Spring 2020  |  HIST 1930 Section 001: Democracy under Threat in Times of Populism and Racial Nationalism (66088)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Discussion
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option No Audit
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
Freshman Seminar
Meets With:
SOC 1930 Section 001
AAS 1930 Section 001
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/21/2020 - 05/04/2020
Thu 02:30PM - 05:00PM
UMTC, East Bank
Blegen Hall 250
Enrollment Status:
Open (4 of 20 seats filled)
Course Catalog Description:
Is democracy under threat? The upsurge of populist authoritarianism and racial nationalism around the globe in conjunction with recent assaults on traditional political institutions in the United States have raised concerns about the fate and future of democracy. Political scientists largely agree that the United States has become more democratic over the past two centuries, but results from the Authoritarian Warning Survey, a democratic-monitoring project, highlight the erosion of democratic principles and institutions in the past few years. Concerns about the meaning, nature, promise, stability or instability of democracy are, however, not new. In order to better understand contemporary threats to democracy this course explores how the meanings and understandings of democracy changed over the last few centuries by examining the complicated relationship between democracy, populism and racial nationalism. Is democracy a product of populism or imperiled by populism? What is the contemporary and historical relationship between democracy and racial nationalism? This seminar delves deeply into these questions by exploring a series of moments when the meanings and promise of democracy were contested. It begins with fundamental questions about the racial and gendered origins of American democracy. What is the relationship between the democratic state, the slave state and the settler colonial state? How did racial nationalism constitute and imperil American democracy from its origins? Populists, that is members of mass movements that claim to speak for "the people," have struggled to both extend and redefine the limits of democracy. In these efforts, "citizens" have frequently been pitted against non-citizens making questions of immigration, naturalization, and detention central to contestations over democracy and its perceived threats. Moreover, in the United States, the relationship between detention and democracy can not be fully explored without paying significant atte
Class Description:
Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/66088/1203

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