History of the Multiracial U.S. West, 1846-Present
HIST 202
Fall 2025
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01
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What is the U.S. West--a geographic or spatial designation? A cultural creation? A set of sociopolitical relations? A period of history? Who are the communities that have called the U.S. West home from the nineteenth century to the present day? How do different communities, migrations, and peoples in the U.S. West shape race and racial categorizations? And, how are they shaped by race and racial categorizations? How does class, labour, and capitalism affect these histories? What does it mean to tell a multiracial history of the U.S. West? As Silicon Valley oligarchs continue to hold sway in politics across the United States while everyday immigrant communities are under renewed nativist assault, we take these opening questions to figure out how, exactly, we got here. The "we" and the "here" of how "we got here" are, of course, just as hotly contested as any of these questions. We will spend this course attempting to untangle the multiracial histories of the U.S. West from the mid-nineteenth century until the present. Beginning with the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and ending in our contemporary moment, the class will introduce students to key histories of the region through a combination of lectures and student discussion. An emphasis will be placed on interdisciplinary historical approaches to the histories of the U.S. West, and students will be exposed to the approaches of cultural, social, political, gender, oral, labour, and legal historians alongside various interdisciplinary scholars. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS HIST |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (History Minor)(History) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
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