Term Project
There are four potential components to the Term Project which make up 20-30% of your final grade:
- Project Proposal. Due week 4.
- Presentation proposals – if you want to present your term project. Due week 5.
- Final written research paper. Due week 14.
- Class presentation of your project, the particulars of which will be explained below.
Written Component: Students are required to write a 7 to 10 page research paper on a Western topic of their choice.
Term Project Topics
Topics can be chosen from the following list. You are not limited to the topics below:
Mormons and Zionist Projects in the West.
Buffalo Soldiers
The Nuclear Age in the West.
Comparative Frontiers
The Rise of art colonies in the West
The West and water projects.
Nisei internment during WWII.
The 1960s and commune projects in the West.
White supremacy movements and their relation to western mythologies.
John Muir and the creation of National Parks in the West.
Aldo Leopold and western land management.
John Wesley Powell and his reassessments of the West.
The Oregon Trail.
The Santa Fe Trail.
El Camino Real.
Works Project Administration in the West.
The Rise of Hollywood as American cultural marker.
Chinese migrations and labor history.
Analyze the writings of Edward Abby.
Analyze the novels of Tony Hillerman.
The Sagebrush Rebellion.
Federal Indian Policy in the West.
Federal Land Use Policy in the West.
The Zoot Suit Riots.
The Emergence of the Chicano Movement.
Explorations of Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco.
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Land rights and the Gorras Blancas of New Mexico.
Alaska and the Cult of Primitivism.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the US-Mexico border
Scottish immigrants in the West.