This History U course explores the rich history of progressive protest literature in the United States from the American Revolution to contemporary music.
Course Instructor: Professor John Stauffer, Harvard University
Eligibility: High school students
Image Source: Bain News Service, “Strike Pickets,” New York City, February 5, 1910 (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, 2014684499)
History U
Free for high school students
This History U course explores the rich history of progressive protest literature in the United States from the American Revolution to contemporary music. The primary focus is on three enduring strands of protest: civil rights (beginning with antislavery), women’s rights, and workers’ rights. Using a broad definition of protest literature, we pay particular attention to the cultural production and consumption of dissent as a powerful voice of both individuals and movements. We examine a wide range of print, visual, and oral forms of dissent, and we explore how various expressions of dissent function as political, ideological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and performative texts within specific contexts. Readings are mostly primary sources, ranging from pamphlets, speeches, essays, and poetry to photographs, music, sociology, and history.
The views expressed in this course are those of Dr. John Stauffer.
Melissa Perkins explains what you will learn in this course.
John Stauffer, Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
John Stauffer is the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is a leading authority on antislavery, the Civil War era, social protest movements, and photography. His nineteen books include The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race (2002), Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (2008), and The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On (2013).
This course traces the history of LGBTQ+ identities, relationships, communities, and politics in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present.
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