FSEM1020-02.FSEM: What happened to Amendmn.F15.McKain,Aaron

Aaron McKain

Document Type

Syllabi

School

CLA

Department

ENG

Course Subject

FSEM

Course Number

1020

Course Section

02

Course Title

FSEM: What happened to Amendmn

Academic Term and Year

Fall 2015

Credits

4.00

Hamline Plan Letter

E

Area of Study

EENG, FSEM

Course Description

For a large chunk of the 20th century, the First Amendment—and the right to “free expression”—was taught as the bedrock, bi-partisan genetic code of the still young democratic experiment known as America. In the first years of the 21st century, the so-called decade of terror and digital revolution, both the legal vitality and the civic mythology of “free speech” has been threatened from three sources: the government, the private sector, and even the collective body politic, which weighs in with new controversies about ‘seditious’ expression. The goal of this class would be to analyze what has happened to the first amendment. Students should expect to engage in an analysis of cornerstone court cases (such as trials of war crimes, anarchist activists, or student protests), cultural movements (such as theories of language and violence or the recent phenomenon of 'sexting'), and technology (we will consider how Silicon Valley locks us into particular modes and contexts of personal, private, and political expression). We will also explore how We, the People, have been converted and convinced and recruited into these particular legal, cultural, and technological conceptualizations of “free speech.” Because this is a writing-intensive FYSem, you do not need to register for English 1110.

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