Anger in American History - Detailseite

Does anger have a history? If so, how and why should we study it? In this course, we will look at how Americans from the colonial period to the early twenty-first century have stoked, channeled, managed, and suppressed anger for particular political purposes. Assuming that political mobilization and social movement-building require intense emotional work, we will (re)read key texts located at critical junctures in American history, including Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776), David Walker’s Appeal (1829), Malcom X’s Fanny Lou Hamer Speech (1964), and Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address (2017). While anger is a transhistorical phenomenon, we will probe the extent to which expressions of anger bear the imprint of the times in which they occurred and had different implications for different social groups. There are no preconditions for this course, but a basic familiarity with people and events in US history will help.