Critical Social Thought 249DD - Diversity/Inclusiveness/Democ

A recent history calls our era "the age of fracture," a time when Americans are deeply divided from one another. History and American Studies provide ways to understand such division. How have Americans -- and those contending with America -- handled conflict while envisioning and reaching for more inclusive communities, in earlier eras and in our own? We will consider racism, citizenship, wealth, poverty, land ownership, gender, sexuality, dissent, and other axes of exclusion through studies of community, individual experience, and cultural struggle in the arts and public humanities. What can we learn about the possibilities for creating and sustaining democracy through daily life and culture?