The History of American Protest | Teacher Seminars Online

This interdisciplinary seminar examines the rich tradition of progressive protest literature in the United States from the American Revolution to the rise of globalization, hip-hop, and modern-day slavery. Using a broad definition of “protest literature,” we focus on the production and consumption of dissent as a site of social critique, using a wide variety of print, visual, and oral forms. We examine the historical links between forms of protest, social change, and meanings of literature and explore how various expressions of dissent function as political, ideological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and performative texts within specific cultural contexts.

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John W. Stauffer, Lead Scholar

John W. Stauffer is the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of twenty books and more than one hundred articles, which mostly focus on antislavery, social protest, or photography. GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln was a national bestseller. The Black Hearts of Men was the co-winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the Lincoln Prize 2nd Place winner. Picturing Frederick Douglass was a Lincoln Prize finalist. His essays and reviews have appeared in Time, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and in scholarly journals and books. He has been on national radio and TV, including The Diane Rehm Show, Fresh Air, and Book TV. He has served as a consultant for several films and exhibitions, including Django Unchained, The Free State of Jones, The Abolitionists, and WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY. And he has been a speaker and scholar for the U.S. State Department’s International Information Program.

Saudah N.T. Collins, Master Teacher

Saudah N. T. Collins has served as an educator for 29 years and currently teaches in South Carolina. She has focused her personal and professional pursuits around issues of equity. As a National Board certified teacher, she has taught pre-kindergarten through fifth grades and is currently an elementary school African Studies instructor.

Saudah has worked on national, state, and district social studies curriculum development and as an adjunct instructor for a local university, teaching early childhood courses on culturally relevant mathematics, science, and social studies. She has co-authored several professional publications and has been a Fulbright-Hays participant in study abroad delegations to Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, and Barbados. Saudah has presented at local, state, national, and international conferences. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Saudah was honored as the 2021 South Carolina History Teacher of the Year and selected as one of 10 national finalists by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  She was also selected as the 2021 National Council for the Social Studies Elementary Teacher of the Year. From 2017 to 2024, she served as a model teacher for the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students.