American culture
Tonyttttt
AMST101_Lecture_History.pptx
History matters
Analyzing Traces of the Past to Understand the Present
History: the sum of all actions taken by humans, and all other events that affected those actions.
Why study history?
Dominant VS. Minority Cultural Groups
Dominant Culture:
Dominant cultural groups are not dominant because of numbers, rightness, or righteousness. Rather, they are dominant because they have greater access to power and authority.
Minority/Marginalized Culture:
Again, this has nothing to do with numbers, rightness, or righteousness. Rather, minority/marginalized groups are in this position because they have reduced or restricted access to power and authority.
Written history has privileged members of dominant culture. In the US, who
has this typically been?
Quick exercise:
Make a list of as many white male historical figures, white female historical figures, male historical figures of color, and female historical figures of color as you can in 10 minutes.
What do you notice?
Howard Zinn
What factors might play a role in the subjectivity of an historian?
Historians always have baggage which impacts objectivity…
Confederate Robert E. Lee Statue in New Orleans, 1884-2017
Confederate Robert E. Lee Statue coming down in New Orleans, 5/19/2017
An example of changing cultural and historical knowledge—the removal of Confederate monuments
