L&S: First-Year Pathways

Dêmokratia, democratia, democracy. What did this term mean to the ancient Greeks who coined it, to the Romans who borrowed it, to the early modern Europeans who discussed it—and what does it mean today? Who or what was the original dêmos, how did it rule, and how different is the interpretation of “rule by the people” that now predominates? Starting with the first attestations of da-mo in the 12 th century BC and ending with the recent attempts by Iceland and Chile to reform their constitutions by crowdsourcing and a citizen convention respectively, this course offers a chronological exploration of the idea and practice of democracy, intended to broaden our imaginative horizons with respect to what democracy has been, is, and could become.

This course is an introduction to the history of the United States from the beginning of the European colonization of North America to the end of the Civil War. It is also an introduction to the ways historians look at the past and think about evidence. There are two main themes: one is to understand the origin of the “groups” we call European-Americans, Native-Americans, and African-Americans; the second, is to understand how democratic political institutions emerged in the United States in this period in the context of an economy that depended on slave labor and violent land acquisition.

Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.