070271 SE Seminar on History (Master) - The Political Culture of the United States of America (2020W)

Goals: The central issue of the seminar is the relationship of continuity and change in the central political convictions constitutive of American political culture throughout the long history of the USA – first among them the claim first stated in the Declaration of Independence, that all humans are born free and equal – and the (inadequate) realisation of these beliefs. Students have the chance in this seminar to read and discuss central texts in the history of American political culture from the 18th century to the present in the original, and to discuss the historical context of their creation. students take on with colleagues the responsibility for leading a discussion session and learn to develop theses about the content, meaning and significance of the relevant source texts, as well as to lead the discussion of these texts. At the end of the seminar students have the opportunity to research and write a seminar paper considering the current state of research on as well as the meaning and significane and/or the reception of one of the source texts discussed in the seminar.
Content: Fundamental source texts for the history of American political culture - including, among others, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, selections from the "Federalist" papers, speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, the "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King (1963), and the inaugural addresses of Barack Obama (2009) and Donald Trump (2017) -, as well as selection texts from the relevant secondary literature.
Method: Presentations, discussion, group work (developing theses about selected texts and leading a weekly discussion).