History 451 Charles L. Cohen
Fall, 1995 4115 Humanities
TuTh 9:30-10:45, 2115 Humanities Tel: 263-1956, -1800 (Dept.)
Sections: 301 - Th 1:20-2:10, 2221 Humans. Office hours: Tu 8:15-9:15,
302 - Th 2:25-3:15, 2221 Humans. Th 11:00-12:00, and by appt.
Class email: his-451@lists.students.wisc.edu Email: clcohen@macc.wisc.edu
Otto von Bismarck once remarked that God has a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States. This course may help you determine his supposition's validity. The following books are required reading:
Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven
Paul Conkin, Cane Ridge
Edwin Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America
Edwin Gaustad, Neither King nor Prelate
Michael McGiffert, God's Plot: Puritan Spirituality in Thomas Shepard's
Cambridge
Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist
A packet of required materials entitled:
As the Spirit Listeth: A Reader for History 451
is available at the Humanities Copy Center, 1650 Humanities Building. All additional assignments come from this packet.
The College Library has placed the books and packet on three-hour reserve.
Writing-Intensive Course
History 451 is a writing-intensive course aiming to promote your compositional skill as well as enhance your knowledge of American religious history. You will pen something almost every week, although most assignments will be quite brief.
Written Assignments
The major written assignments consist of two 5-page papers and a final examination. Papers must be typed and double-spaced; they are due at the beginning of class on the Tuesdays indicated. Please note that you have two options for each paper, due on different dates; you may choose your option but may not turn in two options for one paper. Minor assignments are due in the Thursday sections; they too must be typed, double-spaced. Pages 4-5 below list the paper topics, minor assignments, and due dates.
Rewrite Policy
You may rewrite any written assignment except the final exam. To begin, you must first talk with me about such details as the new due date and the kinds of changes to be made. You must inform me of your decision to rewrite by the end of the next class session after I return the original version. You will ordinarily receive one week to rewrite, but I am flexible about negotiating extensions for good cause. The old draft (plus any separate sheet of comments) must accompany the new version. Rewriting cannot lower your grade (nor can changing your mind about handing in a revised paper), but it does not by itself guarantee a higher one; you must substantially rework the essay, following my comments and initiating your own improvements too. Grading
Simplicity itself. The two major papers, the final exam, and class participa- tion count 25% of the final grade. Class participation will be evaluated on a combination of attendance and quality of discussion (which is not identical to quantity). The minor assignments will be ungraded, but failure to turn them in will lower your class participation grade.
Date Lecture Program and Assignments
Sept. 5 Introduction: the Judeo-Christian Scriptures
7 Western European Christendom from Nicaea to Trent
12 Catholicism in New Spain and New France
14 Protestantism in the Netherlands and England
Reading: James Axtell, The Invasion Within, 91-127; Paul
Le Jeune, "Relation of What Occurred in New
France in the year 1637," in Jesuit Relations,
11.185-269
Minor assignment: #1
19 The First Puritan Reformation
21 The Second Puritan Reformation
Reading: Michael McGiffert, God's Plot, 3-29, 135-225
Minor assignment: #2
26 Liberty of Conscience in Rhode Island, Maryland and Pennsylvania
28 The Anglican Establishment
Reading: Edwin Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience; Roger
Williams, "Letter to John Endecott"; Maryland
Assembly, "An Act concerning Religion" (1649);
William Penn, "The Great Case of Liberty of
Conscience"
Minor assignment: #3
Oct. 3 Presbyterians and Quakers
First Paper Due - Option 1
5 Protestant Pluralism
Reading: Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven, 3-127;
Charles Woodmason, "Journal of C. W. Clerk";
Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania, 50-
70, 105-15
Date Lecture Program and Assignments
Oct. 10 Popular Piety and Supernaturalism
First Paper Due - Option 2
12 Transatlantic Revivalism
Reading: Barry Levy, Quakers and the American Family,
123-52; "Minutes of the Philadelphia Monthly
Meeting of Friends" [1686-90], 93-171.
17 Revivalism and Separatism
19 Baptists, Methodists, and the Rise of Southern Evangelism
Reading: Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist, 1-200; "The
Spiritual Travels of Nathan Cole"
Minor assignment: #4
24 New Divinities
26 Religion in the Imperial Crisis
Reading: Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven, 131-
222; Elizabeth Nybakken, ed., The Centinel, 83-
90, 98-109, 116-119, 190-200; Jonathan Mayhew, "A
Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission ...";
Minor assignment: #5
31 The Revolutionary Settlement of Church and State
Nov. 2 Religious Politics in the New Nation
Reading: Edwin Gaustad, Neither King nor Prelate; Charles
F. James, Documentary History of the Struggle for
Religious Liberty in Virginia, 222-40
Minor assignment: #6
7 Amerindian Religions: Spirits, Missions, and Revitalization
9 Revivalism and Unitarianism in New England
Reading: Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of
the Seneca, 239-62; Gregory Dowd, A Spirited
Resistance, 123-47; "The Gaiwiio Code of Handsome
Lake," William Fenton, Parker on the Iroquois,
II.20-80
Minor assignment: #7
14 The Second Great Awakening in the West
Second Paper Due - Option 1
Date Lecture Program and Assignments
Nov. 16 The Second Great Awakening in the East
Reading: Paul Conkin, Cane Ridge; Lorenzo Dow, History of
Cosmopolite, 172-203
21 Immigrant Faiths: Catholics, Lutherans, and Jews
Second Paper Due - Option 2
23 Thanksgiving Vacation - Thank a Semi-Separatist
28 Alternative Faiths: Schismatics, Sectaries, and Restorationists
30 Alternative Faiths: Perfectionists and Communitarians
Reading: Stephen Stein, The Shaker Experience in America, 12
0-
200; Frederick W. Evans, Compendium ... of the Unit
ed
Society of Believers ..., 11-41, 90-119; Jean McMah
on
Hurnez, ed., Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecc
a
Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress, 123-54;
Sacred Repository of Anthems and Hymns, iii-v, 148-
50
Minor Assignment: #8
Dec. 5 Cross and Chain: The Churches and Slavery
7 Afro-American Religions
Reading: Albert Raboteau, Slave Religion, 211-88; "The
Confessions of Nat Turner"; Bernard Katz, ed.,
The Social Implications of Early Negro Music in
the United States, 4-21; Jarena Lee, "The Life
and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee"
Minor Assignment: #9
12 The Benevolent Empire
14 Conclusion
Reading: Robert Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling, 30-56; Lyman
Beecher, "A Reformation of Morals Practicable and
Indispensable"; Proceedings of the First Ten
Years of the American Tracts Society, 1-23;
Angelina Grimk , "Appeal to the Christian Women
of the South"
16 Final Examination - 10:05, Room TBA
Paper Topics
In writing these essays, you should draw on the lectures, discussions and class readings, making specific statements firmly rooted in the evidence, using quotations whenever applicable, and evaluating the arguments of all "authorities" (including me!). You may of course draw on materials from outside the course but are not required to. You may choose another topic if the suggested ones bore, fatigue or disorient you, but you must consult with me before so proceeding.
PAPER 1:
Option 1 - Due Oct. 3. Discuss the debate in early seventeenth-century
New England about faith, conscience, and the necessity for state
intervention to preserve both social order and orthodox worship.
Option 2 - Due Oct. 10. Discuss the impact settling America had on
European forms of religious belief and organization, taking note
of, among other things, Woodmason's and Mittelberger's
observations.
PAPER 2:
Option 1 - Due Nov. 14. Analyze the Handsome Lake religion as both a
body of religious belief and a Seneca response to political and
cultural pressures.
Option 2 - Due Nov. 21. Explain how and why revivalism became such an
important strategy for recruiting new members into American
churches.
Final Examination
The final examination will consist of an essay written during the exam period. You will receive the question at least one week before the exam, and may use a single page of notes during the exam.
Minor Assignments
#1-3: Summarizing an Argument - #1, due Sept. 14: In one sentence NOT EXCEEDING
50 words (the 51st word and its successors face a terrible fate),
summarize as fully as possible Axtell's primary argument. #2: due Sept.
21: In like manner, summarize McGiffert's primary argument. Make two
copies of your summary, one with your name (for me) and the other without
(for another student). #3: due Sept. 28: Put your name on the anonymous
summary you received and in the margins evaluate both its writing and
content.
SET 2: Analyzing a Source - #4, due Oct. 19: In one or two sentences NOT
EXCEEDING 50 words total (see above for implied threat), explain how and
why Cole responded to Whitefield. #5, due Oct. 26: In like manner, choose
one biblical reference in "Centinel" or "Anti-Centinel" and explicate its
use in the argument's context. Make two copies of your summary as
previously. #6, due Nov. 2: Put your name on the anonymous analysis you
received and in the margins evaluate both its writing and content.
SET 3: Devising a Definition - #7, due Nov. 9: In one sentence NOT EXCEEDING 50
words (or else ...), define Gaiwiio. #8, due Nov. 30: In like manner,
define "Shaker." Make two copies of your summary as previously. #9, due
Dec. 7: Put your name on the anonymous definition you received and in the
margins evaluate both its writing and content.
A PROCLAMATION
Regarding Late Papers
Whereas it may come to pass that one or more individuals, whether through dilatoriness, dereliction, irresponsibility, or chutzpah, may seek respite and surcease from escritorial demands through procrastination, delay, and downright evasion;
And whereas this unhappy happenstance contributes mightily to malfeasance on the part of parties of the second part (i.e., students, the instructed, you) and irascibility on the part of us (i.e., me);
Be it therefore known, understood, apprehended, and comprehended:
That all assignments must reach us, or be tendered to the Department Receptionist, on or by the exact hour announced in class, and that failure to comply with this wholesome and most generous regulation shall result in the assignment forfeiting one half letter grade for each day for which it is tardy (i.e., an "A" shall become an "AB"), "one day" being defined as a 24-hour period commencing at the announced hour on which the assignment is due; and that the aforementioned reduction in grade shall continue for each succeeding day of delay until either the assignment shall be remitted or its value shrunk unto nothingness. And let all acknowledge that the responsibility for our receiving papers deposited surreptitio (i.e., in my mailbox or under my door), whether timely or belated, resides with the aforementioned second-part parties (i.e., you again), hence onus for the miscarriage of such items falls upon the writer's head (i.e., until I clutch your scribbles to my breast, I assume you have not turned them in, all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding).
Be it nevertheless affirmed:
That the greater part of justice residing in mercy, it may behoove us, acting entirely through our gracious prerogative, to award an extension in meritorious cases, such sufferances being granted only upon consultation with us, in which case a negotiated due date shall be proclaimed; it being perfectly well understood that failure to observe this new deadline shall result in the immediate and irreversible failure of the assignment (i.e., an "F"), its value being accounted as a null set and less than that of a vile mote. And be it further noted that routine disruptions to routine (i.e., lack of sleep occasioned by pink badgers dancing on the ceiling) do not conduce to mercy, but that severe dislocations brought on by Acts of God (exceedingly traumatic events to the body and/or soul, such as having the earth swallow one up on the way to delivering the assignment) perpetrated either on oneself or on one's loving kindred, do.
And we wish to trumpet forth:
That our purpose in declaiming said proclamation, is not essentially to terminate the wanton flouting of didactic intentions, but to encourage our beloved students to consult with us, and apprehend us of their difficulties aforehand (i.e., talk to me, baby), so that the cruel axe of the executioner fall not upon their Grade Point Average and smite it with a vengeance.
To which proclamation, we do affix our seal:
Timothy Hall, History | "the study of the human psyche. . . has Central Michigan University | lasted 2500 years and, unlike physics, we
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 | don't seem to know much more about the Tim.D.Hall@cmich.edu | psyche than Plato did." --Walker Percy
Information provider:
Unit: H-Net program at UIC History Department
Email: H-Net@uicvm.uic.edu
Posted: 22 Aug 1995
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