This course is designed to introduce honors students (those who have achieved a minimum overall GPA of 3.3) to the history and theory of American studies as an interdisciplinary field and to explore current themes, debates, and researh problems in American studies.

The “new Gilded Age” is a term that scholars, pundits, and activists in recent years have used to refer to the sharp increase in economic inequality in the United States, the increasing concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the nation’s well-to-do, especially its richest 1 percent and above. The roots of this watershed in recent American history are many and run deep. This course will trace some of those roots, examining the origins of America’s new Gilded Age by focusing on major transformations in economics, politics, and education in the 1970s and 1980s. Along the way, we will also consider some of the social experiences and cultural expressions of Americans as they lived through the new Gilded Age.

Repeat Rules