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FYRS -- First Year Research Seminar (Winter 2025): Hess

Race, Power, and Resistance: Reacting to America's Past

In this section, students will participate in two historical role playing games from the Reacting to the Past (RTTP) series. In each game, students will be placed in a moment of intense intellectual, political and cultural controversy from the past and play the role of a character from that period as they seek to advance a particular policy agenda and achieve their victory objectives by giving speeches, conducting informal debates and negotiations, and engaging in direct actions. Students will examine and reflect upon events and developments from antebellum America that came to shape many of the social, racial, and economic challenges and inequities of the contemporary United States. These topics, which include slavery, abolition, Native American removal and genocide, sovereignty, and secessionism, will be explored by playing the following games: Red Clay: Cherokee Removal and the Meaning of Sovereignty (1835) and Kentucky: Loyalty, State, and Nation (1861).

Recommended Ebooks--Native American Removal

Click on this link to search for books and articles on your topic. Type keywords relating to your topic in the box under "Search Everything."

Check out these books in print and/or online for further reading on Native American removal.

Recommended Ebooks--Kentucky and Secessionism

Click on this link to search for books and articles on your topic. Type keywords relating to your topic in the box under "Search Everything."

Check out these books in print and/or online for further reading on Kentucky and Secessionism.

Gather Background Information

Use broad reference materials to find out background information about your topic. This will help you narrow your future searches and will also give you keywords to find the most relevant sources. Credo can be a good place to start for that first step in research.

Additional databases--find scholarly articles

Below are suggested databases with scholarly articles on these topics.

Need more options? Library Databases A-Z

Scholarly Articles--Kentucky and Secession

Ebooks & Print Books--Related Topics

Library PowerPoints & Activities

Primary Sources

The websites below contain materials, such as letters, newspaper articles, and congressional documents and debates, created during the following historical events: Native American Removal and the American Civil War.

Citation Information

Your Librarian

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Katrina Salley
Contact:
Transylvania University Library
300 N. Broadway
Lexington, KY 40508-1797
859.233.8410