The Vietnam Experience
Whether from the American or Vietnamese perspective, the “experience” of living during the Vietnam War era is one not soon forgotten—that is if you were “lucky enough” to survive the trauma. For the 56, 000+ dead American soldiers and 5,500,000+ dead Vietnamese, the tribulations were far more costly, yet far more short-lived in certain respects. Still, even those not directly involved in the actual fighting were affected greatly by the war and it’s after effects.
This course will look at the experiences of citizen and soldier alike both during the conflict and in its aftermath. Students will study the American war with Vietnam from both the US and Vietnamese points of view. Why was the US involved in the region? What was at stake for the Vietnamese in both the north and the south? What were the strategic military goals of both the US and North Vietnamese? How was peace finally negotiated? Who “won” the war? What are the lasting political, economic and social legacies of the war for America, Vietnam and others in the world? And specifically, are there any lessons from the Vietnam encounter that can be carried over to the current US war in Iraq?
Students will read nightly from a variety of resources including: primary documents, secondary sources, journalistic reports, veteran memoirs, and short fiction. American and Vietnamese documentaries and films also will enhance the learning experience. Students will be assessed via reading quizzes, tests, and papers as well as from their participation in class discussion.
Instructor: John Booth
Since 1999, John Booth has been the Chairman of the History and Social Sciences Department at Brunswick School. John holds a B.A. from Williams College in history with a specialization on the Cold War. He earned his M.A. in American history from Fordham University. John has taught both middle and upper school courses at Brunswick for the past seventeen years. Prior to Brunswick, John was an instructor at Cheshire Academy in Cheshire, CT as well as the Overseas Training Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. John's current classes include ninth grade World Cultures, AP American Government and Politics and senior semester electives in American Cultural Studies: The 50’s, 60’s & 70’s and Genocide & Human Behavior.
Self-Inflicted Holocaust: The American Civil War, 1861-1865
640,000 dead, and countless more crippled for life. Families shattered and an entire section of the nation devastated. A self-inflicted holocaust, but also a defining moment in the history of American government and society—in some ways, a “Second American Revolution.” The Civil War is one of those subjects that we never have time to address at length in a United States History survey, yet it is arguably the most important event in our national story.
Drawing on a variety of classroom materials, including documents, maps, artifacts, photographs, artwork, film, and other resources at hand, this course will examine the interrelationships between cultural, economic, and political changes that contributed to the escalating sectional conflict between North and South in the years 1815-1861; it will explore the military and civilian spheres of action, including crucial battles and leaders, in the murderous war that split the nation between 1861-1865; and it will attempt to answer the questions of why the North won and the South lost, what the purpose of Reconstruction was and why that process ultimately failed, what kind of impact the Civil War had on post-war American society and politics, and how the events of that day might still affect our lives now.
Instructor: John Van Atta
John R. Van Atta holds the Oaklawn Chair in American History at Brunswick, where for the past 23 years he has offered courses in AP and regular United States History and in Constitutional Law. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia, specializing in American history from 1776 to 1865. From 1982 to 1984, he was a member of the faculty at Hiram College, in Hiram, Ohio. He is the author of A Place for Boys: Brunswick School and the Building of Young Men (2001), and his 30-plus articles on various subjects in United States history have appeared in a range of publications, including the Indiana Social Studies Quarterly, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, American National Biography, the Journal of the Early Republic, Greenwich History, and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. He has also served as a consultant on the Civil War era for the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich.
Salem Witchcraft: Laboratory and Legacy
In an outbreak of hysteria lasting less than a year, the town of Salem, Massachusetts witnessed the execution of twenty-two people (and one dog) and the imprisonment of hundreds of others, all charged with practicing witchcraft. To what extent can historians explain these bizarre events of 1692? Were people exacting revenge on neighbors who had cheated them? Were they purging their community of undesirable elements? Were the accusing girls subconsciously punishing their mothers? Or were they all suffering from having ingested hallucinogenic bread mold? Students will use the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem as a laboratory in which to test various types of historical explanations, including economic, psychological, even biological interpretations of the events of that time. Readings will include fictional accounts as well as primary sources, including plays, films, and trial documents, and students will conduct their own research using such sources. By getting to know the actors, plot, and setting of one historical event very well, students will refine their own
views about the substance of historical interpretation, and, additionally, the nature of “witch hunts.” The course features a field trip to Salem, from Thursday to Saturday, on the last weekend of the summer session.
Instructor: Stephen Duennebier
Stephen Duennebier has completed graduate study in the fields of anthropology, psychology, and American history. As a 28-year veteran of the Brunswick faculty, past Upper School Head, and History Department Chair, he has taught courses ranging from social psychology to media studies to AP United States History. While his primary teaching duties currently revolve around AP Psychology, the range and depth of his experience makes him the ideal tour guide to both colonial Salem and the unconscious mind.
Windows to The Unconscious Mind
To what extent are our actions, thoughts, and feelings influenced, or even controlled by, those forces beneath our awareness? Is there, in fact, a “sixth sense” which directs us? How can we “get at” such forces? Psychology offers us several “windows” into the unconscious, through the study of dreams, ESP, hypnosis, recovered memories, repression, and subliminal advertising. As we draw back the curtains of each of these windows in turn, perhaps we will shed some light on what really directs us and makes us so profoundly human.
Instructor: Stephen Duennebier
Stephen Duennebier has completed graduate study in the fields of anthropology, psychology, and American history. As a 28-year veteran of the Brunswick faculty, past Upper School Head, and History Department Chair, he has taught courses ranging from social psychology to media studies to AP United States History. While his primary teaching duties currently revolve around AP Psychology, the range and depth of his experience makes him the ideal tour guide to both colonial Salem and the unconscious mind.