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This course examines how borders shape our world. Whether these are internal or external, societal or national, we all encounter barriers, but we do not all experience them in the same way.  From the establishment of Europe to the discovery of the North American continent, from the Scramble for Africa to the Islamic State, and from the declarations of independence by former colonies, the development of borders has played a key role in geopolitical, religious, racial, and cultural matters. The course looks at nationality, identity, and the meaning of nationalism. It examines the lines drawn by politics, race, religion, class, and education, that lead to the creation of separate communities. This course addresses the nature of rights; natural, national, and human that emanate from the recognition of borders and that determine their legitimacy. Rights give rise to conflict, and when it comes to living spaces, these disputes are even more contentious.

(11/12)Decolonizing Women: Shattering Oppression examines the colonization of women in disparate societies around the globe. Whether by imperialist forces, colonial occupation, war, patriarchy, dictatorship, or political movements among others, women have encountered a super-imposed culture that has warranted adaptations and transformations. This in turn has given rise to internal and external resistance.  This course seeks to examine the origins and nature of these movements across the globe that have been generated by women for women. Incorporating their specific national, cultural, and traditional histories, this course will enable our students to learn about the impact colonization has had, and in some cases continues to have, on the development of women’s rights in regions far removed from their own. They will be able to make comparisons between their own (native) women’s movements, whether national or regional and establish underlying connections between the movements on the whole. This course will also focus on the question of location; how does the location of a women’s movement influence its success? What relevance do culturally specific laws, common law, and traditional societies have on the emergence of women’s rights and movements from within their communities? 

 

(9th)Food, Justice, and Power (FJP) is a foundational history course for all incoming ninth graders. 

Food, and access to food, have a close relationship to (social) justice and to the establishing and exercising of power. Together, these three forces create a triangle of advantage. With a concentration on food, justice, and power, the course exposes the student to the discipline of History and to the skills that enable the student to fully appreciate this study. These skills are subsequently reinforced in each department at CSW and the early exposure to them for our incoming ninth-grade class, therefore, allows for a growing familiarity and expertise with their use. Food, Justice, and Power also introduce the student to CSW, our shared vocabulary, and the communal mission that makes this school. It does this through the establishment of group guidelines, engaging in group discussions and hands-on activities, among others, in order to enhance both the skill-based and community-based aspects of this course. 

(9/10th) The Holocaust is the most thoroughly documented example of human behavior in an extreme, man‑made situation. The study of this event can teach students the meaning of human dignity, morality, law and citizenship. We investigate the roles and responsibilities of the individual within a given society, and students struggle with issues and dilemmas which defy simple solutions. Why did it happen? What should they have done? What would I have done? The universal questions of morality and the lessons to be learned from a history of totalitarianism, racism and dehumanization are not unique to the Holocaust. Comparisons and parallels are made to past and contemporary issues, events, and choices. 

 

(11/12) Human rights are the fundamental rights of every man, woman, and child. They are so basic we assume we know what they are, where they come from, and what we can do with them. And yet, they are in constant motion; subject to interpretation by whoever wields power over other human beings, our fundamental human rights today are changeable, much as they have been in the past.   This course seeks to begin at the beginning, the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1950, and proceed from there to examine where we are today in respect to the acknowledgment and empowerment of human rights. It looks at the choices nations, leaders, and citizens have and the choices they make that either respect or impede in the individual’s ability to enjoy their freedoms and opportunities. Students will be required to work independently and in groups, producing historical examinations and in-depth analyses of situations today where these fundamental human rights (may) have been violated.

(11/12) This course introduces students to the political and economic conditions that have evolved in Africa since the late 19th century. Students considered how actors—both internal and external to African nations—shaped these conditions. We engage these issues through a thematic case study of various African nations. In addition, students perform research on a wide range of topics pertinent to African countries. Course topics include the European colonization and exploitation of Africa, national independence movements, apartheid, African popular culture, and contemporary crises facing African countries such as poverty, political corruption, civil war, and AIDS.

 

* This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement

Prior to the 2022-2023 school year, this class was titled "Modern Africa." 

(11/12) Latin American countries have consistently been pressed to implement economic, social and political arrangements that favor the U.S.  This course will examine efforts by some Latin Americans to develop alternative visions for their countries.  What were these alternatives? Why did some believe they were necessary? In what ways, and why, have these alternatives succeeded or failed? We will examine these questions by studying cases that include the Mexican Revolution, the Cuban Revolution(s), Rigoberta Menchu in Guatemala, and recent experiments such as Lula da Silva’s Partido dos Trabalhadores in Brazil, the Bolivarian Revolution lead by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and others.  We will also explore the connection between history and memory through the case-study of Che Guevara.   

In 1982, Massachusetts started planning for what would become the US’s largest single public works project, the Central Artery/Tunnel Project known more familiarly as The Big Dig. The Big Dig, started in 1987 and completed in 2006, excavated enough dirt to fill Harvard Stadium to the rim 16 times, placed enough concrete to build a 3 ft.-wide sidewalk between Boston and San Francisco and back three times, and at its peak was employing over 5,000 construction workers a day. The project took an ugly and crowded elevated roadway that displaced an entire multi-generational neighborhood and had been the symbol of both the 1950s obsession with highways and short-sighted urban planning, and sunk it underground in the hopes of reuniting a fragmented and segregated city on the cusp of a major scientific and economic boom. In this class, we work our way outwards, like Boston’s spoke and hub roadway structure itself, to look deeply at the Big Dig and the other elements of transportation infrastructure it connects with (including the rest of Route 93, the T, and the Mass Pike), to see how the Boston-area’s transportation patterns and roadways are some of the most active historical actors in the landscape of race, class, migration and identity in Boston and the surrounding towns and cities. Did Boston’s roads really start as cowpaths? Did US subways really start in Boston? Is there really an on-ramp to nowhere still standing in the middle of the city? And did Charlie ever get off the MTA? We will examine these questions and many more in this applied environmental history class.

* This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement

(Prerequisites: Completion of Mandarin 3A or permission of the department. This course can satisfy the level 3B graduation requirement. If a student completes this course instead of Mandarin 3B as a 10th or 11th grader, it is expected that they will continue in the Mandarin program's upper level electives in the subsequent year(s) )

(Prerequisites: Completion of French 3A and permission of the department. It can be equivalent to French 3B. If students take this course instead of 3B, an elective course will be required to take upon return of the course.)

(9/10th)What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States? What does it mean to be allowed to be a citizen of the United States? The history of who does and does not become a citizen begins with the establishment of a racial divide at the very foundation of the colonies that would evolve into a nation ostensibly founded on democratic principles. This course examines the colonization and creation of a race-based society, bending and eliminating evidence of previous indigenous societies and establishing groups on the basis of a caste system. The course takes a thematic approach and uses a curated selection of materials and documentation to address the racial history of citizenship and non-citizenship of the United States.  

* This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement


Prior to the 2021-2022 school year, this course was titled "US History: Race in America"

(9/10) This course explores the origins, tumultuous paths, and impact of two of the world's first truly modern revolutions.  The French Revolution promised enlightened equality, but gave rise to the Terror and Napoleon's dictatorship. The Russian Revolution promised a Marxist utopia, but resulted in the reign of Stalin. . . and the subsequent slaughter of forty million people. Both revolutions also accorded an unprecedented and controversial public role to feminism, atheism, socialist, and anti‑imperialist ideologies, all of which we will explore.  In a comparative manner, we will examine the key historical actors and ideas that contoured these revolutions, largely through the exploration of original documents, including speeches, philosophical treatises, diaries, political manifestos and art.

 

The New Cold War class posits that the Cold War as we know it has taken on a new form and that we are experiencing its revitalization.  By delving into the past of the “Old” Cold War by  examining events such as the development of the atomic bomb, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the intersections and relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War, we examine how the Cold War played itself out in an increasingly violent fashion in every sector of American life and the lives of countless civilians abroad. The class considers the struggle for independence in newly emerging Asian and African nations, as it coincided with the US and Soviet struggle for dominance. We then look at the global playing ground of dominant powers in recent years and examine how familiar territories around the world are once again grounds for the resurgence of a power struggle.  Students will also examine the impact of United States foreign policy decisions and evaluate their lasting effect on the individual and national rights of nations in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.  

Students examine a variety of primary and secondary sources, including foreign policy documents, scholarly historical analysis, film, and visual art to explore the role of a nuclear threat and global ideology and paranoia in domestic US life and policy. 

* This course awards credit towards the Social Justice graduation requirement

(11/12) “Totalitarianism is not only hell, but also the dream of paradise..."

‑Milan Kundera.

 

This course takes students on a fascinating exploration of the totalitarian and fascistic tendencies that have proven to be alluring alternatives to the democratic states and societies.  These movements were often shrouded with utopian promises against a backdrop of apocalyptic struggles, regardless of the temporal or geographic location of the totalitarian movement.  We begin by examining five national case studies drawn from Europe and Asia between the 1920s and 1960s.  We then investigate more modern iterations of fundamentalism, including political, racial, and religious fundamentalism.  The class concludes by focusing on the nature and appeal of cults.  A final project invites students to tie the course’s main themes together.

 

(11/12)Black Studies is a broad field of study that can be approached from many disciplines. In this six-week course, we survey African American history from the period of the Great Migration through the present. We explore the socio-economic, political, and cultural contributions of African Americans with an emphasis on movements for racial equality, the arts, and Black feminism. Texts include foundational writings in African American history and literature, including writings from W.E.B. Du Bois; James Weldon Johnson; Booker T. Washington; Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X; Ida B. Wells; Angela Davis; Shirley Chisholm; Audre Lorde; Richard Wright; James Baldwin; Langston Hughes, and many others.

 

(11/12) US Constitution is a hands-on, project-based class that seeks to examine the roots and development of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and then asks students to apply the document practically to several real and fictional Supreme Court cases. Hence, students begin the module with factual readings, the Federalist Papers and smaller debates, and general discussion. The class looks at the way fundamental concepts and definitions of freedom, citizenship, and “for all” have been shaped, undermined, and refined through the Constitution and its interpretation by the US Supreme Court. As the mod progresses, the assignments become more difficult and intense (briefing cases like Marbury v. Madison and Tinker v. Des Moines School District), culminating in the preparation and presentation of oral arguments for a mock Supreme Court in two cases, and sitting as a justice for one. Much of the grading for the class is done in groups, rather than individually, and so students are asked to trust and depend on their peers while making sure to hold up their own end of the workload. 

 

(11/12) How did European cattle wage war on the Wampanoag in colonial Massachusetts? How did the Bible’s Eden, a belief in magic, and a mapping mistake come together to lay the groundwork for race-based disenfranchisement and colonial incursion? How did soil make decisions about what slavery would look like in the Cotton South? How did capitalist ideas effect changes in the landscape of New England? How does the difference of 20 inches of rain per year lead to drastic differences in population, politics, and culture between eastern and western states? What myths do we tell ourselves when we visit our national parks? How are we, through globalization, forcing ourselves to change the way we talk about the natural world? What is truly natural and how do we use Nature as a weapon to destroy societies and the earth? With this introduction to the newest field of American History, we will learn to study history by looking at the roles humans play within ecosystems and the effects of those ecosystems on human society.

 

 

(11/12)Before Europeans arrived, indigenous cultures thrived in the Americas.  This course will start by examining their ancient past and move through the impact that Native Americans have had on the development of the United States and vice versa. The indigenous population of North America contains a vast array of cultural diversity. How do our own assumptions about Native Americans compare to their experiences? We will examine how Native Americans have managed to overcome (or adapt to) genocide, warfare, disease, assimilation, and massive land loss in order to retain their unique cultural identities.  We will explore the development of Native American history from the early years of the United States through the radical political movements of the 1970s to contemporary issues Native Americans face. This course will also push students to think of new ways to study history. How can we understand a culture, or cultures, so different from our own, especially when there are no traditional historical documents left? 

(11/12)Who has been likely to turn out to vote and what has been done to prevent voting - and what difference does that make for electoral results? What is the Electoral College and how does it work? How do voters decide their choice for president? How have voting rights become the most powerful vehicle for defining social power and identity in the US? Could elections be the key to a truly just United States? These questions are among the issues that students will explore by examining current and past presidential races and the laws, court cases, and media industry of elections. With a particular focus on the racialized, gendered and class-conscious history of voter suppression, we will also explore American politics in general, examining the ideas, ideologies, policies, people and events of the American political scene.

 

 

(11/12) This course explores the role of subcultures in contributing to the cultural spectrum of the United States between the 1920s and the twenty‑first century.  Studying subcultures can reveal as much about the shadows of society in which they resided as it does the mainstream.  Subcultures also represent a unique intersection of radical political ideologies and innovative artistic trends, often expressed through a group’s attachment to a specific genre of music, social outlet, and/or fashion.  We will examine the value systems, and the broader historical contexts that gave rise to them, of: the flappers; hipsters, and beatniks; greasers;  hippies; the hip‑hop and punk rock scenes, and street art.  We will also focus on the ways in which society has repeatedly co‑opted these previously marginal movements, rendering them into yet another popular means of corporatized mass consumption.

 

 

This course awards credit toward the social justice requirement.

(9/10th) This one module class will examine the origins and practice of major world religions.  We will examine religion and our relationship with it. The class will explore the main characters and practices of these religions and how they have spread and developed. We will also explore the main schisms in such religions and analyze why and how they happened.  By the end of the class, we will develop a comparative study and identify commonalities and differences between these faiths.  We will also explore religious tensions in current domestic and international arenas.