History 142 / MAS 142 Spring 2015
Southwestern College
Dr. Rich Gibson, Emeritus Professor, San Diego State
Lecturer, Southwestern College
Web Page: https://sites.google.com/site/richgibsonswc/
Email: Prof@richgibson.com
Einstein: “It is the theory which sets up what is observed.”
Hegel: “The purpose of education is transformation, toward an ethical person.”
Dickens: (in Hard Times, Gradgrind speaking): “Facts! I want nothing, nothing, but facts!”
Freire: “To act as if truth belongs only to a teacher is not only preposterous, but false.”
Goodman: “Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not a science.”
Marx: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point is
to change it.”
OPENING REMARKS
This is your guide to our class. Ours is a very fast-paced course dealing with vital questions which set up our current situation.
I ask you to work with your colleagues to create a climate where ideas, evidence, and argument matter in a struggle for what is true, where everyone is valued for the part of the truth that they can contribute, and where we learn to agree and to disagree reasonably and productively–yet passionately.
I will do all I can to be available to help every student. I believe you have a right to expect encouragement, sympathy, humanity—and a serious challenge to all that you know. Even so, you are responsible for your own education.
This process will work best if we cooperate to create a community that includes the following:
1. Our ideas count. They set up our deeds. There are worthy things to be learned.
2. Our collective may offer greater wisdom than any one of us. This only happens if we seriously struggle for truth. We may never agree, but our disagreements will be clearer if grounded in evidence. Soldiering, doing the minimum, poisons the common well. Think outside your pay grade. Being a student, or a professor, means extending curiosity, not limiting it. Civility in discussion is expected.
We need to be able to be critical, reflective, caring, hard-working; yet detached enough that we can see that there are many ways of knowing something. Each of us may bring a different way. Passion is a big part of learning, as is understanding that all knowledge is partial, and we might just be, even partially, wrong. Mutual respect and humility make sense. Contempt doesn’t. This does not mean, however, that there is no way to test for the value of given ideas, no way to determine where correct ideas come from. Some ideas are much better than others.
BASICS
Class will begin and end on time. Arrive promptly with assignments completed. Please shut off cell phone ringers. Don’t text.
Our task is to answer, “Why are things as they are?” with the understanding that people make their own histories, but do not choose their birthrights.
We will ask fundamental, to the root questions, from “What is History?,” to “Why are we here?” to, “What are the competing views on the processes of history?,” to “Why do things change, if they do?,” and many in between.
I will share my outlook with you–not expecting that you accept it–and criticize your standpoints as well, with respect for ideas rooted in evidence. You will also see two different historical interpretations in our texts. That adds up to five: you, me, Professors Zinn, Meyer, and Gonzalez–perhaps many others from classmates.
You will be asked to become a historian, or be aware that you are a historian now. In developing a critical outlook, asking to-the-root questions, in being better able to locate your own historical situation, you will be able to make better decisions about your future. That is one reason why history matters. At the end of the class, you should be able to better answer the question, “Who am I, in relation to others?” The answer to that sets up how you sort truth from lies and, therefore, what you choose to do.
I can and do lecture. However, much of learning history, or anything, comes through dialogue. I will pose questions; history as a problem. Part of your responsibility is to speak up and struggle for truthful answers. You will often work in groups. Find a friend–priceless.
Every student is concerned about grades, for good reasons. However, solely performing for a grade can lead to a “tell me what to do and I will do it” outlook that I do not want to foster. It’s the psychology of slaves: obedience and feigned loyalty. More about grades below.
You will be asked to do critical research. The purpose is to try to better understand and change the world. Today, this is a life and death matter.
It may be that you have already developed a research question to propel your intellectual work–or perhaps not. The question that continues to interest me, in general, is this: What is it that makes it so easy to turn people into instruments of their own oppression (Confederate troops on Picket’s Charge), or, inversely, what is it that people need to know, and how do we need to come to know it, in order to lead reasonably free, creative, connected lives, as distinct from engaging in mass perpetual industrialized slaughter?
Further still, what is the relationship of how people learn to do what they do, and what they know—their conscious decision-making?
As a historian with a future of intellectual and practical work, think about a broad question that might puzzle you for years to come, or you may just find a fast breakthrough answer that leads to a new question. A good question can guide you throughout college.
This course is a survey of the history of the relationship of the United States and Mexico after the Civil War: 1865 to now. It is a great deal to address in an extraordinarily short time.
Via lectures, readings, and discussion, I will introduce you to some of the major political, social, economic and cultural transformations that have shaped both countries–and the world. In general, we will be concerned with three broad inter-related themes: 1) the interactions of power and the development of empire; 2) the emergence of capitalist democracy as seen from both nations, and 3) the struggles of ordinary people to define promises of freedom and democracy.
While learning core dates is important, equally or more important is learning the processes of history; how and why things change. We will examine the connections between historical events, the larger themes of the class, and their role in shaping today’s world.
It is my goal that you will cultivate the intellectual skills you will need to use in deepening your historical knowledge and interpretations in dealing with present concerns. We cannot understand and act on contemporary problems unless we have some idea of how we got here in the first place. View today’s world not just as “the way it is,” but as the way people in history have made it, and how you and I continue to make and remake it every day. This course should promote your development of a “critical historical imagination.”
Attendance is vital. More than three un-excused absences (few absences are excused) will likely result in failure. If you’re not here to discuss, you won’t be getting all that you could out of the class. More importantly, your absence (physically or mentally) deprives the other students in the class who rely on you to help foster an atmosphere of open exchange. We each need everyone’s participation to make this a useful class, so no sleeping, extraneous talking, or reading during lecture and discussion. These activities will be considered absences.
Our class will move surprisingly fast. The readings and writing requirements do not ease up, but get more demanding. Don’t fall behind. It will be very hard to catch up.
GRADES AND REQUIREMENTS
Testing, whether through essay exams, papers, or multiple choice tests is relatively subjective. I oppose high-stakes trick exams that set professors against students, causing many people to forget what they learned when the test is done. I prefer you write reading responses and essays in depth about research topics of interest to you.
Reading Responses
So, at the outset of the class, submit (by email) one short essay every other week around 100 words responding to some selection in the readings: What is said, what do you think about that, and what did you learn? Emphasis is on what you think--and evidence for that.
Essays
In addition, I require that you write two 7-10 page essays (double spaced, usual margins) demonstrating research that you have done on a specific part of the readings. I expect you to cite at least three reputable sources (Wikipedia is “iffy” but often useful as a starting point). Use any style manual that allows me to follow your references. The second paper may expand on the first.
Topics? You could do a research paper on one of Mexico’s Revolutionary War battles, the evolution of weaponry after 1865, the role of women in a particular period in Mexico or the US, Reconstruction, the Wars on Vietnam, the history debates about the reasons for Mexico’s revolution or WW I or II, how US history is presented in k12 schools (or isn’t), the Industrial Workers of the World, the Critique of Tyranny, water in California and Mexico, Chalmers Johnson’s “Nemesis Trilogy,” and the implications of Empire, Crazy Horse and Custer, the Anglo wars on the Indians, the role of geography, the rise of Big Capital, etc. Click here Suggested Topics for Papers and Presentations.
Some people find a question that needs to be answered, then look for a topic to answer it. Others take a topic that interests them, then find more questions that need to be answered.
Again, it is your choice. But, ask me to approve your topic. I expect you to do research expanding beyond the assigned texts. If you have questions, email me.
One paper is due mid-semester, one on the second to last class.
Portfolio
In addition, at the second to last class, you will compile your short responses and longer papers as a modest portfolio. You may email the papers to me (in RTF) or give me hard copies in a stamped self-addressed envelope. Include your analysis of your work and a request for a grade.
Presentations
You will be asked to make a brief presentation for each paper you do. Prepare a brief, 5-10 minute presentation on your papers for the last class. Class size will determine the viability of presentations.
Exams
If it appears to me that students are not doing the readings and responses, I foresee giving exams–multiple choice, essay questions, etc. None of us will enjoy that. Do the readings.
Plagiarism
Cheating or plagiarism will not be tolerated. Plagiarism is representing the work of another as yours. Plagiarism is dishonest, unfairly sets the plagiarist against other students, and it cuts off the struggle for knowledge. Don’t do it. Plagiarism will result in failure. See below for the SWC position on “Academic Dishonesty.”
Evaluation
Your evaluation of yourself should be more important to you than the grades I offer. Grading custom requires me to make some judgment about your work too. That is not to say that grades are arbitrary; rather, they are based on your ability to demonstrate to me a level of understanding and critical engagement with the material. I have never had complaints about grades. Students found my judgments fair.
You will not compete against each other and there will be no curving of grades. If everyone does mediocre work, everyone receives Cs. If all do excellent work, all get As. If you are concerned about how you are doing, let me know, and I will let you know if I believe your performance is sub-par. If you are reading this for the first time, early in the class, you have an A. Work to keep it. That is the grade I hope to give you. Let us both aim high.
REQUIRED TEXTS
The Course of Mexican History edited by Professor Meyer (any edition).
Guest Workers or Colonized Labor by Gilbert Gonzalez (any edition).
Howard Zinn, People’s History of the United States, (a copy is online!) and Handouts on my web site linked to the syllabus.
THE CLASS AGENDA
We will begin the week with an approximately 20-minute discussion of “What’s Up?” Part of being a historian is paying attention, critically. Over the years, you will remember the history that you lived. All history is an analysis of the past, from a standpoint in the present, that is embedded with a call to action in the future. Given the many present crises, we need to know what is up. As our class progresses, you may see that while history does not precisely repeat itself, it can be surprising to see how people who have no grasp of history repeat past errors in slightly new ways. We will regularly wonder “why are things as they are?” in the historical context.
Please bring a clipping from the NY Times or LA Times, or The Wall Street Journal (all are online) to each class and be prepared to discuss the issue your piece raises. (Gossip may make the world go ‘round, but let’s skip the Kardashians, A-Rod, Tiger Woods, etc). We will develop a process of choosing what to discuss that will grow more sophisticated as the class progresses.
Once we complete What’s Up? we will go on to discussions about the assigned readings. That discussion will begin with you working in small groups (no more than 4) reviewing your reading responses, deciding what you would like to discuss with the entire class, and why.
Check the syllabus and your email each week for announcements and links to extensions from our discussions.
CALENDAR
PART ONE: CAPITALISM + DEMOCRACY: EMPIRE, SUPREMACY, AND THE ARTS OF RESISTANCE
MEETING 1 – Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Introductions.
Questions:
Who are you? Why are we here? What is history? Why take this class? What were you taught about history? What are the motive forces of history? What is our current context? Why take this class? What were you taught about history? How was it taught? Why? What do you remember most clearly?
Why have school?
Who is this professor anyway?
What are the motive forces of history?
How our class will work?
MEETING 2 – Thursday, March 26, 2015
What is up?
Discussion of syllabus (make notes of your questions).
Chalmers Johnson (San Diego's author of the Nemesis trilogy) says that Americans are so unaware of history they cannot connect cause and effect. Is that true? Why, or why not? Proof? What is our social context today?
We will deepen our analysis: Why have school? What is our social context today?
Read and make notes from "Questions for Criticism" at: http://www.richgibson.com/QUESTCRI.html (Save this).
Read my synopsis of Carr’s, “What is History?” at http://richgibson.com/compromisehistory.htm
Prepare to do the exercise at http://richgibson.com/masterslave.htm
Read Mexico Today: Failed State? Colony? Growing Industrial Democracy? What? Read the links for Mexico at Wikipedia, at the CIA World Fact Book, at Cockcroft, and see how mainstream US academics view Mexico's schools here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Mexico
Read Cockcroft's short article on Mexico today here: http://www.monthlyreview.org/101101cockcroft.php
Read my synopsis of Cockroft's book here: http://richgibson.com/mexicotoday.html
Beware of brainwashing! http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/us/08ethnic.html
Spring Break! No Rest For Fast-Trackers! Read! Criticize!
MEETING 3 – Tuesday, April 7, 2015
What is up?
Quick review of our first two classes.
Read these links demonstrating my own method of analyzing how things change. http://www.richgibson.com/diamatoutline.html and http://www.richgibson.com/scedialectical4.htm
What is your analytical method? Gibson’s Lie Spotters Manual at: http://www.richgibson.com/liespotter.htm
We will watch the Plato’s Cave video in class but you are welcome to prepare for questions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM
We will work through the Master/Slave exercise here: http://richgibson.com/masterslave.htm
Please view Howard Zinn, America's most well-known, historian deceased in 2010, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg&feature=related (8 minutes)
What is capitalism? Imperialism? Exceptionalism? See Luxemburg for one view, here: http://richgibson.com/twinbirths.html
*** Second and last discussion of syllabus. From here on, please email questions to me.***
MEETING 4 – Thursday, April 9, 2015
What is up? We will set up a rearview mirror by beginning with the present.
What is our current context?
What is the economic situation in US and Mexico? How shall we describe our political systems? Why war?
Please read
Zinn, Chapter 25 and the Introduction
Chapter 1 in Gonzalez' "Guest Workers or Colonized Labor?"
Birth of Modern Racism.
Read Gibson on competing views about racism here: http://richgibson.com/approach.htm
Review the many links at Race, the Power of an Illusion at: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm
MEETING 5 – Tuesday, April 14, 2015
What is up?
Please read Meyer, Chapters 20, 21, 22.
By the end of this day, your topic for your first paper should be submitted and approved.
MEETING 6 – Thursday, April 16, 2015
What is up?
Please read Chapters 11 and 12 in Zinn, People’s History USA.
MEETING 7 – Tuesday, April 21, 2015
California has had two constitutions. An administrative requirement of this class is that you study the most recent one. It’s one of the longest in the western world: 110 pages. Remarkably, Wikipedia is quite good on its history and contents. Please review the link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_California.
In addition, please read
Chapters 13 and 14 in Zinn, People’s History
Chapters 23,24, and 25 in Meyer.
PART TWO: THE INTERLUDE AS CONTRADICTIONS BUILD IN EMPIRE, NATIONALISM, AND DEMOCRACY
MEETING 8 – Thursday, April 23, 2015
What is Up?
Please review "History is..." at http://richgibson.com/HistoryIs.pdf
Please read Zinn, chapters 15 and 16 and note:
Research Paper #1 is Due at Midnight tonight!
MEETING 9 – Tuesday, April 28, 2015
What is up?
Please read chapters 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 in Meyer.
I am not assigning this fine film as a requirement, but “Insurgent Mexico,” is worth your while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLqpJ-0VLio
MEETING 10 – Thursday, April 30, 2015
What is up?
Please read Zinn, Chapters 17, 18, and 19.
This class will focus on the wars on Vietnam.
You may review this link for background: http://www.richgibson.com/vietnam
You may also want to watch, “Sir No Sir,” here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nPJgeg6hpA
Announce the topic for your research paper number two!
MEETING 11 – Tuesday, May 5, 2015 (Cinco de Mayo!)
What is up?
Please read chapter 31, 32, 33, and 34 in Meyer.
MEETING 12 – Thursday, May 7, 2015
What is up?
Please read Zinn, Chapters 20, 21, 22, 23.
MEETING 13 – Tuesday, May 12, 2015
What is up?
Please read Meyer, Chapters 33 through 40 (the end!).
MEETING 14 – Thursday, May 14, 2015
What is up:
Please finish Zinn, Chapters 24 and 25.
MEETING 15 – Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Presentations of papers if class size and time permits.
Discussion on the current state of the relationship of Mexico, the US, and the world via history, economics, sociology, and political science.
We will use Gil Gonzalez book, the conclusion as a touchstone, and see his film, “Harvest of Loneliness.”
With luck, he will come to lead our talk.
Then, a scintillating wrap up of what we have done, and fond farewells.
PORTFOLIO DUE at midnight on Sunday, May 24, 2015.
Your portfolio includes a collection of your short responses and your papers, including your second paper. Sent in rtf.
IN SUM: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
1. Attend class, bringing a contribution to “What’s Up?” and prepared to discuss readings.
2. Email (in rtf) a reading response of about 100-200 words, every other week.
3. Two papers.
4. One brief presentation.
5. Compile your written work into a portfolio and email it to me in RTF. In this portfolio, please include your own analysis of your work and a request for a grade.
6. Have, like, a total blast with history and keep at it the rest of your life.
ACADEMIC ACCOMMODATIONS
Disability Support Services (DDS) of Southwestern College recommends that students with disabilities discuss academic accommodation with their professors during the first two weeks of class. An alternate format of this syllabus and class handouts are available upon request. Call (619) 482-6512 or email dss@swccd.edu.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
Plagiarism and cheating constitute violations of academic honesty whether perpetrated actively or passively. All violation and suspected violations of academic honesty will result in action taken against the parties involved and will be documented in writing with the Dean of the School of Arts and Communication. Penalties may include no credit on the assignment in question, course failure or formal charges of student misconduct. Formal charges can result in academic probation, suspension, or expulsion.
ACADEMIC SUCCESS CENTER REFERRAL
To further your success, reinforce concepts, and achieve the stated learning objectives for this course, I refer you to the Academic Success Center learning assistance services. Upon request for tutorial services, you will be automatically enrolled in NC3: Supervised Tutoring, a free noncredit that does not appear on your transcripts.
Services are located in the ASC (420), the Writing Center (420 D), the Reading Center (420), Math Center (426), the library LRC Interdisciplinary Tutoring lab, MESA specialized on-campus School, tutoring Labs, the Higher Education Center, and the San Ysidro Education Center. Online learning materials and Online Writing Lab (OWL) are available at www.swccd.edu/~asc.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Students will write a research paper that will demonstrate their collegiate command of research, critical thinking, content development, coherence, and sentence structure.
Students will write an essay that will demonstrate their collegiate ability to apply the major concepts of historiography and ethnography to the critical study of American Civilization.
This syllabus may be changed as the class progresses (extensions are inevitable).
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (NOT REQUIREMENTS BUT INVITATIONS)
Marx on How History Moves:
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.
Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient,[A] feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production – antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence – but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation. (Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1869).
Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court Justice, “Bicentennial View from the Supreme Court,” on the US Constitution: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=1142
Charles Beard: Economic Interpretation of the US Constitution http://books.google.com/books?id=ptS1SzFY6IsC&dq=charles+beard+economic+interpretation+of+the+constitution&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=75KISo6MO4nEsQOU4MXXAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Robert A. McGuire, A New Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
W.E.B. Dubois, John Brown: http://books.google.com/books?id=Sg-oAAAAIAAJ&dq=w.e.b+Dubois+John+Brown&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=pJSISpCSPITEsQP8-8DiAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Dubois, Black Reconstruction in America
Eric Foner, Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution
Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction
Carey McWilliams is the benchmark of California history. His, “Factories in the Fields,” is outstanding, as is California, the Great Exception.
Fredy Perlman, “Continuing Appeal of Nationalism”
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1984/nationalism.htm
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (only the Griffith edition is worth the price)
Republicanism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_States
Landmark Books were produced by Random House, mostly in the fifties. Their conservative outlook aside, the books are usually well written and, at least, they identify key issues and people in history. There are many of them that deal with our period of US History, like, “The American Revolution,” by Bruce Bliven. Home-schoolers rely heavily on Landmark Books for good reason. They are easy to read, inexpensive, and can often be found as “used.”
Jim Loewen’s, Lies My Teachers Told Me, is a very fine resource on k12 education.