HIST 152
The Fourteenth Amendment and the Meanings of Equality Fall 2017
Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed WGSS 152
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

For more than a century, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has served as the principal touchstone for legal debates over the meaning of equality and freedom in the United States. This course explores the origins of the 14th Amendment in the years immediately following the Civil War, and examines the evolution of that amendment’s meaning in the century that followed. Central themes in this course include the contested interpretations of “due process,” “privileges and immunities,” “equal protection,” and “life, liberty or property”; the rise, fall, and rebirth of substantive due process; and the battles over incorporating the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment. We will pay particular attention to how debates over the 14th Amendment have shaped and been shaped by the changing meanings of racial and gender equality, and how the 14th Amendment has transformed the promise and experience of American citizenship. This course will be part of the Object Lab, a hybrid gallery-classroom, in which we will work in collaboration with the WCMA staff to select and analyze works of art that speak to and illuminate the themes of equality and freedom that are at the heart of this course. One major assignment will involve creating a course-specific installation that puts works of art in conversation with the court cases that we are studying.
The Class: Format: discussion
Limit: 19
Expected: 15-19
Class#: 1468
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: evaluation will be based on class discussion, three short analytical papers, and a final research paper
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the fifth course option
Prerequisites: first-year or sophomore standing; juniors or seniors with permission of instructor
Enrollment Preferences: given first to those who have been dropped from this class previously, then to first-years, then to second years
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
WGSS 152 Division II HIST 152 Division II
Attributes: AMST Comp Studies in Race, Ethnicity, Diaspora
HIST Group F Electives - U.S. + Canada

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