2025/2026

США в XX - XXI вв.

Статус: Маго-лего

Кто читает: Школа иностранных языков

Где читается: Школа иностранных языков

Когда читается: 1, 2 модуль

Охват аудитории: для всех кампусов НИУ ВШЭ

Преподаватели: Бакулев Алексей Валентинович

Язык: английский

Контактные часы: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Designed to encourage language skills and critical thinking, the course invites students to learn about and reflect on important aspects of the history, culture, and language of the United States of America in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Students are exposed to various materials including primary sources, analytical essays, interviews, and films and encourage to evaluate and interpret those materials and draw their own conclusions about historic, political, social, economic, and cultural phenomena of the countries both in the regional and worldwide contexts.

Learning Objectives

• To provide extensive knowledge on history, geography, culture, political environment, and social life of the USA in the 20-21 centuries.
• To develop skills of intercultural communication in English-speaking environments in the US context.
• To further develop students’ critical thinking skills in the context of the US studies.
• To teach students to analyze historic, cultural, economic, social, and political phenomena in terms of the 5 C's of historical thinking: context, causality, change over time, contingency, and complexity.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Students will adhere to British behavioral culture taking into consideration English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish attitudes, values, linguistic norms and conversational formulas.
• Students will review, analyze and evaluate the context, causes, and effects of major political and socio-cultural events in the UK after WWII.
• Students will analyze the current political situation in the UK, paying special attention to the reasons for and outcomes of Brexit.
• Students will review, analyze, and evaluate the U.S. identity in the language alongside cross- and intercultural contexts.
• Students will review the WWII immediate context and evalutate critically the role of the U.S in it.
• Students will review, analyze, and evaluate the context, causes, and emerging effects of the Containment and the Cold War.
• Students will review, analyze and interpret the major international affairs the U.S. has been involved in since 1945.
• Students will review, analyze and interpret the contexts of the Civil Rights Movement and other internal conflicts, including the tensions between the Democrats and Republicans.
• Students will review, analyze and interpret the major international affairs the U.S. has been involved in the 20-21 centuries.

Course Contents

• The U.S. Identity
• The End of WWII
• The U.S. and Russia/U.S.S.R: The Cold War and Containment
• The U.S. International Affairs
• The U.S. Internal Conflicts

Assessment Elements

• Presentation
  You will make one presentation. If a student reads the script of the presentation, they get a warning. If the reading continues, the student gets a zero.
• Final Examination
  The final exam is conducted orally and includes questions covering the materials of the semester. You will have 5-7 minutes to prepare. The questions will be formulated similarly to ones discussed during the seminars and included in tests/quizzes.
• Essays
  You will write one essay per module.
• Tests / Quizzes
  The number of tests will depend on the group dynamics, but there will be at least one test per module.
• Class Participation and Home Assignments
  Class participation involves taking part in discussions, debates, round-table talks, case studies; independent preparation for seminars (information search; reading papers; watching videos; annotating and rendering the obtained materials). If a seminar is held online, class participation is graded under the condition that the student keeps their camera on. Online participation via chat only is worth 1 point maximum.

Interim Assessment

• 2025/2026 2nd module
  0.2 * Class Participation and Home Assignments + 0.15 * Essays + 0.3 * Final Examination + 0.2 * Presentation + 0.15 * Tests / Quizzes

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• A Few Lessons from American History: Reader for Students of English . — Москва : СТАТУТ, 2014. — 80 с. — ISBN 978-5-8354-1011-8. — Текст : электронный // Лань : электронно-библиотечная система. — URL: https://e.lanbook.com/book/61518 (дата обращения: 00.00.0000). — Режим доступа: для авториз. пользователей.
• The United States since 1945 : a documentary reader, , 2009

Authors

• BAKULEV Aleksey VALENTINOVICH