The New Nation, 1800-1850


Queens College, Hist. 260


I taught this course as the instructor of record in fall 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the course was offered fully online to 30 students.

Students read three books over the course of the semester: Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave, Claudio Saunt's Unworthy Republic, and Amy Greenberg's A Wicked War.  Each week the class convened once for a synchronous, student-led, seminar style discussion of the reading. Before each weekly meeting, students watched two 10-15 minute topical "mini-lectures" that I recorded and posted. These lectures introduced students to historical topics and scholarly debates relevant to that week's reading. Each "mini-lecture" included a discussion question, which students engaged in a discussion thread.

Students wrote three papers over the course of the semester. At the beginning of the semester they were given a variety of prompts that encouraged them to explore different disciplines of historical writing: primary source analyses, historiographical essays, book and film reviews, etc. They were then encouraged to apply these formats to subjects that had piqued their interest during the semester.
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