentieth century. Using a variety of different media, including both primary and secondary sources, we will investigate the topic by utilizing the sport of boxing as a case study. Among other topics we will examine the careers of various fighters including Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali and Oscar de la Hoya to help illustrate the changing ways that race and sport interact. Significant course content will enable students to formulate, research and write a major research paper.

The goals of this Seminar are two-fold: (1) Understanding of the relationship between broad national movements and related local struggles through exploration of a profound, sweeping and highly controversial campaigns during the past half century, and (2) Growth in historical research and writing skills. During the first half of the semester, we will read Ruth Rosen's THE WORLD SPLIT OPEN, a major overview of contemporary initiatives for gender and sexual equality. We will examine, as well, scholarship and journalism on specific Valley struggles.

Baseball myth is imbued with rural symbolism, but major league baseball has always been urban entertainment. In 1947, Jackie Robinson literally changed the "face" of urban entertainment by becoming the first African American to play major league baseball since the 1880s. In the next twelve years, fifteen cities followed Brooklyn's lead and added African American players to their roster. The one constant was that each man experienced resistance and racism.

Writing Seminar. Through common readings and films this course explores the modern history of U.S. global power. How might we understand and define America's empire? What were the causes, costs, and consequences of the quest for supremacy? What were the relationships between various forms of power? - military, economic, political, and cultural?

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