Eileen Ka-May Cheng

From the establishment of the nation to the present, the Founding Fathers have served as a touchstone for American identity. But can we speak of an American identity, or would it be more accurate to speak of American identities? After all, what were the common visions of such diverse figures as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin—and to what extent have their differences created multiple and perhaps irreconcilable American identities? Indeed, the very term “Founding Fathers” may be an evasion of the conflicts that have run through our entire history. Is the notion of the Founding Fathers our nation’s counterpart to the harmony of a Garden of Eden? But did the authors of Genesis have it wrong? Harmony is not incompatible with conflict; instead, one requires the other so that the denial of one is, in effect, the denial of the other. This course will explore how and why Americans have put such a premium on the Founding Fathers as a source of political legitimacy—first, by examining the political vision of the Founding Fathers themselves and putting into serious question commonly-held views about the ideals that they embraced. Were the founders proponents of liberal individualism and democracy, as so many Americans assume? Or were they backward-looking reactionaries, seeking to hold onto a communal ideal modeled on the ancient republics of Greece and Rome? The course will then analyze the political legacy of the founders during the early 19th century to the Civil War, ending with the question of how both the Union and the Confederacy could view themselves as the true inheritors of that legacy when they seemed to represent such opposed causes.

“The past is a foreign country,” T. H. Hartley once declared, and perhaps the past of one’s own country is doubly so. The present, after all, always seems inevitable. Surely, the United States of 2023 is but the flowering of the seeds planted so many centuries ago. This course seeks to challenge this assumption, as we consider not only how Americans in the period from 1607 to 1913 differed from us but also how much they differed from one another. Indeed, neither the Native Americans who lived in North America, nor the Europeans who colonized that region, nor the Africans whom the colonists imported as slaves had any intention of establishing a new nation. Consequently, in examining American history from the early 17th century to the Civil War, the question should not be why did the United States divide during the Civil War but, rather, why were Americans able to unify as a nation at all? In our consideration of this question, we will focus on two interrelated themes: how these different cultures interacted with and affected one another and how Americans defined their identity. Who was considered American, and what did it mean to be an American? What was the relationship between American identity and other forms of social identity, such as gender, class, race, and culture? The course is not meant to be a comprehensive survey but, instead, will explore these questions through select case studies that illuminate major political, social, and cultural developments in American history from the colonial period to the early 20th century. Among the techniques we will use are role-play simulations of events such as the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention—based on the Reacting to the Past pedagogy, developed by Mark Carnes at Barnard College—during which students will reenact the debates and conflicts surrounding those events. Students should be aware that, because these are reenactments, the process of playing the historical roles and immersing themselves in an earlier time can be emotionally intense and even uncomfortable. To enter the world of colonial and 19th-century America—one where people of European descent considered themselves more civilized than others, where women were viewed as subordinate to men, and where the elites saw themselves as superior to ordinary people—students should be prepared to engage in and express views that are alien and at times, indeed, aversive to them. The course thus aims to cultivate a sense of historical empathy by trying to understand the foreignness of the past on its own terms. Students will meet weekly with the instructor for individual conferences during the first half of the fall semester and then biweekly thereafter.

It may be comforting to know that historians agree that an American Revolution did, indeed, occur. Less comforting but more intriguing may be the realization that historians do not agree on when it commenced and when it ended, much less on the full meaning of what exactly took place beyond the mere facts of the Revolution. Certainly, the question was profound enough to move John Adams to ask, “What do we mean by the Revolution?” The course will look at the many different answers that revolutionary Americans gave to Adams’s question by examining the political, intellectual, social, and cultural dimensions of this event. Was the Revolution simply a struggle for political independence, or was it also a social conflict over who would “rule at home”? Was the American Revolution a transformation in the “hearts and minds” of the people, as Adams believed; or was the War for Independence integral to the meaning and character of the Revolution? Did the Revolution end with the close of the war; or was the war, to use Benjamin Rush’s words, “but the first act of the great drama”? What was the relationship between the Constitution and the Revolution? Was the Constitution a conservative reaction against the radicalism of the Revolution, or did the Constitution extend and solidify what the Revolution had achieved? While the emphasis of the course will be on what the Revolution meant for those who participated in it, we also look more broadly at the long-term legacy and memory of the Revolution. Through this examination, the course ultimately seeks to address the question: What was the basis for and nature of American national identity?

“The past is a foreign country,” T. H. Hartley once declared, and perhaps the past of one’s own country is doubly so. The present, after all, always seems inevitable. Surely, the United States of 2020 is but the flowering of the seeds planted so many centuries ago. This course seeks to challenge that assumption, as we consider not only how Americans in the period between 1607 and 1877 differed from us but also how much they differed from one another. Indeed, neither the Native Americans who lived in North America, nor the Europeans who colonized that region, nor the Africans whom the colonists imported as slaves had any intention of establishing a new nation. Consequently, in examining American history from the early 17th century to the Civil War, the question should not be “Why did the United States divide during the Civil War?” but, rather, “Why were Americans able to unify as a nation at all?” In our consideration of this question, we will focus on two interrelated themes: how the different cultures interacted with and affected one another and how Americans defined their identity. Who was considered American, and what did it mean to be an American? What was the relationship between American identity and other forms of social identity, such as gender, class, race, and culture? This course is not meant to be a comprehensive survey but, instead, will explore these questions through select case studies that illuminate major political, social, and cultural developments in American history from the colonial period to the Civil War and Reconstruction. Among the techniques that the course will use are role-play simulations of events, such as the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention, based on the “Reacting to the Past” pedagogy developed by Mark Carnes at Barnard College; students will reenact the debates and conflicts that engaged the participants in those events. Students should be aware that, because they will be reenactments, the process of playing those historical roles and immersing themselves in an earlier time can be emotionally intense and even uncomfortable. To enter the world of colonial and 19th-century America—one where people of European descent considered themselves more civilized than others, where women were viewed as subordinate to men, and where the elites saw themselves as superior to ordinary people—students should be prepared to engage in and express views that are alien and, indeed, at times aversive to them. The course thus aims to cultivate a sense of historical empathy by trying to understand the foreignness of the past on its own terms. This course will have weekly conferences for the first six weeks; thereafter, biweekly conferences.

It is 1787, and you are a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Will the proposed Constitution save the fragile new nation from falling into anarchy, or is it an instrument of tyranny that threatens to destroy the freedoms that the revolutionaries fought so hard to defend? These are some of the questions the course will ask you to confront as you engage in role-play simulations of three seminal moments in the development of democracy—going back to ancient Athens after the Peloponnesian War, then moving to the Constitutional Convention, and ending with the struggle for women’s suffrage among the Bohemians of Greenwich Village in the early 20th century. Students will be assigned roles representing the different contestants in these conflicts and asked to reenact the debates over them. To prepare for their roles, students will read relevant primary and secondary sources and write position papers expressing their character’s views. Students should be aware that the process of playing these historical roles and immersing themselves in an earlier time can be emotionally intense and even uncomfortable. To enter the world of these historical figures—a world where people of European descent considered themselves more civilized than others, where women were viewed as subordinate to men, and where aristocrats saw themselves as superior to ordinary people—students should be prepared to engage in and express views that are alien and, indeed, at times aversive to them. The course thus aims to show how much “the past is a foreign country,” as the writer L. P. Hartley once put it, and to cultivate a sense of historical empathy by trying to understand that foreignness on its own terms.

It is June 1776. You are a member of the New York Provincial Congress and are about to vote on whether to authorize New York’s delegates to the Continental Congress to declare independence from Britain. If you vote in favor and the rebellion fails, you could be tried and executed for treason. If you vote against, you could be ostracized by your revolutionary neighbors or worse—tarred and feathered or violently tortured in other ways. These are some of the dilemmas that the course will ask you to face as you engage in role-play simulations of the American and French Revolutions and the ratification of the Constitution, based on the Reacting to the Past pedagogy developed by Mark Carnes at Barnard College. Students will be assigned roles representing the different contestants in these conflicts and asked to reenact the debates over them. To prepare for their roles, students will read relevant primary and secondary sources and write position papers expressing their character’s views. Students should be aware that the process of playing these historical roles and immersing themselves in an earlier time can be emotionally intense and even uncomfortable. To enter the world of the 18th century—a world where people of European descent considered themselves more civilized than others, where women were viewed as subordinate to men, and where aristocrats saw themselves as superior to ordinary people—students should be prepared to engage in and express views that are alien and, indeed, at times aversive to them. The course thus aims to show how much “the past is a foreign country,” as the writer L. P. Hartley once put it, and to cultivate a sense of historical empathy by trying to understand that foreignness on its own terms.

It is 1637, and a woman’s life is in your hands. Do you vote to condemn Anne Hutchinson to exile and likely death simply for expressing her own religious beliefs and challenging the Puritan church? Or do you allow her to stay in Massachusetts, risking the destruction of the fragile young colony and the failure of its mission to be a “city on a hill” to the rest of the world? It is a century and half later, and you are now a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Will the proposed Constitution save the new nation from falling into anarchy, or is it an instrument of tyranny that threatens to destroy the freedoms the revolutionaries fought so hard to defend? These are some of the dilemmas that the course will ask you to face as you engage in role-play simulations of events such as the controversy over the religious dissenter Anne Hutchinson and the writing of the Constitution, based on the Reacting to the Past pedagogy developed by Mark Carnes at Barnard College. Students will be assigned roles representing the different contestants in these conflicts and asked to reenact the debates over them. To prepare for their roles, students will read relevant primary and secondary sources and write position papers expressing their character’s views. Students should be aware that the process of playing these historical roles and immersing themselves in an earlier time can be emotionally intense and even uncomfortable. To enter the world of the 17th and 18th centuries—one where people of European descent considered themselves more civilized than others, where women were viewed as subordinate to men, and where aristocrats saw themselves as superior to ordinary people—students should be prepared to engage in and express views that are alien and at times, indeed, aversive to them. Thus, the course aims to show how much “the past is a foreign country,” as the writer L. P. Hartley once put it, and to cultivate a sense of historical empathy by trying to understand that foreignness on its own terms.

Though our nation was born in conflict and is sustained by conflict, the present always seems inevitable; surely, the United States of 2022 is but the flowering of the seeds planted so many centuries ago. To imagine that the Revolutionary War ended in failure, that the Founding Fathers were hanged, and that the names of loyalists such as Hutchinson and Arnold were as much on our lips as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson seems blasphemous. Or to imagine celebrating the loyalist William Franklin as a hero rather than his father, Benjamin, seems utterly absurd. The world just wouldn’t be what it is if, instead of calling ourselves American, we identified ourselves as Canadian. The melodic themes of liberty, dissent, and equality would seem less lyrical if Americans could no longer claim them as their own; but would our understanding of American identity be the richer if we viewed these themes as forged in conflict? To this end, the course will focus on those groups who were on the losing side of major political conflicts from the American Revolution to the Civil War; namely, the loyalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Federalists, the Whigs, and the Confederacy. The course will also consider the ultimate losers in these conflicts—those who were denied political rights altogether and, thus, even the possibility of victory. What did the treatment of these different political groups reveal about the extent of—and limits to—American acceptance of dissent? How did a culture that placed a premium on success and achievement regard loss and defeat? How was the South able to turn the defeat of the Confederacy into a badge of honor and a source of pride through the idealization of the Lost Cause? What was the long-term legacy that these losing groups left behind? When viewed from this perspective, were these groups really losers at all? After all, without the Anti-Federalists, there would have been no Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Ultimately, the course aims to cultivate a “tragic” perspective that goes beyond viewing history in terms of winners and losers, heroes and villains, and, instead, recognizes that, in the final analysis, we are all in bondage to the knowledge that we possess.

From the establishment of the nation to the present, the “Founding Fathers” have served as a touchstone for American identity. But can we speak of an American identity? Or would it be more accurate to speak of American identities? After all, what were the common visions of such diverse figures as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin—and to what extent have their differences created multiple, and perhaps irreconcilable, American identities? Indeed, the very term “Founding Fathers” may be an evasion of the conflicts that have run through our entire history. Is the notion of the “Founding Fathers” our nation’s counterpart to the harmony of a Garden of Eden? But did the authors of Genesis have it wrong? Harmony is not incompatible with conflict but, instead, one requires the other so that the denial of one is in effect the denial of the other. This course will explore how and why Americans have put such a premium on the “Founding Fathers” as a source of political legitimacy by examining the diverse colonial roots of the political thought of the founding generation. We shall also explore the lines of continuity that link the founding generations to the influences of European thinkers such as John Locke and Adam Smith. The course will then look at the political vision of the “Founding Fathers” themselves, putting into serious question commonly held views about the ideals they embraced. Were the founders proponents of liberal individualism and democracy, as so many Americans assume? Or were they backward-looking reactionaries, seeking to hold onto a communal ideal modeled on the ancient republics of Greece and Rome? Finally, the course will analyze the political legacy of the founders during the early 19th century to the Civil War, ending with the question of how could both the Union and the Confederacy view themselves as the true inheritors of that legacy when they seemed to represent such opposed causes?

We were told that George Washington never told a lie and confessed to his much chagrined father that he chopped down the fabled cherry tree. Was this the myth to inspire trust in the “Founding Fathers” and the infant democracy? But the myths continue. For more than two centuries, the “Founding Fathers" have been a touchstone for American identity. Americans have expressed their fascination with the “Founders” not only in the political arena but also in the realm of fiction—in works ranging from James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Spy to the HBO series John Adams and the Broadway musical Hamilton. What is the source of this fascination? But most importantly, who were the “Founders” that have such a hold on the American historical imagination—and what did they actually stand for? The course will explore those questions by looking at the different ways that the “Founders” have been represented in film and fiction from their own time to the present. We will consider a variety of media, including novels, art, plays, films, and television. We will look at how those fictional portrayals reflected larger cultural changes and at the different political and social purposes they served. Would the musical glorification of Hamilton have been a hit during the Great Depression? We will also examine the extent to which those portrayals conformed to historical reality, using them to look more broadly at the relationship between history and fiction. What can fiction contribute to historical understanding, and what are its limits as a medium of historical representation?

Americans often like to think of the United States as a nation founded on ideals, but the United States also was, as one historian has put it, a nation “founded in blood.” Valley Forge was once our Statue of Liberty. After all, the American Revolution was not just a struggle for the ideals of liberty and equality that Jefferson so eloquently expounded in the Declaration of Independence. It was also a war for independence from Britain; an international conflict that included France and Spain; and, let us not forget, a bitter and cruel civil war among Americans themselves. In effect, we were birthed as a nation divided. How did this legacy of bloodshed shape American identity? To what extent did Americans sacralize bloodshed and, thus, conflate it with idealism? We remember the Alamo, but can anyone recall the basis of our claim to that territory? Are we not here going further and actually equating bloodshed with idealism? To what extent did Americans see their later wars as an extension of the Revolutionary War? Was the Civil War a second American Revolution, or was the American Revolution the nation's first civil war? The course will examine these questions by looking at how Americans perceived and remembered the wars in which they fought, from the Revolution to the Vietnam War. Among the wars to be considered are the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Civil War, World War I, and World War II; the course will culminate with a role-play simulation of the debate over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In effect, the course offers an exploration into how we may “see things not as they are but as we are.”

We were told that George Washington never told a lie and confessed to his much chagrined father that he chopped down the fabled cherry tree. Was this the myth to inspire trust in “The Founding Fathers” and the infant democracy? But the myths continue. For more than two centuries, “The Founding Fathers” have been a touchstone for American identity. Americans have expressed their fascination with “The Founders” not only in the political arena but also in the realm of fiction in works ranging from James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Spy to the HBO series John Adams and the Broadway musical Hamilton. What is the source of this fascination? But most importantly, who were “The Founders” that have such a hold on the American historical imagination, and what did they actually stand for? This course will explore these questions by looking at the different ways in which “The Founders” have been represented in film and fiction from their own time to the present. We will consider a variety of media, including novels, art, plays, films, and television. We will look at how those fictional portrayals reflect larger cultural changes and at the different political and social purposes that they served. Would the musical glorification of Hamilton have been a hit during the Great Depression? We will also examine the extent to which those portrayals conformed to historical reality, using them to look more broadly at the relationship between history and fiction. What can fiction contribute to historical understanding, and what are its limits as a medium of historical representation?

Though our nation was born in conflict and is sustained by conflict, the present always seems inevitable; surely the United States of 2020 is but the flowering of the seeds planted so many centuries ago. To imagine that the Revolutionary War ended in failure and the Founding Fathers were hung and the names of loyalists such as Hutchinson and Arnold were as much on our lips as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson seems blasphemous. Or to imagine celebrating the loyalist William Franklin as a hero rather than his father Benjamin seems utterly absurd. The world just wouldn’t be what it is if instead of calling ourselves American we identified ourselves as Canadian. The melodic themes of liberty, dissent, and equality would seem less lyrical if Americans could no longer claim them as their own, but would our understanding of American identity be the richer if we viewed these themes as forged in conflict? To this end, the course will focus on those groups who were on the losing side of major political conflicts from the American Revolution to the Civil War -- namely, the loyalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Federalists, the Whigs, and the Confederacy. The course will also consider the ultimate losers in these conflicts -- those who were denied political rights altogether and thus even the possibility of victory. What did the treatment of these different political groups reveal about the extent of -- and limits to -- American acceptance of dissent? How did a culture that placed a premium on success and achievement regard loss and defeat? How was the South able to turn the defeat of the Confederacy into a badge of honor and a source of pride through the idealization of the Lost Cause? What was the long-term legacy that these losing groups left behind? When viewed from this perspective, were these groups really losers at all? After all, without the Anti-Federalists, there would have been no Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Ultimately, the course aims to cultivate a “tragic” perspective that goes beyond viewing history in terms of winners and losers, heroes and villains, and instead recognizes that in the final analysis we are all in bondage to the knowledge that we possess.

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the truth of William Faulkner’s oft-quoted dictum—“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”—than recent conflicts over Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag. Yet, such conflicts over public remembrance of America’s past are not new. Nor have they been confined to the subject of the Confederacy. From the nation’s founding, Americans have argued over how they wanted their past to be remembered in everything from monuments and flags to textbooks and holidays. The course will look at these conflicts over public remembrance, beginning with the early years of the new nation and continuing to the present. Among the controversies that we will consider will be those over the Confederate flag, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian, and the establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a holiday. How do we explain the fervor of those debates? What do they tell us about their own time? What were the political and social purposes of the contestants in those conflicts? To what extent did their competing visions of the American past correspond to historical reality? What do those controversies reveal about the changes and divisions in how Americans have defined their identity? And, ultimately, what do they say about the power of the past in American culture and its relationship to American identity? Americans often like to think of themselves as a forward-looking nation untrammeled by the bonds of the past, a place where it was possible to “begin the world over again,” as Thomas Paine so eloquently put it; but were they in thrall to tradition or, to use Abraham Lincoln’s words, bound by “mystic chords of memory” more than they realize?

Is history just a memory of memories? This course will explore that question by looking at how Americans have remembered and mythologized important events and individuals in the nation’s history. One of the best-known such myths is the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. On being questioned by his father about who chopped down the cherry tree, Washington confessed that he had done it, telling his father, “I cannot tell a lie.” Ironically, however, this story was itself a fabrication. We must also not forget “Honest Abe,” where the theme of “honesty” recurs. Why have such myths been so important to American national identity? For example, was Washington’s purported truthfulness a way of creating a sense of transparency and a bond of trust between the people and their democratically elected government? The course will address such questions by looking at the construction and function of tradition and myth, as well as the relationship between myth and tradition in American culture from the American Revolution to the Civil War. We will examine some of the specific myths and traditions that Americans invented, such as the mythologization of individual figures like Sojourner Truth, as well as of specific events like that of the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention. The course will pay special attention to the mythologization of the American Revolution and the myth of the self-made man, examining how figures such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln both contributed to and embodied those myths. We will consider how and why myths about those events and individuals were created and the extent to which they corresponded to social reality. We will study how those myths both unified and divided Americans, as different groups used the same myths for conflicting social purposes. And finally, we will examine what those myths revealed about how Americans defined the nation’s identity. Was the United States a nation bound by “mystic chords of memory,” as Lincoln so poetically claimed? Or were Americans ultimately a “present-minded people” defined by their rejection of the past? More precisely, did Americans view the very notion of tradition as an impediment to the unlimited possibilities for growth and the actualization of their “manifest destiny”?

Though our nation was born in conflict and is sustained by conflict, the present always seems inevitable; surely the United States of 2018 is but the flowering of the seeds planted so many centuries ago. To imagine that the Revolutionary War ended in failure and that the Founding Fathers were hanged—and the names of loyalists such as Hutchinson and Arnold were as much on our lips as Washington, Adams, and Jefferson—seems blasphemous. Or to imagine celebrating the loyalist William Franklin as a hero rather than his father, Benjamin, seems utterly absurd. The world just wouldn’t be what it is if, instead of calling ourselves American, we identified ourselves as Canadian. The melodic themes of liberty, dissent, and equality would seem less lyrical if Americans could no longer claim them as their own; but would our understanding of American identity be the richer if we viewed these themes as forged in conflict? To this end, the course will focus on those groups who were on the losing side of major political conflicts from the American Revolution to the Civil War; namely, the loyalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Federalists, the Whigs, and the Confederacy. The course will also consider the ultimate losers in those conflicts—those who were denied political rights altogether and thus even the possibility of victory. What did the treatment of those different political groups reveal about the extent of—and limits to—American acceptance of dissent? How did a culture that placed a premium on success and achievement regard loss and defeat? How was the South able to turn the defeat of the Confederacy into a badge of honor and a source of pride through the idealization of The Lost Cause? What was the long-term legacy that those losing groups left behind? When viewed from this perspective, were those groups really losers at all? After all, without the Anti-Federalists, there would have been no Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Ultimately, the course aims to cultivate a “tragic” perspective that goes beyond viewing history in terms of winners and losers, heroes and villains, and instead recognizes that, in the final analysis, we are all in bondage to the knowledge that we possess.