Transcript Power Point Week 1 - University of Idaho

Monday
American Rogues and Rebels: AMST 301
 Professor: Dr. Ian Chambers
 Fall 2008
 Contact Details:
Office: History Department, 315 Administration building
Phone: (208) 885-6551 - E-mail: [email protected]
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Monday
2:00pm – 3:00pm
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Wednesday 2:00pm – 3:00pm
 Additional office hours available by appointment
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Office hours:
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Eric Larson, Devil in the White City Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that
Changed America
A pack of six books from the book store (all books from Bedford/St. Martins):
Kenneth S Greenberg, The Confessions of Nat Turner and Related documents
Jonathan Earle, John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry: A Brief History with
Documents
Shelia l, Skemp, Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents
Victoria Bissell Brown, Twenty Years at Hull-House Jane Adams
David Howard-Pitney, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights
Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief History with Documents
Richard W. Etulain, César Chávez: A Brief Biography with Documents
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Additional reading as issued during the semester
I will also be showing various documentaries and movies outside of class
hours. Details to be issued during the first week of class
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Exams: A final on Thursday, December 18. 30%
Research proposal 10%
Group Class Presentation 20%
Research paper: Students will select a topic, in consultation with the professor, and prepare a
research paper of 7-8 pages, type-written and double spaced.
The paper will be due on November 19th and count as 30% of the final course grade.
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Class Participation
Class participation counts as 10% of the course grade and is determined by the following
criteria: attendance and classroom discussion.
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Class Rules and Regulations
Three-One System
You must wait ONE day before contesting any grade
You must write ONE paragraph explaining why your grade should be adjusted
You must challenge the grade within ONE week of receiving it.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism WILL NOT be tolerated
Late Papers
You will lose one point per minute for any late work.
The class will follow a weekly format
 Monday – General historical
overview
 Wednesday – Specific topic lecture
 Friday – Group presentations and
discussion
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Groups:
 Class will divide in 13 groups
 (min 3 people max 4 per group)
 Each group will present on the
Rogue/Rebel under discussion
that week
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For discussion this week
James Clavell A Children’s Story
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How is power worked out in this book
Eric Hobsbawm chapter from Bandits
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Can, as I suggest, Hobsbawm form a theoretical
base for this class
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What interests the
social and economic
historian is
primarily the
structure of banditry
. . . rather than the
effects on the wider
history of events in
their time
In this class we are going to
attempt to do more
 We need to know the make up of
the people we study
 But also their position and impact
in America
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I want to examine America through
the idea of rogues and rebels for two
reasons
 1) to find out why America loves
them
 2) to find out if America has
‘progressed’ because of their actions
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For this class I will use the following
definition
 Rogue – someone who goes against
society for no reason or for personal
gain
 Rebel – someone who goes against
society to correct a wrong within
society
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Who are what are
Rebels?
John Smith
Pilgrims
Thomas Paine
Nat Turner
John Brown
Jessie James
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Judith Murray
Jane Adams
HH Holmes
Eleanor Roosevelt
Martin and Malcolm
James Dean and the
teenager
Ceaser Chavez
Wednesday
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Each group will present on one of the listed
Rebels/Rogues
That group will also turn in a written report on
the day of their presentation
If the Rebel/Rogue does not have a
corresponding book I will supply some
suggestion to the group
I expect other people in the class to have read
about and have knowledge of the Rebel/Rogue
to enable a discussion
Rogue/Rebel
Presentation Group
Who are what are Rebels?
Whole Class
John Smith
Group 2
Pilgrims
Group 3
Thomas Paine
Group 5
Nat Turner
Group 6
John Brown
Group 7
Jessie James
Group 8
Judith Murray
Group 1
Jane Adams
Group 10
HH Holmes
Whole Class
Eleanor Roosevelt
Group 12
Martin and Malcolm
Group 13
James Dean and the teenager
Group 11
Ceaser Chavez
Whole Class
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Research paper of 7-8 pages, type-written
and double spaced.
Based on a Rogue/Rebel of your choice
Paper must deal with the historical time
period and the impact that the individual or
group had on society
Check your paper topic with the Professor
before starting your paper.
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To understand banditary and its history we
must see it in the context of power
That is control by governments of what goes
on in the territories and among the
populations over which they claim control
The history of banditry
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including social banditry
Cannot be understood or properly studied
except as part of the history of political
power
Power to control increasingly
concentrated in territorial or ‘national’
states
 Claiming and exercising power over
everything that goes on within its
boarders
 Power reaches down to interact with
every person in its territory.
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In modern world
volume of information travelling and number
of people
make it difficult for American government to
control all power
If it could there would be no people in jail
Inability to stop certain acts of behavior
displays a similar gap between claimed and real
power
But power limited by
 ability to maintain large and effective body
of armed and civil servants
 an efficient system of information,
communication and transportation
 These potential weakness of power
contain the potential for banditry
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For the law, anyone belonging to a group
of men who attack and rob with violence
is a bandit,
 Historians and sociologists cannot use so
crude a definition.
 Social bandit
 :-People not regarded as simple criminals
by the people
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Power of bandits to operate is always,
ironically, defined by the same gap that
allows their creation.
 Eventually state power will react and
either negotiate or crush
 Bandits have to come to terms with
whatever centers of power are prepared to
tolerate them or go under
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Universally found wherever societies are
based on agriculture and consist one groups
ruled, oppressed and exploited by someone
else
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lords, towns, governments, or even banks
3 main forms
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Noble robber
Primitive resistance fighter
Terror bringing avenger
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social bandits
state regards as criminals
considered by their people as
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heroes
champions
Avengers
fighters for justice
leaders of liberation
It would be unthinkable for a social
bandit to snatch the peasants harvest
in his own territory.
 Those who do lose the peculiar
relationship which makes banditry
‘social’
 In practice such distinctions are less
clear than in theory
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Modern agrarian systems
no longer those of traditional peasant society
and cease to produce social bandits
except in countries of what has been called
‘settler capitalism’ = The USA, Australia,
Argentina
Settler capitalism exploitation by one
country over another
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Britain, the country which gave
the world Robin Hood
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the international paradigm of
social banditry
has no records of social bandits
th
after the early 17 C
And Now
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completely different
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Banditary becomes epidemic in times
of pauperization and economic crisis
 more than able bodied men who take
what they need by arms rather than
starve.
 the resistance of entire communities or
people against the destruction of its
way of life
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Unless
It becomes the symbol, even the spearhead,
of resistance by the whole of the traditional
order against the forces which disrupt and
destroy it.
Or
If the dream of every peasant for a society
free from evil and oppression is awakened
What part if any do Bandits play in the
transformation of societies
 According to Hobsbawm banditry itself is
not a program for peasant society but
 a form of self help to escape it in
particular circumstances
 However, reformist or revolutionary,
banditry does not constitute a social
movement
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Friday
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When banditry merges into a large
movement, it becomes part of a force which
can and does change society.
But the results are not always what were
expected
This does not devalue their historical
position or power however
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To understand social composition of
banditary
look primarily at the mobile margin of
peasant society
Importance of age
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Male youth between puberty and marriage
Before the responsibility of family life
Men not integrated in society
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Ex service men
shepherds
But possibly the most important
type of person to contribute to the
bandit category
 People who were unwilling to
accept the ‘meek and passive social
role’
 “men who make themselves
respected”
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Discussion
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I want to make Friday a regular discussion day
I want to spend a little time today organizing the
structure of the discussion
First I want you to individually think about and
then write down:
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A) The best group discussions you have been in and
why were they good?
B) The worst group discussions you have been in and
why were they good?
Think about what factors made them the way
they were they
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structured, free flowing, did they build on previous
weeks, did everyone have to speak etc
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Now I want you to
get into your groups
Compare and
discuss you
individual answers
Then I want each
group to come up
with three
ideas/rules for the
class discussion
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Not everyone has to speak
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Although you all can
Use examples – from text or from
your life that relate to discussion
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Read the text
Be respectful to other participants
 Be to the point
 Teacher to encourage not run
discussion
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Some start up questions
What struck me most about the text we read
to prepare was…..
The question I’d most like to ask the author
is …
The part of this weeks class that made the
most sense was …..
The part of this weeks class that made least
sense was ….
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Not everyone has to speak
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Although you all can
Use examples – from text or from
your life that relate to discussion
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Read the text
Be respectful to other participants
 Be to the point
 Teacher to encourage not run
discussion
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