HIST 030 - (HP) Contemporary American Lives

Semester Hours: 3

In a biographical approach to historical understanding, the course considers the lives of four to six American men and women, chosen by the instructor to represent important aspects of American society since 1900. Individuals will be examined with regard to their interactions with society and one another, in the light of not only biographical and autobiographical texts, but also of sound recordings, films, and visits to historical sites.

Current Special Topics:

HIST 030: (HP) From Hurston to Horror: Black Civil Rights through Film, Art, and History

Katrina Sims, History, and William Jennings, Radio, Television, Film 

This course will use film, art, and history to guide students through the political, economic, and cultural philosophies of Black intellectuals like Frederick Douglass, Maggie Lena Walker, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Fannie Lou Hammer, Alain Leroy Locke, and Shirley Chisholm, to name a few.  
 
Readings will include excerpts from literaries, including Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Tera Hunter, Robin D. G. Kelley, bell hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Colson Whitehead. Screenings will include historically parallel films such as Birth of a Nation, Blood of Jesus, Cabin in the Sky, Imitation of Life, A Raisin in the Sun, Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadassss Song, Bamboozled, Daughters of the Dust, and Us and television series including Them, Kindred, and others. 

Crosslisted as: RTVF 181A  

This course is a featured interdisciplinary course for Fall 2025. For more information, visit our Interdisciplinary Courses Webpage.

View Course Offering(s):

Summer I 2025

Summer II 2025

Summer III 2025

Fall 2025