Syllabi and course packs for 2012 will be posted here as they are completed. If the syllabus or course pack for your course is not yet available, please check back at a later date. All syllabi and course packs will be posted by May 1st. These materials are complex and take time to put together accurately and completely. In an effort make sure that students are not inconvenienced by changes in required readings or assignments, we strive to be certain that each syllabus and course pack is truly final before it is posted. Please do not contact the MAHG office about availability of materials for a particular course; if it is not posted it is not yet available.

Click here for MAHG schedules, syllabi, and course packets from previous years.

Session 1: June 17 to June 22 | Session 2: June 24 to June 29 |
Session 3: July 1 to July 6 | Session 4: July 8 to July 13 |
Session 5: July 15 to July 20 | Session 6: July 22 to July 27

Session One: Sunday, June 17, 2012 to Friday, June 22, 2012

AHG 501A: The American Revolution — Core †

This course focuses on three topics: political developments in North America and the British Empire and the arguments for and against independence, culminating in the Declaration of Independence; the Revolutionary War as a military, social, and cultural event in the development of the American nation and state; and the United States under the Articles of Confederation.

Instructors:
  Robert M.S. McDonald (U.S. Military Academy)
  Scott Yenor (Boise State University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 502A: The American Founding — Core †

This course is an intensive study of the Constitutional Convention, the struggle over ratification of the Constitution, and the creation of the Bill of Rights. It will include a close examination of The Federalist and the anti-federalist papers.

Instructor:
  Jeffrey Sikkenga (Ashland University)

Guest Lecturer:
  Gordon Lloyd (Pepperdine University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet #1 (PDF)
  Course Packet #2 (PDF)

AHG 503A: Sectionalism and Civil War — Core

A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. This course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the Civil War, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun.

Instructors:
  Dan Monroe (Millikin University)
  Mackubin T. Owens (U.S. Naval War College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)
  Supplemental Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 510A: Great American Texts: The Federalist — Core

The Federalist is a complex political work comprised of arguments about war, economics, national unity, and liberty (among other things) based on appeals to human nature, history, reason, and prudence. In this course we will examine and discuss The Federalist as fully and as deeply we can, aiming to understand how (or whether) its parts fit together in a coherent whole and its enduring contribution to our understanding of politics.

Instructor:
  David Foster (Ashland University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

AHG 621: Race and Equality in America — Elective

This course will explore the history of black Americans as they strove to secure their dignity as human beings, and rights as American citizens, in the face of racial prejudice. It will examine the diverse viewpoints of leading black intellectuals and activists on human equality, slavery, self-government, the rule of law, emancipation, colonization, and citizenship. Contemporary issues to be considered may include affirmative action, black reparations, racial profiling, and the "achievement gap" in education.

Instructors:
  Lucas E. Morel (Washington and Lee University)
  Peter C. Myers (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 660A: Topics in American History and Government – America and Its Music — Elective ***CLASS CLOSED***

Jefferson believed that the spirit of the people was the heart of republican government. If music is an expression of the spirit, what does American music reveal about America? How has America shaped the music, the spirit, of its people? The course addresses these questions through a selective examination of some American music and some distinctive episodes in American History. The course includes some discussion of music theory but no specialized knowledge of music is necessary.

Instructors:
  John Moser (Ashland University)
  David Tucker (U.S. Naval Postgraduate School)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

† Course to be held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Session Two: Sunday, June 24, 2012 to Friday, June 29, 2012

AHG 502B: The American Founding — Core †

This course is an intensive study of the Constitutional Convention, the struggle over ratification of the Constitution, and the creation of the Bill of Rights. It will include a close examination of The Federalist and the anti-federalist papers.

Instructor:
  Christopher Burkett (Ashland University)

Guest Lecturer:
  Gordon Lloyd (Pepperdine University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 504A: Civil War and Reconstruction — Core

This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war amendments and the Reconstruction era.

Instructors:
  Lucas Morel (Washington & Lee University)
  Mackubin T. Owens (U.S. Naval War College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)
  Supplemental Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 610: American Foreign Policy – The Founding to the 21st Century — Elective

This course examines the international relations of the United States from the Founding to 9/11. Even before the twentieth century marked the rise of the nation to a superpower with a myriad of global interests and commitments, foreign relations was a significant concern of the U.S. Accordingly, students will examine the role of foreign policy in this rise of the U.S. in the 19th century, with special attention to the ways in which the principles and practices of democracy and capitalism have shaped American foreign policy. Topics will include the nation's relations with European powers in the early republic, the War of 1812, the acquisition of overseas territory and colonies, the influence of Wilsonianism and America's entry into the world wars, the Cold War, and the new challenges of the post-9/11 era.

Instructors:
  Steven Hayward (American Enterprise Institute)
  Stephen Knott (U.S. Naval War College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 631: American Political Rhetoric — Elective

This course examines American political rhetoric in its broadest sense as the art of political persuasion and civic education. Surveying the field from the Founders through Barack Obama, we will engage in a careful reading of the speeches and writings of leading statesmen and literati, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, FDR, JFK, Robert Frost, and Ronald Reagan.

Instructors:
  Ken Masugi (Johns Hopkins University)
  Colleen Sheehan (Villanova University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

AHG 641: The Supreme Court — Elective

This course is an intensive study of the highest court in the federal judiciary, focusing on the place of the Supreme Court in the American constitutional order. Areas of study may include the relationship between the Court and the other branches of the federal government as well as the states; the Court's power of judicial review; and judicial politics and statesmanship. We will examine these kinds of issues by investigating how the Court has interpreted the Constitution in some of its most historic decisions.

Instructors:
  Joshua Dunn (University of Colorado-Colorado Springs)
  Eric C. Sands (Berry College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

AHG 660B: Topics in American History and Government: The Ratification Debate — Elective †

This course examines the debate over ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1787-1788. Once the Philadelphia convention adjourned September 17 and forwarded the finished Constitution to the states, an intense national debate, lasting more than a year, got underway. This class will focus on the debates engendered by the new Constitution, examine the arguments developed for and against the document by its advocates and critics, trace the patterns and the process of ratification, and consider the historical, theoretical and philosophical backgrounds to those debates. Finally, the course will examine the ratification contests as they took place both in the newspapers and in the individual state ratifying conventions.

Instructors:
  Jeremy D. Bailey (University of Houston)
  Todd Estes (Oakland University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

† Course to be held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Session Three: Sunday, July 1, 2012 to Friday, July 6, 2012

AHG 505A: The Progressive Era — Core ***CLASS CLOSED***

The transition to an industrial economy posed many problems for the United States. This course examines those problems and the responses to them that came to be known as progressivism. The course includes the study of World War I as a manifestation of progressive principles. The course emphasizes the political thought of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and their political expression of progressive principles.

Instructors:
  Christopher Burkett (Ashland University)
  J. David Alvis (Wofford College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 510B: Great American Texts: Democracy in America — Core

Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America is commonly regarded as the most profound study of America ever written. Seeing "in America more than America," Tocqueville studies America to understand the nature of modern democracy itself. In the course of his discussion, he examines, among many other subjects, America's democratic social condition, its constitutional federalism, the problem of majority tyranny in America, the troubled relations among its racial groups, the prevailing understanding of sexual equality, the relation of religion and government, the powerful love of material well-being, and the dangers of administrative centralization and "mild despotism." This course will examine Tocqueville's treatments of these and other subjects in extensive excerpts from his book, all with a larger view toward understanding his descriptive account of democracy in America, his analysis of the main dangers it faces, and his suggestions as to the proper remedies for those dangers-the means for preserving and enhancing liberty in a nation dedicated to the principle of political and social equality.

Instructor:
  David Foster (Ashland University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

AHG 510C: Great American Texts: Uncle Tom's Cabin — Core ***CLASS CLOSED***

This course illuminates one area of American political thought. The topic will be Harriet Stowe's moral account of freedom and the reasoning associated with it. The focus will be on Uncle Tom's Cabin, albeit referencing several of Stowe's writings. We will establish a context for the discussion by reviewing Frederick Douglass's powerful question, "What country have I?", and the political, religious, and cultural contexts in which Uncle Tom's Cabin was written. The goal is to understand just how Stowe came to formulate her ideas and why she had the impact on American society that she did. Also to be considered is whether the philosophical ideas that informed her work bear any direct responsibility for the political events that unfolded as a result of her work.

Instructor:
  William B. Allen (Michigan State University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 510D: Great American Texts: Frederick Douglass — Core

To reflect on the life of Frederick Douglass is to be reminded of the famous self-description attributed to his great contemporary, Mark Twain: "I am not an American; I am the American." A classic self-made man, Douglass, like his country, rose from a low beginning to a great height; he gained freedom by his own virtue and against great odds in a revolutionary struggle; and he matured into an internationally renowned apostle of universal liberty. In this course, we consider Douglass' telling of his own story, taking as primary texts his three autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881; 1892). We will find in these texts not only the annals of an unforgettable life but also Douglass' reflections on enduring issues in American political thought such as the nature and specific evil of slavery, the nature and grounds of human rights and freedom, and the meaning and mission of the American Republic.

Instructor:
  Peter C. Myers (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 604: The Early Republic — Elective

Having adopted a form of government, the Americans had to make it work. This course examines their efforts to do so, as the Republic took shape amidst foreign dangers, political conflict, westward expansion and religious revivals.

Instructors:
  Stephen Knott (U.S. Naval War College)
  Michael Schwarz (Ashland University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

Session Four: Sunday, July 8, 2012 to Friday, July 13, 2012

AHG 503B: Sectionalism and Civil War — Core

A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. The course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the Civil War, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun.

Instructors:
  Peter W. Schramm (Ashland University)
  Kevin Portteus (Hillsdale College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)
  Supplemental Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 504B: Civil War and Reconstruction — Core

This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war amendments and the Reconstruction era.

Instructors:
  Joseph R. Fornieri (Rochester Institute of Technology)
  Stephen Tootle (College of the Sequoias)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 605: The Age of Enterprise — Elective

In the last decades of the 19th Century, the United States took decisive steps away from its rural, agrarian past toward its industrial future, assuming its place among world powers. This course examines that movement, covering such topics as business-labor relations, political corruption, immigration, imperialism, the New South, and segregation and racism.

Instructors:
  Dan Monroe (Millikin University)
  Matthew Norman (University of Cincinnati-Blue Ash)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

AHG 660C: Topics in American History and Government – What is an American? — Elective ***CLASS CLOSED***

From the moment of the Revolution, Americans and observers about the world believed that Americans were doing something new and unprecedented. This led some to ask in bewilderment and others in expectation, "What then is the American, this new man?" This course considers two answers to this question, one provided by Benjamin Franklin, the other by Mark Twain.

Instructors:
  Christopher Flannery (Azusa Pacific University)
  David Tucker (U.S. Naval Postgraduate School)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)
  Supplemental Course Packet (PDF)

Session Five: Sunday, July 15, 2012 to Friday, July 20, 2012

AHG 505B: The Progressive Era — Core

The transition to an industrial economy posed many problems for the United States. This course examines those problems and the responses to them that came to be known as progressivism. The course includes the study of World War I as a manifestation of progressive principles. The course emphasizes the political thought of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and their political expression of progressive principles.

Instructors:
  Ronald J. Pestritto (Hillsdale College)
  William Atto (University of Dallas)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 510E: Great American Texts: Crisis of the House Divided and A New Birth of Freedom — Core ***CLASS CLOSED***

In this course we will examine and discuss Crisis and New Birth as fully and as deeply as we can, aiming to understand how (or whether) their parts fit together in a coherent whole and what is their enduring contribution to our understanding of politics. These two volumes by Harry V. Jaffa on the political philosophy of Abraham Lincoln are achievements of American scholarly statesmanship rising to the level of Lincoln's own political statesmanship.

Instructor:
  Christopher Flannery (Azusa Pacific University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 642: Political Parties — Elective

This course examines the development of American political parties, focusing on the meaning of parties and historic moments in the rise and fall of political parties from the Founding Era to the present. Topics may include re-aligning elections, changing coalitions within American parties, and the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties.

Instructors:
  Marc Landy (Boston College)
  Stephen R. Thomas (Ohio Dominican University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

Session Six: Sunday, July 22, 2012 to Friday, July 27, 2012

AHG 501B: The American Revolution — Core

This course focuses on three topics: political developments in North America and the British empire and the arguments for and against independence, culminating in the Declaration of Independence; the Revolutionary War as a military, social and cultural event in the development of the American nation and state; and the United States under the Articles of Confederation.

Instructors:
  Mickey Craig (Hillsdale College)
  Natalie Taylor (Skidmore College)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)

AHG 633: The American Presidency II: Johnson to Present — Elective

This course is an examination of the political and constitutional development of the office of president from Reconstruction to the present. It focuses on how changing conceptions of the presidency have shaped American political life in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as America has become a global power.

Instructors:
  Marc Landy (Boston College)
  Jeremy D. Bailey (University of Houston)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

AHG 660D: Topics in American History and Government – World War II — Elective

World War II was the most destructive conflict in the history of the world, affecting nearly everyone who was alive at the time, as well as the generations that followed. This seminar will examine the causes, course, and consequences of the war, both in the European and Asian/Pacific theaters as well as on the American homefront. While it will emphasize the role that the United States played in the conflict, it will not ignore those aspects of the war in which Americans were not directly involved, such as the early war years (1939-41), and the genocidal conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Instructors:
  David Krugler (University of Wisconsin-Platteville)
  John Moser (Ashland University)

Course Materials:
  Syllabus (PDF)
  Course Packet (PDF)

Schedule for Summer 2013
Session 1: Sunday, June 16 to Friday, June 21, 2013
Session 2: Sunday, June 23 to Friday, June 28, 2013
Session 3: Sunday, June 30 to Friday, July 5, 2013
Session 4: Sunday, July 7 to Friday, July 12, 2013
Session 5: Sunday, July 14 to Friday, July 19, 2013
Session 6: Sunday, July 21 to Friday, July 26, 2013