Collective Violence in America
IDH 3931 - Spring, 2010

Instructor: Edward Gonzalez-Tennant
Classroom: Little Hall 117
Office: Turlington 1350A

Email: etennant@ufl.edu
Class Time: Tues 8 & Thur 9-10
Office Hours: Tues & Thur 10:30-12pm


Course Description:
            Some argue that violence is a fundamental aspect of American culture. US history is one forged through a process of settlement during which the Indians were driven off their land, the British, Spanish, and French were beaten back, Africans were involuntarily driven over, the Mexicans involuntarily annexed, and immigrant minorities are thrust into violent competition with one another. Analyzing the role of collective violence is important to developing a historical consciousness about the United States. This course reviews the history of collective violence in regards to anti-Indian wars, revolutionary violence, race riots and lynching in the 19th and 20th centuries, vigilantism and hate groups, and labor violence. The course concludes with a look at ways groups and governments are attempting to acknowledge and heal the violent episodes of our collective past. The course will explore first-hand accounts from historical sources and take advantage of online archives and resources.


Required Texts:

- Flint, Colin (ed.)
2004    Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A.
- Loewen, James W.
2005 Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
- Tolnay, Stewart and E. M. Beck
1994    Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930.
- Waldrep, Christopher and Michael Bellesiles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.

Recommended Texts:

- Arendt, Hannah
1970 On Violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
- Benjamin, Walter
1940 Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schoken Books.
- Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Philippe Bourgois
2007 Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
- Waldrep, Christopher
2006 Lynching in America: A History in Documents. New York: New York University Press.
- Zizek, Slavoj
2008 Violence. New York: Picador.


Course Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, each student will:

  • Understand how various academic disciplines theorize and research collective violence
  • Develop a historical view of collective violence in America
  • Conduct independent research into collective violence
  • Understand how violence in the past affects communities in the present
  • Research examples of collective violence in here in Florida

Grading:

      Class participation is a must and students missing large amounts of class without an appropriate excuse (doctors appointment, family activity such as marriages or funerals, participation in other sanctioned school activity, etc.) will endanger their semester grade. Each class will be split between lectures by the instructor and class discussion of the readings. The complete grading procedure is as follows:

    • Assignments and Class Participation – 40% (10% per three response papers, 10% for participation)
    • Annotated Bibliography – 15%
    • Final Project – 45% (35% for paper, 10% for class presentation) The paper should be between 8 and 10 pages of written text, a handout will explain the final project in more detail.

Breakdown of Grading:

Three Response Papers: Three videos will be shown during the semester. Students will respond to each movie in a one page paper. These papers will receive grades between 0 and 10. Each paper counts for 10% of your final grade. Specific guidelines and a blank copy of the grading rubric for the response papers will be handed out in class. Students will recieve a specific question for each response paper the day a video is shown in class.
[Points: 30]

Annotated Bibliography: In preparation for the final project, each student will prepare an annotated bibliography of at least fifteen sources. At least half of these sources will come from students' independent research and not the course syllabus. HINT: Use the citations for class readings to find new sources. [Points: 15]

Contribute to Mapping Collective Violence Website: Each student will update the instructor's online spatial database with at leasti 20 instances of racially charged collective violence. The website address is violence.anthroyeti.com, and contains specific instructions for adding information to the database. This aspect of the course will be discussed in greater detail during the semester.
[Points: 10]

Final Project: The final project is divided between two activities, a final paper (of eight to ten pages) and a ten minute class presentation on each students' individual research. Complete instructions for the paper and presentation will be discussed in detail during the course of the semester.
[Points: 35]

Total Possible Points: 100            

Course Grading Scale: (UF now assigns minus grades!)

A     93-100     A-   90-92.9     B+   87-89.9    B    84-86.9     B-   80-83.9
C+   77-79.9    C    74-76.9     C-   70-73.9     D+   67-69.9    D    64-66.9     D-    60-63.9
E     59.9 and below


Attendance:

Attendance is not taken in this class, but is highly encouraged.

Academic Honesty:

Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. As a registered student in this course and at the University of Florida, you have agreed to the following statement:

“I understand that the University of Florida expects its students to be honest in all their academic work. I agree to adhere to this commitment to academic honesty and understand that my failure to comply with this commitment may result in disciplinary action up to and including expulsion from the University.”

If you are caught plagiarizing or cheating on exams you will receive an automatic zero and will be referred to University administration for disciplinary action. If you have any questions please refer to the University’s Honor Code which is available online at: http://www.registrar.ufl.edu/catalog/policies/students.html

Student Conduct:

All students must comply with the Student Conduct Code which can found at http://www.dso.ufl.edu/studentguide/studentconductcode.php. Any behavior that interferes with either the instructor’s ability to conduct the class or the ability of other students to benefit from the instructional program will not be tolerated. Please turn off cell phones and all other electronic devices before class. Laptops may only be used to take notes. Disruptive students will be asked to leave.
Texting during class is not allowed.

Disability Accommodations:

            Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation. The Disability Resource office is located in 001 Reid Hall. Further information can be found at
www.dso.ufl.edu/drp.

UF Counseling Services: Resources are available on campus for students having personal or goal oriented problems

1. University Counseling Center, 301 Peabody Hall, 392-1575
2. Student Mental Health, Student Health Care Center, 391-1171 (personal counseling)
3. Sexual Assault Recovery Services (SARS), Student Health Care Center, 392-1161
4. Career Resource Center, Reitz Union, 392-1601


Semester Calendar:

      The first part of the semester offers a broad introduction to collective violence in US history. The second part reviews analytical approaches to collective violence in America. Readings outside the required books above will be provided on the course website for download as PDF’s (and marked on this syllabus with PDF).

Week 01 – Introduction to Course [January 5]
            The first week focuses on introducing the course outline to students.

No readings

Week 02 - Theorizing Violence [January 12 & 14]

            This week begins our exploration of how various disciplines theorize and research violence.

Tuesday Readings:
de la Roche, R.S.
2001    Why Is Collective Violence Collective? Sociological Theory 19:126-144. [PDF]
Gottesman, Ronald
1999    Violence in America
           Overview of Violence in America, pp. 1-20. [PDF]
Waldrep and BellesIles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.
           “Introduction” pp. 3-11.

Thursday Readings:
Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois
2007 Violence in War and Peace
          Introduction: Making Sense of Violence, pp.1-33. [Google Books]
Zizek, Slavoj
2008 Violence
          
SOS Violence, pp.1-39. [PDF]

Week 03 - Early American Violence [January 19 & 21]

           This week looks at anti-Indian and colonial violence as well as slavery in the USA.

Tuesday Readings:
Waldrep and BellesIles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.
          The Conquest of America, pp.37-70.

Thursday Readings:
Waldrep and BellesIles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.
          Revolutionary Violence, pp. 71-108.
          Slavery, pp. 113-135.
          Harpers Ferry, pp. 148-151.
          Harriet Jacobs, a Slave, Is Raped by her Owner, 1861, pp. 376-383.
          Marla Hanson’s Testimony before the Senate Judiciary, pp. 384-389.

Week 04 - The Violent West, Industrial Violence, and Vigilantism [January 26 & 28]

           This week looks at labor violence and what happens when citizens take the law into their own hands historically.

Tuesday Readings:
Waldrep and BelleIles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.
          The Industrialization of Violence, pp.245-282.
          The New York City Draft Riots, pp. 161-164.
Rudd, Sara M.
2002    Harmonizing Corrido and Union Song at the Ludlow Massacre. Western Folklore 61(1) 21-42. [PDF]

Thursday Readings:
Waldrep and BelleIles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.
          The Wild West in Myth and Reality, pp.207-244.

Week 05 - Lynchings in American Society, Part I (of II) [February 2 & 4]

           The next two weeks examine a shamefully unique aspect of American history, the lynch mob. This week’s readings are foundational works in regards to the history of lynching in the US.

Tuesday Readings:
Howard, Marilyn K.
2007    Lynching. In Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, edited by Walter Rucker and James Nathaniel Upton, pp 389-399. [PDF]
Waldrep and BelleIles
2006    Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook.
          Lynching, pp. 189-193.
          A Law Against Lynching & Emmett Till, pp. 322-331

Thursday Readings:
Waldrep, Christopher
2006 Lynching in America: A History in Documents.
          Introduction, pp. 1-25. [PDF]
Cutler, James Elbert
1905 Lynch-Law: An Investigation into the History of Lynching in the United States.
          Origin of the Term, pp.13-41 [PDF]

Week 06 – Lynching in American Society, Part II (of II) [February 9 & 11]

            This week focuses the largest single investigation into Southern lynchings, and asks the question "is lynching photography shameful voyeurism or a legitimate form of analysis?"

Tuesday Readings:
Tolnay, Stewart
1994    Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930.
          Chapter 01: A Legacy of Racial Violence, pp. 1-16.
          Chapter 08: The Tragedy of Lynching: An Overview, pp. 239-258.
Bailey, Amy Kate, S. E. Tolnay, E. M. Beck, A. R. Roberts, and N. H. Wong
2008    Personalizing Lynch Victims: A New Database to Support the Study of Mob Violence. Historical Methods. [PDF]

Thursday Readings:
Apel, Dora
            2007    Lynching Photographs. [PDF]
Young, Harvey (Recommended)
            2005   The Black Body as Souvenir in American Lynching. Theatre Journal, 57(4): 639-657. [PDF]

Week 07 – Race Riots in the US, Part I (of II) [February 16 & 18]

            Race riots were common to all parts of the US and have occurred since our country's beginning. However, we will focus on a handful of race riots as comparative to the Rosewood riot here in Florida during the first week of 1923.

Tuesday Readings:
Rucker, Walter and James Nathaniel Upton
2007 Encycolopedia of American Race Riots.
           Introduction, pp. xlv-liii. [PDF]
Abu-Lughod, Janet
2007 Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles [PDF]
          
An Overview of Race Riots in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, pp. 3-42.

Thursday Readings:
No Readings - watch "Rosewood" film

Week 08 - Race Riots in the US, Part II (of II) [February 23 & 25]

            Race riots were common to all parts of the US and have occurred since our country's beginning. However, we will focus on a handful of race riots as comparative to the Rosewood riot here in Florida during the first week of 1923.

Tuesday Readings:
Colburn, David
1997    Rosewood and America in the Early Twentieth Century. The Florida Historical Quarterly LXXVI (2):175-192. [PDF]
Dye, R. Thomas
1997   The Rosewood Massacre: History and the Making of Public Policy. The Public Historian 19 (3):25-39. [PDF]

Thursday Readings:
Online Commission Reports:
            Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission
            1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission

Week 09 – 'Illegal' Internment of Japanese Americans during WWII [March 2 & 4]

            This week examines a major example of state violence. Sign up for an account and explore the archives at Densho.

Tuesday Readings:
Starn, Orin
1986 Engineering Internment: Anthropologists and the War Relocation Authority. American Ethnologist, 13(4):700-720. [PDF]
Daniels, Roger
2002 Incarceration of the Japanese Americans: A Sixty-Year Perspective. The History Teacher, 35(3):297-310. [PDF]

Thursday Readings:
Kuramitsu, Kristine
1995 Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art. American Quarterly, 47(4):619-658. [PDF]

Week 10 – Geographies of Modern Hate [March 16 & 18]

            This week presents an introduction to the modern landscape of radical White hate-groups in the United States. Check out the Southern Poverty Law Center's website.

Tuesday Readings:
Flint, Colin (ed.)
2004    Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A.
          Introduction, pp. 1-20.
          The Geography of Racial Activism, pp. 49-68.

Thursday Readings:
Flint, Colin (ed.)
2004    Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A. [Selected Chapters]
          Mainstreaming the Militia , pp. 183-208.
          When Extreme Political Ideas Move into the Mainstram, pp. 209-226.

No Class Week of March 23 & 25 - Instructor at Society for Applied Anthropology Meetings

Week 11 –Sundown Towns [March 30 & April 1]

           This week looks at a wide-spread, oft-forgotten aspect of the historical American landscape.

Tuesday Readings:
Loewen, James W.
2005 Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
          The Importance of Sundown Towns, pp. 3-23.
          Catalysts and Origin Myths , pp. 164-193.

Thursday Readings:
Loewen, James W.
2005 Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
          Sundown Towns Today , pp. 379-420.
          The Remedy , pp. 421-452..

Week 12 – Truth and Reconciliation Commissions & Student Presentations [April 6 & 8]

           Historical backgrounds of redress and truth and reconciliation commissions, in global perspective.

Tuesday Readings:
Martin, Michael T., and Marilyn Yaquinto
2007    “On Redress for Racial Injustice” in Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States, edited by Martin and Yaquinto, pp. 1-27. [PDF]
Grandin, Greg and Thomas Miller Klubock
2007    Editor’s Introduction. Radical History Review: Special Issue on Truth Commissions: State Terror, History, and Memory, pp 1-10. [PDF]
Bermanzohn, Sally Avery
2007    A Massacre Survivor Reflects on the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Radical History Review 97:102-109. [PDF]
Ortiz, Paul
2007    Behind the Veil. Radical History Review 97:110-117. [PDF]

Thursday Readings:
No Readings - Begin Student Presentations

Weeks 13& 14Student Presentations [April 13, 15, & 20]

Final Paper Due last Day of Class (April 20). No Late Papers!