A small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania is offering a seminar that questions whether the idea of American progress since its founding to the present date is a myth.
Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, offers a seminar as an option in its First-Year Seminars course requirement titled, “Is American Progress a Myth?” The seminar is taught by assistant professor of history Say Burgin. The syllabus for the course states:
The history of the United States is often taught – and learned – as though the country evolved over time to become among the most just, fair and equitable nations in the world. But what if the US hasn’t progressed in many ways? What if history does not perpetually lead to improvement? In this class, we’ll start with analyzing how the idea of American progress finds expression in a range of historical and contemporary materials – in paintings, cartoons, speeches, and even in a rug that President Barack Obama had woven for his oval office. We’ll read a number of primary sources written by significant figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Mother Jones and others.
“Then we’ll dive into secondary sources – essays written by historians and other scholars – in order to compare historical and present-day conditions as they relate to a number of issues in order to see what, if any, progress has been made,” it continues. “These include economic issues like wages, wealth inequalities and union membership; the civil rights of LGBTQ and Black Americans; and health outcomes and disparities. These secondary sources will include excerpts from the 1619 Project; historical accounts of red-lining, unionizing, and health outcomes; and journalists’ reporting on contemporary segregation and wealth gaps. We’ll finish the class by considering whether or not the idea that the US history is marked by progress, by things getting better for most people, is a myth or a reality or something in between. If it is a myth, what or who does it serve?”
As Alex Corey writes for Campus Reform, “The First-Year Seminar component at Dickinson is mandatory for all incoming freshmen, but students can choose from a variety of courses, including ‘Is American Progress a Myth, to satisfy this requirement. … Normally, students are given the choice of 40 seminars and are asked to rank their top five choices to be placed into, according to Dickinson’s website. However, for 2021 seminars, there are only six options, and the school did not clarify if the same rules would apply in seminar placement.”
Burgin wrote in late November of the “fear” conservatives have of “race relations” and “diversity workshops” as validating such ideas would delegitimize “many of the nation’s systems and institutions”:
Conservative fears of “race relations” and “diversity” workshops are nothing new and they’ve been successfully mobilized to curtail or stop trainings for decades now. But these claims of white injury and Black excess paper over the real fear that, in taking seriously the idea of institutional racism that lays at the heart of such trainings, federal workers and other citizens might come to see racism not as an aberration but as endemic to the nation. Indeed, to accept the validity of the trainings and their critiques would be to accept the illegitimacy of many of the nation’s systems and institutions.