HIST43230: Race in Modern America

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• To gain an advanced understanding of key issues in modern Native American and African American history (c. 1890 2000).

• The course introduces students to some of the key issues and debates in modern Native American and African American history (c. 1890-2000). The course is taught comparatively and utilises a multi-disciplinary approach encompassing historical, literary, film and pictorial sources. The range of topics studied will include Decolonisation Theory and Critical Race Theory; cultural survival and resurgence; struggle for citizenship; experiences during national wars; uplift strategies; identity; film and popular culture representations. Students will be able to focus intensively on one of these topics in their written work, but are expected to engage with a wide range of themes and issues in classwork.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• advanced knowledge and understanding of modern Native American and African American political and socio-cultural histories
• advanced knowledge and understanding of the historiographical approaches to modern Native American and African American history

Subject-specific Skills:

• Subject specific skills for this module can be viewed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history.internal/local/PGModuleProformaMap/

Key Skills:

• Key skills for this module can be viewed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history.internal/local/PGModuleProformaMap/

• Student learning is facilitated by a range of teaching methods.
• Seminars and Group Discussion require students to reflect on and discuss: their prior knowledge and experience; set reading of secondary and, where appropriate, primary readings; information provided during the session. They provide a forum in which to assess and comment critically on the findings of others, defend their conclusions in a reasoned setting, and advance their knowledge and understanding of Native American and African American history.
• Structured reading requires students to focus on set materials integral to the knowledge and understanding of the module. It specifically enables the acquisition of detailed knowledge and skills which will be discussed in other areas of the teaching and learning experience.
• Assessment is by means of a 5000 word essay which requires the acquisition and application of advanced knowledge and understanding of an aspect of Native American and/or African American history. Essays require a sustained and coherent argument in defence of a hypothesis, and must be presented in a clearly written and structured form, and with appropriate apparatus.

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