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American Studies 45 Professor Jacob Cohen 63037
Violence (and Non-Violence) in American History Brown 310
Books in the Bookstore:
Butterfield, FoxAll God’s Children: The Bosket family and the American Tradition of Violence
Fletcher, GeorgeA Crime of Self-Defense
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne The Indigenous People’s History of The United States
Burrough, Brian Days of Rage: America’s Underground, the FBI, and
The of Revoutionary Violence
Butterfield, Fox All God’s Children: The Bosket Family and the
American Tradition of Violence
MacKinnon, Catherine Only Words
Susan, Estridge Real Rape
.
Also available, onthe Latte website, are several several essays to be read (also films to be seen) all of which are referred to in the “Course Outline” below: .
Course Requirements: There will be a midterm paper, twelve pages-ish double-spaceddue on March 9; also, a conventional three-hour final examination in the regularlyscheduled exam time, and a final paper, also twelve or so pages, due on the day of the final exam. Several alternative questions for the two paperswill be available to you to choose fromwell in advance of the due dates. You are invited to submit an alternative topic for the final paper only, but I want to review any ideas that you have to be sure that your topic is apt and gives you a good chance to shine. The grade for the course will be, at a minimum, the average of the three grades (two papers and the final exam. I say “at a minimum”: I reservethe right to raise the grade in view of an especially strong achievement in one of the papers or on the final exam. Participation in class discussion can help as well. The basis for my grades will be explained on request and changed if I am persuaded that they should be. It happens! I grade all the papers and will provide you with a long, typed response, to each of your submissions and, as I say, any conversation that you request.
(Below, is an outline of the topics we will be covering and the dates when they will be covered. Each block of topics, with accompanying dates indicating when these topics will be covered in class, includes a list of recommended readings which serve as background for that particular bodyof materials. Also further readings which may lure you if you are engrossed in the subject at hand. You will learn in class which of these readings are required, which recommended. As I say above, you will be given a wide range of questions to choose from for your mid term and final papers and you will have those questions well in advance of the dates when those papers are due. If you come dutifully to class, you will also have a good idea of whatessay questions you can expect on the final exam. Therefore, it is possible to read only works relevant for the particular papers you are writing and the topics you intend to write on for the final exam. Of course, I urge you to read more than that. If you have any questions, ask them. I answer e- mails promptly, invite visits to my office, where I am every school day of the semester, for long hours. Just send me several times when you are free to come in, I’ll choose, one, and we’ll have a firm date. No limits on the number of visits. Come in if only as an opportunity to talk about the material and get acquainted. I am very easy to take, or so I say.
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COURSE OUTLINE
I. Social Science, Ideology and Historical Interpretation: Jan. 18-25.
- Modes of Analysis:
1. Conservative naturalism: violence and “human nature”; the genetics of violence: men without women; the territorial imperative.
2. Behaviorism and Environmental Liberalism; the frustration theory
of violence; the Milgrim experiment;
3. Psychoanalytic Perspectives: Freud and Fromm; legal sanity
4. Rational and Irrational Violence; Instrumentalism
5. Hannah Arendt on Power and Violence
6. Positive and negative violence, necessary and unnecessary
7. What is Violent? What is Violence? The lessons of Foucault.
8. Non-violent perspectives, an introduction.
READINGS (VIEWING) FOR THE ABOVE: See the film, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” available on Netflix, or You Tube.
II. The concept of “justifiable self defense” in American criminal law. Jan. 26- February 9
1. Legal definitions: the “reasonable person”; “imminence” , “necessity”, “proportionality”. “Intentionality” as seen “objectively” and/or “subjectively”; The new “stand your ground” standard.
2. The Case of Bernard Goetz (and Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown)
- The concept of the “battered woman’s syndrome” and "self-defense".
4. The BettyHundley case.
5. Vigilanteism: justifiable self-defense?
6. The Trayvon Martin case. Is “Stand Your Ground” relevant?
READINGS FOR THE ABOVE: Fletcher, A Crime of Self-Defense.; readings on Battered Women’s Syndrome especially the Ayildiz article on the course website; “The Betty Hundley Case”; “Florida’s self-defense law”.
III: “As American as Cherry Pie”: What is “American” about American violence?February 13- March 6
1.”Regeneration Through Violence” Richard Slotkin
2. Violence on the Frontier: violence in a “man’s world”.
3. Southern Violence, South Carolina in particular
4. “American Holocaust”: the (alleged) “genocide” of “Native Americans” (or “indigenous peoples” as we are presently directed to say). The debate over the issue. Where do you stand?
5. Violence by Native Americans upon Native Americans.
READINGS FOR THE ABOVE: Opening chapter of Butterfield, All God’s Children; Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States; Lewy, “Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?
IV. Political Violence and “Terrorism” in American History March 8-16
1. The Psychology and Politics of American Assassins.Case Studies: Booth, Oswald, Sirhan, legal definitions of “sanity”
2. John Brown: freedom fighter, terrorist, or paranoid schizophrenic?
3.The Haymarket Anarchists.
4. The Civil War: wherein 630,000 Americans died, more than died in all
other wars combined. Also, the Civil War as seen from the perspective of advocates of Non-Violence.
4.Labor Violence in America: the “Molly Maguires”;the “general strike” of 1877”; the Homestead and Pullman strikes, 1892-94; Coeuer d’Alene; the Steuben assassination; the Los Angeles Times; Explosion; anti-war Violence during World War I.
6. Anarchism and terrorism: yesterday and today. .
7. The Sixties: anti-war violence; anti war non-violence, campus violence, violence at Brandeis and by Brandeis students
8.Oklahoma City and the Militia Movement
9. The “War on Terror”, domestic and international. Is the term apt?
10. Ideology and religion in explaining political violence. Should we speak of “Muslim Extremism”, or for tBlack Lives Matter
10. The debate over use of“torture” in the “war against terrorism.”
READINGS FOR THE ABOVE: selections fromAdamic, Dynamite , The torture debate between Krauthammer and Sullivan; Cohen article, “The Romance of Revolutionary Violence” on student violence at Brandeis. Cohen article on the Kennedy assassination.
V. Racial and Ethnic Violence in America March 20-30
- “Black Rage”: Richard Wright’s Native Son
- Slave Uprisings: Nat Turner et. al.
C. The Boskett Family: four generations of violence
D. Non-Violent Direct Action, the philosophy of M.L. King, A.J. Muste in the early civil rights movement. Why was that approach rejected in the later civil rights movement?
E. “White Violence”.
F.Urban riots during the sixties and lately(or are they “rebellions”?).
G.The Attica Uprising, 1971
F. Anti-Catholic, anti-Chinese, anti-Italian violence
G. Anti Semitic Violence (such as it has been in America): Leo Frank Case
READINGS FOR THE ABOVE: Butterfield (remainder of the book); Lawrence (assigned pages)
VI. Violent Crime and Violent Justice: April 3-10
- Violent crime in America in contrast to other
comparably industrialized, urbanized, “capitalist” nations?
- The conservative analysis, the conservative solution.
3. The “liberal” analysis, the liberal solution.
4. Race and Criminal violence;
5. The debate over gun-control
6. The debate over prisons and capital punishment.
- Why the steady increase for three decades beginning in the late Sixties? Why has violent crime declined in recent years?
- Police Violence
- “Hate Crimes” : the debate over that concept
READINGS FOR THE ABOVE:
ReviewThe debate over capital punishment on course website. Also the debate over
The use of “torture” on the course website.
- Violence Against Women; Violence by Women April 19-20
New Definitions of Rape: Real Rape, Susan Estrich
- Domestic Violence; wives and children (and husbands).
- Women who Kill (or slice): Belle Gunness, Lizzie Bordon, Alice Crimmins, Lorena Bobbit.
- Pornography and violence; pornography as violence.
5. The case for and against censorship and criminalization of pornography.
6. Rape, and sexual assault, on College Campuses. Title IX
7. Violence by Women, the tale of Lizzy Borden
READINGS FOR THE ABOVE : McKinnon, Only Words, Estridge, Real Rape
VIII: Serial Killers: Why do they kill. April 24
1.Albert de Salvo (the Boston Strangler allegedly); Son of Sam, Charles Manson and his merry band, Gary Gilmore, Jeffrey Dohmer.
- Is War the Answer? Is Non-violence the answer. The case for pacifism and the case against it. Cases in point: The Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, Iraq. Final reflections. April 26-May3