In 1941 journalist Henry Luce coined the phrase “The American Century” to refer to the United States’ global and economic hegemony throughout the twentieth century. To understand how “The American Century” came to be, we need to look further back. The nineteenth-century saw the rapid industrialization and modernization of the United States. It was a period of capitalist growth, territorial expansion, and cultural flourishment, but also of violent conflict and wild inequalities, punctuated by the deeply traumatic Civil War (1861-1865).

This course rests on the premise that the nineteenth century still matters today, for it unleashed and/or solidified the main forces and ideologies shaping our lives as 21st-century global citizens: capitalism, Marxism, feminism, white supremacy, anti-racism, environmentalism, etc. Our course readings will enable us to grapple with the complexity of this period as well as to rethink contemporary conflicts and crises: Is Whitman’s vision of democracy applicable today? What does the #MeToo movement owe to Charlotte Perkins Gillman and other women writers? Do we live and work like Bartleby? What do we learn about freedom today by reading a slave narrative published 150 years ago? These and related questions will guide our reading and discussion as well your written and oral contributions.