Reacting to the Past, Pioneered by Barnard College, Consists of Elaborate Games, Set In

HNRS 20025

HONORS INTERMEDIATE SEMINAR: POWER AND THE FATE OF REPUBLICS

Fall 2014

Vivian Bruce Conger Office: Muller 408

Office Hours: MWF 2:00-4:00 p.m.

BY APPOINTMENT

Office phone number: 4-3572 e-mail:

Course Methodology:

The pedagogy, which won the 2004 Theodore Hesburgh Award (TIAA-CREF) for educational innovation, consists of elaborate historical games, in which students lead each others in explorations of great texts in the history of social and political thought. It seeks to draw students into the past, promote their engagement with important ideas in various civilizations and disciplines, and improve speaking, writing, and leadership skills.

Trial of Anne Hutchinson, The: Liberty, Law, and Intolerance in Puritan New England recreates one of the most tumultuous and significant episodes in early American history: the struggle between the followers and allies of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and those of Anne Hutchinson, a strong-willed and brilliant religious dissenter. The controversy pushed Massachusetts to the brink of collapse and spurred a significant exodus.The puritans who founded Massachusetts were poised between the Middle Ages and the modern world, and in many ways, they helped to bring the modern world into being.This game plunges you into the religious world of John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, Anne Hutchinson, and others that will be unfamiliar to many of you. Yet the puritans’ passionate struggles over how far they could tolerate a diversity of religious opinions in a colony committed to religious unity were part of a larger historical process that led to religious freedom and the modern concept of separation of church and state. Their vehement commitment to their liberties and fears about the many threats these faced were passed down to the American Revolution and beyond.

Patriots, Loyalists, and Revolution in New York City, 1775-1776 takes you into the political and social chaos of a revolutionary New York City, where patriot and loyalist forces argued and fought for advantage among a divided populace.Here you will find a limnal world of chaos, disruption, loss of privacy, and fear of victimization that comes with any revolution accompanied by violence.The overall outcome and the intermediate “surprises” that reflect the shift of events in 1775-76 demonstrate the role of contingency in history. Could the Brits still win? What were the complexities, strengths, and weaknesses of the arguments on both sides? How were these affected by the social circumstances in which the Revolution occurred? You will engage with the ideological foundations of revolution and government through close readings of Locke, Paine, and other contemporary arguments. Winning requires the ability to master the high political arguments for and against revolution as well as the low political skills of logrolling, bribery, and threatened force.

Course Goals and Objectives:

This course will examine the experience of Americans from the time of first permanent settlement by English colonists in 1607 to the American Revolution (1770s). My goal is to introduce students to historical analysis and argument through the examination of the planting, growth, and development of American societies. Students are expected to learn not only the basic data of early American history but also to express that knowledge in oral and written argument that employs evidence to prove historical theses. Students are expected to immerse themselves in the documents and to play historically accurate roles in order to comprehend the complexities of Puritan life and thought in Massachusetts (Trial of Anne Hutchinson) and of revolutionary America (New York City, 1775-76).

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

-Identify the changing meaning and significance of power and resistance to authority in American society and politics, and relate that to current American ideological issues

-Understand at a visceral level the fundamental ideologies of Puritans and American revolutionaries

-Organize and consolidate material provided in lectures and readings in order to answer essay questions which require comparative analyses, synthetic thinking, and cause/effect linkages.

Course Readings:

Winship, Michael and Mark Carnes, Trial of Anne Hutchinson, The: Liberty, Law, and Intolerance in Puritan New England: Reacting to the Past

Offutt, William, Patriots, Loyalists, and Revolution in New York City, 1775-1776: Reacting to the Past

Rutman, Darrett, Winthrop's Boston: Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649

Wood, Gordon, The American Revolution

Course Reserves—see below

Various handouts—chapters from books, journal articles, additional primary documents (posted on Sakai under Resources)

You ABSOLUTELY MUST do supplemental reading/research in both primary and secondary sources as needed to fulfill your role objectives! If you do not, it will be patently obvious and your grade will suffer—AND YOUR GROUP COULD LOSE THE GAME. Remember THERE IS LOTS OF MATERIAL to explore beside the books on course reserve!

All students must complete 2 short essays 4-5 pages each in each of the two games (information about the short essays is given in both game packages) and one takehome final exam. The exam will give you a choice of two essay questions; you must answer one in no more than ten typewritten, doublespaced pages (I stop reading after ten pages). You are encouraged to discuss the question among yourselves, but all outlines and all writing must be done individually.

Grades will be apportioned on the following point basis:

Anne Hutchinson Game45%

Participation50%

Paper 125%

Paper 225%

Revolutionary NYC Game45%

Participation50%

Paper 125%

Paper 225%

Exam10%

READING, PARTICIPATION, AND DISCUSSION ASSIGNMENTS:

YOU SHOULD ALWAYSBRING THE GAME BOOKLETS WITH YOU.

Anne Hutchinson

August 27Introduction to the course

August 29Prep Session A: Read and discuss Winship,The Trial of Anne Hutchinson: Liberty, Law, and Intolerance in Puritan New England, 1-64

Election of Governor John Winthrop

September 1LABOR DAY—NO CLASS!

September 3Distribute remaining roles and various meetings

Prep Session B: Read Winship, The Trial of Anne Hutchinson, 65-103 (primary documents) and re-read selections relating to theology!

September 5 Rutman, Winthrop’s Boston, Chapters 1-6(yes, I know it is a lot! It can’t be helped)

September 8Prep Session C: Faction meetings and individual meetings, preparation for Paper 1

September 10Game Session 1: Church

September 12Game Session 1: Court

September 15Faction meetings OUTSIDE OF CLASS

September 17Game Session 2: Church

September 19Game Session 2: Court

September 22Discussion, meetings

September 24Game Session 3: Church

September 26Game Session 3: Court

September 29Discussion, meetings

October 1Game Session 4: Church

October 3Game Session 4: Court

October 6Discussion, meetings

October 8Game Session 5: Court

October 10Final on-line discussions outside of class—all must do this!

October13Game Session 6—John Cotton’s sermon and the vote on guilt or innocence of Anne Hutchinson

October15Post Mortem

October17Fall Break—No class!!

New York City in the American Revolution

October 20Offutt, Patriots, Loyalists, and Revolution in New York City, 1775-1776 (the game packet through page 77)

October 22Gordon Wood, The American Revolution: A History, Parts I, II, III

October 24Gordon Wood, The American Revolution: A History, Parts IV and V

October 27Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 10-42; Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible(posted on Sakai), 200-241; and Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York, 11-45 (all three chapters posted on Sakai)

October 29Offutt, Patriots, Loyalists, and Revolution in New York City, 1775-1776 (primary documents, 78-159)

Distribution of Roles

October 31FACTION MEETINGS OUTSIDE OF CLASS

November3Public Session 1—Week 2 in the game book—25 MINUTE FACTION MEETINGS

November 5Public Session 1—Week 2 in the game book

November 7Public Session 2—Week 2 in the game book

November 10Public Session 2—Week 2 in the game book —25 MINUTE FACTION MEETINGS

November 12Public Session 3—Week 3 in the game book

November 14Public Session 3—Week 3 in the game book

November 17FACTION MEETINGS OUTSIDE OF CLASS

November 19Public Session4—Week 3 in the game book

November 21Public Session 4—Week 3 in the game book

November 24THANKSGIVING—NO CLASSES!!

November 26THANKSGIVING—NO CLASSES!!

November 28THANKSGIVING—NO CLASSES!!

December 1Public Session 5—Week 4 in the game book—25 MINUTE FACTION MEEETINGS

December 3Public Session 5—Week 4 in the game book

December 5Public Session 6—Week 4 in the game book—25 MINUTE FACTION MEETINGS

December 8Public Session 6—Week 4 in the game book

December 10Wrap Up—Gordon Wood, The American Revolution: A History, Part VI

December 12Post mortems and day of celebration

Friday, December 19Final Essay due no later than 10:30 a.m. Of course, I am always willing to have early papers!

Trial of Anne Hutchinson, The: Liberty, Law, and Intolerance in Puritan New England

Bible Concordances

If you have a Bible or can get a hold of one, you should bring it to class.

You should always use the King James’s Version of the Bible.

A Google search of bible concordance or bible concordance king james will turn up a number of sites.

The best concordance is Strong’s (The exhaustive concordance of the Bible : showing every word of the text of the common English version of the canonical books, and every occurrence of each word in regular order, together with a key-word comparison of selected words and phrases in the King James version).

There is a printed version in the Reference section of the college library. See BS425 .S8 1980. Find the on line version at

“The Strong's concordance is a very useful tool for studying the scriptures. It takes every single word of the King James Version and lists where each word can be found in the scriptures. It is useful for locating scripture verses that you know the words to, but don't know the book, chapter and verse.

For example, let's say that you know of a verse that says our hairs are numbered. You could look up the word "numbered" in a Strong's Concordance and it would give you a listing of all the verses that contain the word "numbered". You would then find Matthew 10:30, where Yahushua said that "the very hairs of your head are all numbered". You can find the Strong's Concordance in most any bible bookstore (See the graphic to your right).

Also beside each verse reference there is a number. That number represents a Hebrew word (if in the Old Testament) or Greek word (if in the New Testament). In the back of the book it lists Hebrew and Greek words used to translate the bible into English. Each has a a number beside them so that we may only need to know the number to locate a Greek or Hebrew word. Then we can do a word study by reading the meaning of the original word. Whenever I refer to a number in the Strong's concordance, you can look up the number for yourself in the Strong's Lexicon or other lexicons that use Strong's numbers to verify everything.

One thing to keep in mind is that while the Strong's Concordance is fairly reliable in its lexicon definitions, it is relying on 19th century scholarship. One of the best ways to determine the true meaning of a word is look up that word in a Hebrew or Greek Lexicon to see how it was translated in various places (See below). Also, Hebrew especially has various verb forms, tenses and stems that can have different meanings. The Strong's Lexicon doesn't do much to address this, but others (such as the Brown Driver Briggs that the online concordance uses) have more detailed definitions for each verb stem.”