This course is designed primarily to allow faculty to develop focused interdisciplinary courses which address specific issues, themes, or problems in American society. Topics vary from semester to semester. Students should consult the department's webpage for current offerings before the start of the semester.

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 top 10 percent of income earners. The roots of this watershed in recent American history are many and run deep. This course will excavate some of those roots and their corresponding explanations, 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 origins of America’s new Gilded Age.

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