Syllabus
History 70603 Seminar in U.S. History:
Texas History on the Cutting Edge
Fall 2011

Professor: Dr. Gregg Cantrell

Office: 218 Reed Hall
Phone: 257-7035 (office)
e-mail: g.cantrell@tcu.edu

Office Hours: Mondays, 10:00-12:00, and by appointment. I will be here many other days and hours and will be happy to meet with you any time.  However, it's always a good idea to call or e-mail first and make sure I'm in. 

Statement of Purpose:  The purpose of this is course is to introduce students to a broad range of the recent scholarly literature on Texas history from the earliest European contacts to the present. The assigned books, none of which is older than fifteen years, meet one or more of the following criteria: (1) They are methodologically innovative; (2) they put forward an innovative or important new interpretation; and/or (3) they stand as an example of a Texas book that illustrates an important recent trend in, or makes an important contribution to, national historiography. 

Miscellaneous Stuff You Should Know: I also reserve the right to assign the occasional article-length (or shorter) supplementary reading as the semester progresses. If I do so, I will furnish the text and will give you ample advance notice. Some weeks I will take part of our class time up front to deliver an informal, mini-lecture on Texas history intended to ensure that everybody has a basic factual command of the pertinent historical time period or topic relating to that week’s reading.

Grading:  The semester grade will be determined as follows:  

Book reviews (60%):  Each week at the beginning of class, you will turn in a written review of that week’s book. The reviews will be modeled after reviews in major scholarly journals such as the Journal of Southern History or the American Historical Review. You will receive two letter-grades on each review—one for analysis and the other for writing. Further instructions will be given at the first class meeting.

Regular class attendance and participation (40%): The high percentage reflects how important it is that you are in class, with the reading done, and ready to participate every week. I will regularly call upon students with specific questions over the week’s reading. During discussions, please keep in mind that the goal is balanced, quality participation. Have something interesting to say if you’re going to speak. If you find yourself hogging the floor, please yield it; if you find yourself being a wallflower, please speak up.  
Topics, Reading Assignments, and Course Schedule:

Week 1, Aug. 22  Course Introduction and Orientation. 

To be read in advance of first class meeting:

Walter Buenger and Robert Calvert, “The Shelf Life of Truth in Texas” (1991). 

Week 2, Aug. 29  Recent Texas Historiography

Walter Buenger and Arnoldo De Leon, Beyond Texas Through Time: Breaking Away from Past Interpretations (2011).  Texas A&M University Press.  1603442359

Week 3, Sept. 5  Labor Day holiday – no class

Week 4, Sept. 12  

Indians and Europeans (With a Twist):  Juliana Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands (2008).  University of North Carolina Press.  0807857904

Forging a Texan Identity:  Andrés Reséndez, Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800-1850 (2004).  Cambridge University Press.  0521543193

(Both books are to be read for this week, but you get to choose one to review)

Week 5, Sept. 19  Not Your Father’s Mexican War

Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (2009).  Yale University Press.  0300158378

Week 6, Sept. 26  Sex, Race, and the Law on the Frontier

Mark M. Carroll, Homesteads Ungovernable: Families, Sex, Race, and the Law in Frontier Texas, 1823-1860 (2001).  University of Texas Press.  0292712287

Week 7, Oct. 3  Dudley Do-Right Meets Bigfoot Wallace: The Texas Rangers in 
		  Comparative Perspective

Andrew R. Graybill, Policing the Plains: Rangers, Mounties, and the North American Frontier, 1875-1910 (2007).  University of Nebraska Press.  0803260024

Week 8, Oct. 10  Fall recess – no class.

Week 9, Oct. 17   

Texas as Southern?: Race and Lynching:  William D. Carrigan, The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas, 1836-1916 (2004).  University of Illinois Press.  0252074300

Women and Society in the Long Progressive Era:  Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Women, Culture, and Community: Religion and Reform in Galveston, 1880-1920 (1997).  Oxford University Press.  9780195119381

(Both books are to be read for this week, but you get to choose one to review)

Week 10, Oct. 24  Gender and the Cattle Kingdom: Strange Bedfellows?

Jacqueline Moore, Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier, 1865-1900.  NYU Press.  0814763413

Week 11, Oct. 31  Politics, Economics, Culture, and the Process of Modernization

Walter L. Buenger, The Path to a Modern South: Northeast Texas between Reconstruction and the Great Depression (2001).  University of Texas Press.  0292708882

Week 12, Nov. 7  Writing South Texas into Texas History

Benjamin Heber Johnson, Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexican into Americans (2003).  Yale University Press.  0300109709

Week 13, Nov. 14  “Whiteness” Comes to Texas

Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (1997).  University of California Press.  0520207246
 
Week 14, Nov. 21  Texas and the Modern Regulatory State

William R. Childs, The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-twentieth Century (2005).  Texas A&M University Press.  978158444526

Week 15, Nov. 28  Giving Voice to Twentieth-Century Farm Women

Rebecca Sharpless, Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices: Women on Central Cotton Farms, 1900-1940 (1999).  University of North Carolina Press.  0807847607

Week 16, Dec. 5  Texas and the New(est) Labor History

Emilio Zamora, Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II (2009).  Texas A&M University Press.  1603440976