Honors

Description:
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy founded the Peace Corps, a volunteer organization that relied on the energy and idealism of American youth to ‘develop’ parts of the world that lacked economic and material resources.  In its founding decade, the Peace Corps came to represent both American altruism and Kennedy’s heroic legacy. Drawing on official documents, volunteer accounts, and fictional texts, this course will place the 1960s Peace Corps in the context of decolonization, the cold war, modernization theory, the New Frontier, the civil rights movement, cultural nationalism, feminism and the Vietnam War. We will attempt to understand why young people volunteered in the sixties and how volunteers interacted with the communities where they served, focusing on particular cases in Ghana, the Philippines and Bolivia. Assignments will be weekly short response papers and either a longer analytical paper (8-10 pages) or an interview with a returned volunteer.

Academic Information:
Prerequisite: Permission of the Honors Program Director. Call 617-287-5520 or email honors@umb.edu
Distribution I Area: None.
Distribution II Area: None.
Diversity Area: None.