Student-Centered Learning for the 21st Century
I teach a wide range of courses in 20th and 21st-century U.S. history and culture, public history, and American Studies.
My students leave my classes able to read critically, research deeply, analyze thoughtfully, and communicate effectively. My goal is not only to cultivate the knowledge and skills that will serve them as they move on to jobs and careers but to help them develop the capacity to critically engage the most significant issues of their moments as agents of social change.
To that end, all of my courses emphasize student-centered learning. In my introductory classes, students analyze a variety of cultural products through a range of discussion-based activities. In my more intermediate classes, students contribute to course blogs, construct digital exhibits, design board games, and produce documentary films. My more advanced students conduct original research. This sometimes results in traditional academic papers, but I have also regularly partnered with community organizations to develop public history programs at places like The Flight 93 National Memorial and the New York State Military Museum. You can learn more about these projects and others in the "My Students In The News!" section below.
Courses at Columbus State University
Click on the title of any course for the most recent iteration of my syllabus.
Introduction to U.S. Military History
This course examines the relationship between war, the military, and U.S. culture from the Colonial Period to the current moment. Although we will spend some time on tactics and battles, we will focus as well on broader questions that emerge from understanding the military as a critical cultural institution. Among them will be: How have Americans, military and civilian, and those with whom they have fought experienced war, and what factors shaped their experiences? What should the relationship between the military and the nation be during times of war and peace? How have Americans, including service members and veterans, sought to define the military's place in American culture? How have wars and militarism created spaces for debating larger questions about national identity, race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship? Among the topics we will consider are the relationship between military service, citizenship, and civil rights; debates about the citizen’s obligations during wartime; military recruiting; debates about the appropriate roles of women and gay and lesbian service members; and veterans’ issues.
War & Memory
Recent debates about Confederate Memorials and their place in contemporary U.S. culture have reminded us that the remembrance of war is neither politically neutral nor primarily about the past. It is, rather, a politically fraught process through which individuals and groups stake out positions within, and debate, complicated questions of identity and citizenship. In this course, we will examine the history of these debates, focusing on how Americans have in various moments and geographies endeavored to remember the two most divisive conflicts in U.S. history: the Civil War and the War in Vietnam, while also paying attention to the remembrance of other events. To do so, we will look at how remembrance has been constructed at historic sites, through the construction of memorials and acts of commemoration, and in film and through museum exhibits.
Image Credit: By Mk17b - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91805269
Columbus At War
2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. During that war and the concurrent war in Afghanistan, more than 2 million Americans served in Iraq and over 7,000 were killed. Thousands more have been injured. While the costs of war have often been invisible in most communities in the United States, in Columbus they have been hard to avoid. Because Fort Benning is the Army's major training facility, the vast majority of Soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan spent at least some time here. And because of Columbus’ close relationship with the Army, it has witnessed thousands of deployments as well as the return of those who served -- including those who returned injured or who were killed overseas. More than almost any other community, Columbus illuminates how war’s violence and uncertainty radiates through families, schools, neighborhoods, churches, and almost every other facet of life. Telling the story of how Columbus was impacted by the war and how those impacts continue to be felt, is a critical component of reckoning with the war’s legacy. In this student-designed course, we will work to document the impact of the war on the Columbus community. Students will identify topics that they wish to explore, work with community members and organizations to identify key individuals and groups whose stories are important, and, through oral history and archival research, produce a public-facing final project that will document this important history. In short, this course will engage students in a large-scale, community-based public history project that will make a significant impact in our community.
The United States in Vietnam
This course examines the United States’ involvement with Vietnam from 1945 to the present, with particular attention to the Second Indochina War (1954-1975) and its legacies. Among the topics that we will discuss are: the domestic and global political contexts that shaped U.S. involvement and conduct in Vietnam; the impact of U.S. support for a succession of South Vietnamese regimes on the people of Vietnam; Vietnamese and U.S. military and political strategies; U.S. domestic and global responses to the war; and the legacies of the war in both the United States and Vietnam.
War & The Military in U.S. Popular Culture
In the era of the all-volunteer military, fewer than 1% of Americans serve in the Armed Forces. And yet, the military and the wars that it fights are central features in U.S. popular culture. Americans read novels and memoirs about war. They play video games and films and television shows about war. They celebrate veterans at sporting events, participate in “boot camp” themed workouts and athletic competitions, and buy items ranging from clothing to coffee related to the military. In this course, we will analyze how the military, veterans, and the work that they do and have done in the world has been represented in U.S. popular culture – from Men’s magazines to television and film, from best-selling memoirs to workouts, video games, and children’s toys. As we do so, we will explore how those cultural representations shape ideas about the military, its role in contemporary U.S. culture, those who serve, and larger questions of citizenship, patriotism, and national identity.
Previous Courses at Washington & Jefferson College
This course examines the relationship between war, the military, and U.S. culture. We will focus less on how the military has been used in particular instances or on the history of particular wars and instead ask broader questions that emerge from understanding the military as critical cultural institution. Among them will be: What should the relationship between the military and the nation be during times of war and peace? How have Americans, including service members and veterans, sought to define the military's place in American culture? How have wars and militarism created spaces for debating larger questions about national identity, race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship?
Black Protest in 20th Century U.S. Culture
From anti-lynching protests in the 1890s to Black Lives Matter, African-Americans have struggled to secure rights, freedom, and an end to violence and oppression throughout the “long twentieth century.” This course examines that history through an interdisciplinary investigation of African Americans’ multiple, competing, and often contentious struggles for rights and representation in the long 20th century. In this course, we will challenge the common periodization that emphasizes the 1950s and 1960s as the height of African-American protest and activism and instead ask how African-American freedom struggles have evolved over the course of the past 125 years.
Race, Medicine, & Society
What does it mean to think about health & illness as social constructions, rather than as biological realities? In this course, we will explore this question by asking how ideas about race and ethnicity have intersected with, shaped, and been shaped by ideas about health, illness, public health, and the practice of medicine. We will examine the intersecting histories of the social construction of racial identity; racism and anti-racism; the quest for civil and human rights; and medicine and public health.
The American War in Vietnam
In this travel course, we will explore how the legacy of the Second Indochina War -- the American War -- still shapes Vietnam today. Millions of Vietnamese people live with the legacies of aerial bombardment and the widespread use of herbicides like Agent Orange, and the infrastructure of U.S. bases remains a significant aspect of the post-war Vietnamese landscape. Since 1975, both the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam have engaged in fraught debates about how diplomacy and remembrance. Today, Americans are frequent visitors to Vietnam for tourism, humanitarian work, and business, and Vietnam has emerged as a significant economic and political partner. All of these engagements, however, have emerged and still occur in the shadow of a war that ended forty years ago and its legacies.
9/11 & The War on Terror in U.S. Culture
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 stand as the defining moment for United States foreign policy and, perhaps more generally, United States culture in the twenty-first century. This course will examine the history of the post-September 11th period, asking both what the domestic and foreign policy responses to the attacks have been, how Americans engaged with those events and policies, and how they have been represented in popular culture.
Seminar in American Studies
Who is an “American?” What does it mean to “get,” “have” or be “denied” this identity? What are the rights, privileges, obligations, and attitudes of “Americans”? How have individuals and groups worked to identify themselves and others as “American” – or not American – in recent U.S. history? Why have they done so, and what has been the impact of such efforts? How have “Americans” seen themselves in relation to the “rest” of the world – and how has “the rest of the world” seen “Americans?” In this upper-level, discussion-oriented, interdisciplinary course, we will not assume that there is a single, uncomplicated answer to these questions. Instead, we will explore how groups, individuals, and institutions have imagined and debated them.
My Students in the News!
Columbus At War:
The Local Impact of The United State’s Longest Wars
“Columbus At War” began a long-term effort to document the impact of the impact of the United States’ twenty-first century wars on the city of Columbus. Unlike most other communities in the United States, where the war receded into the background, Columbus deeply felt the impact of deployments and their consequences on military installations, in families, and across the community.
Dynamic Decades:
W&J and the City of Washington in the Midst of Social Change
“Dynamic Decades” was a project funded by the Council of Independent Colleges and engaged students in a year-long project that documented the history of race relations and the pursuit of racial justice at the College and in the Community. Students conducted research in College and community archives and completed oral history interviews with community members and created an exhibit at the College library. We were grateful for the support of Gaylord Archival, which donated display cases that made the exhibit possible.
Down But Not Out:
Baseball After September 11th
Flight 93 National Memorial, May 5-July 8, 2018
"Down But Not Out" is a student-designed exhibit at Washington & Jefferson College constructed in collaboration with the National Park Service and on display at the Flight 93 National Memorial.
In this course, the students designed the syllabus and wrote the course manifesto, and then conducted research on the history of baseball's role in moments of national crisis. As they wrote the script for the exhibit, they managed a $5,000 budget and developed relationships with organizations including the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Louisville Slugger Museum, and the George W. Bush Presidential Library to secure the loan of items.
The exhibit received considerable news coverage, some of which you can read here:
Remember:
Stories of Vietnam
"Remember: Stories of Vietnam" was researched, designed, and constructed by my students at Skidmore College. They conducted detailed oral histories with eleven Vietnam-era veterans from upstate New York and worked with them to secure the loans of photographs, uniforms, medals, and other items that they had saved from their time in the Armed Forces. The exhibit showcased the diverse experiences of veterans who served in the United States' most controversial conflict.
Read more about it here:
After War:
Iraqi Refugees & Iraq Veterans in Lancaster County
"After War" is an on-line exhibit constructed by my students at Franklin & Marshall College. Lancaster, PA has the distinction of being home not only to a number of U.S. veterans of the Iraq War but also a number of Iraqi refugees who fled the violence that that war created. As such, it provided a unique opportunity for my students to research the local effects of a conflict fought thousands of miles away. They conducted interviews with 8 local residents and shared their stories on line, with a timeline that places these individual experiences in the broader history of the war.