In 1903, the scholar, educator, and activist W.E.B. Du Bois wrote: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Taking this prescient statement as a starting point, this survey course will introduce important themes in the history of the United States from the turn of the 20th century to today. By utilizing the constructs of race, class, gender, and sexuality (among others) as lenses through which to interpret events within and beyond national borders, we will come to understand the "modern" United States as a global archipelago, imperial war machine, and arbiter of political, social, and economic power. We will cover topics including, but not limited to: Jim Crow laws, immigration policy, the Civil Rights Era and Black Power movement, Indigenous self-determination and Red Power, mass incarceration, genealogies of feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and the acceleration of climate change. |