AMS/HIS 3113/5113
American Assassins: Political Murder
in the U.S.
Fall 2005
Mon., 6:30-8:30
Professor Colin Morris
Manhattanville College
morrisc@mville.edu
In this seminar, we examine political murder in the United States since the Civil
War. We investigate the motivations and purposes of American
political killers, political and cultural responses to them, and the growth of a
popular “conspiracy industry.” Materials
studied will include historical and interpretive readings, fiction, film, and
music.
Course readings and films
Sarah Vowell, Assassination
Vacation
Charles
E. Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau: Psychiatry and the Law in
the Gilded Age
Richard J. Bonnie,
John C. Jeffries, Jr., Peter W. Low, The Trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr.: A
Case Study in the Insanity Defense
“The
Times of Harvey Milk” (film)
James
Earl Ray, Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr?: The True Story By the Alleged
Assassins
Stephen
Sondheim, Assassins (libretto/recording)
Elizabeth Leonard, Lincoln’s Avengers:
Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War
Eric Rauchway, Murdering McKinley:
The Making of Theodore Roosevelt’s America
“The Manchurian Candidate” (film)
Theodore Kazcinski, The Unabomber
Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future
Alston Chase, Harvard and the
Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist
Michael
L. Kurtz, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian’s
Perspective
“J.F.K.” (film)
Don DeLillo, Libra
Course
requirements and policies
Writing
assignments(2 short essays and a longer writing project): 60% of course grade
In-class
work (attendance, discussion, oral reports): 40% of course grade
Undergraduate
enrollment is limited to 15 students
Freshmen admitted by special permission only