HIST 227 - Colonial Encounters: Religion, Race, and Sex in Early America

Cross-Listed as WGSS 227

Through an examination of primary documents from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth centuries and historical articles and monographs, students will examine and discuss the forces at work on the conflict and exchange between the diverse peoples that populated North America. In this course we will use critical analysis to arrive at our own conclusions about the following questions: Who populated early America? What types of religious and spiritual practices came into contact through these populations? What political function did religion and spirituality have (if any) in this time period? What competing ideas about gender and sex existed in the colonies and the early republic? In what ways did ideas about gender and race intersect? Gender and religion? What are the ways in which the emergence of a United States of America was contingent on conflict and exchange about religion, race and sex? Alternate years. (4 Credits)