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The American Cornerstones Project is a new initiative at ������ funded by the . Students who complete American Cornerstones will receive a new micro-credential in American Democracy and Civic Engagement. Its purpose is to provide first-year and transfer students with a shared experience reading transformational text in America Democracy, and with high-impact, community-based research in their hometowns exploring American ideals and the gap that can exist between the way things are and the way things ought to be.

What's Involved

Students from all majors are welcome to participate. Each of the three courses required for the program fulfills a different SUNY GLOBE learning requirement, so it will require no extra time for students to complete the program.

American Cornerstones consists of three courses, taken in sequence, beginning during your first semester on campus. In AMCS 101, we will examine the foundations of American freedom and unfreedom, and equality and inequality. In AMCS 102, we will discuss issues of community and citizenship, while beginning to conceptualize your research projects and honing your research skills. When you return home for summer vacation, you will be well-prepared for AMCS 201, in which you will complete a research project about your neighborhood, town, or city that explores significant questions in American civic life. 

The American Cornerstones Reading List

Adams, Henry, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)                                                                         
Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah
Agee, James and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941)                   
Albany Plan of Union (1754)                                                                                                       
Ames, Nathaniel. “A Thought on the Past, Present, and Future State of North America” (1757)
Apess, William. Eulogy on King Philip.                                                                                             
Apess, William, A Son of the Forest.            
Apology of the Paxton Volunteers (1764)
Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
Articles of Confederation (1781)
Baraka, Amiri [LeRoi Jones], Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963)
Baldwin, James, Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952)                               
Baldwin, James, The Fire Next Time (1963)
Bayoumi, Moustafa. (2009)
Bill of Rights (1791)
Boyle, Gregory, Tattoos on the Heart (2010)                   
Bradford, William, History of Plymouth Plantation
Brief Account of the Causes That Have Retarded the Progress of the Colony of Georgia (1764)
Brooks, Gwendolyn, A Street in Bronzeville (1945)
Brown v. Board of Education, including for Brown v. Bd. of Education
Brutus, Essays I, IV, VI, X-XII, XV-XVI. (Antifederalist Writings)
Bush, George H. W. "" (1990)
Butler, Octavia, Parable of the Sower (1993)
Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring (1962)       
Cather, Willa, My Antonia (1918)
Childish Gambino, “This Is America” (2018)
Chopin, Kate, The Awakening
Clay, Henry, “Speech on the American System” (1832)   
Clifton, Lucille, “september song: a poem in seven days” (2013)                   
Coates, Ta-Nahisi, "" (2012)
Cody, Anthony, Borderland Apocrypha (2020)
Columbus, Christopher, Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella (1493)
Cullen, Dave, Parkland: Birth of a Movement     
Davis, Angela, Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Day, Dorothy, The Long Loneliness (1952)                                          
Declaration of Independence (1776)
Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms (1775)
De Las Casas, Bartolomé, Devastation of the Indies                  
Deloria, Ella Cara, Speaking of Indians (1998 [1944])
Deloria, Vine, Custer Died for Your Sins (1969)
Dewey, John, Democracy and Education (1916)
Diaz, Junot, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
Douglass, Frederick, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)    
Douglass, Frederick, “What to the American Slave is the Fourth of July”    
Dreiser, Theodore, Sister Carrie (1900)
DuBois, W.E.B., The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
Ehrenreich, Barbara, Nickel and Dimed (2011
Eliot, John, The Day Breaking, if not the Sun-Rising, of the Gospel
Ellison, Ralph, Invisible Man (1952)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Self-Reliance (1841)                         
Equiano, Olaudah, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
Erdrich, Louis, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Traveling Through the Land of My Ancestors (2014)
Everett, Percival, The Trees (2021)

Fitzgerald, F.  Scott, The Great Gatsby (1925)
Fitzhugh, George, Cannibals All, or Slaves Without Masters (1857)         
Friedan, Betty, The Feminine Mystique (1963)
Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom
Galeano, Eduardo, Open Veins of Latin America 
Garnet, Henry Highland, "Address to the Slaves of the United States of America" (1848)
Ginsburg, Alan, Howl
Gonnerman, Jennifer. “Before the Law,” New Yorker, 29 September 2014.
Goodman, Emma, Anarchism, and other Essays
Grimke, Angelina, “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” (1836).
Hakluyt, Richard, the Younger, “Discourse on Western Planting” (1584)
Hamid, Mohsin, Exit West.
Hamilton, Alexander, “Report on Public Credit” (1790)
Harjo, Joy (Ed.). (2020)
Harrington, Michael, The Other America (1962)
Harriot, Thomas, Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588)
Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, Basic Call to Consciousness
Hayek, Road to Serfdom
Hayden, Robert, “Middle Passage” (1945, 1962)
Hayden, Tom, “The Port Huron Statement” (1962)
Herr, Michael, Dispatches
Hershey, John, Hiroshima
Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (1651)
hooks, bell, Ain’t I A Woman
Hughes, Langston, “My Adventures as a Social Poet” (1947)                        
Hughes, Langston, Weary Blues (1925)                   
Hurston, Zora Neale, Barracoon (2018 [1927])
Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World
Jackson, Andrew, Bank Veto Message (1832)
Jackson, Andrew, First Annual Message to Congress
Jacobs, Harriet, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
James, C.L.R., Mariners, Renegades and Castaways
Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)
Jemisin, N.K. The City We Became
Jess, Tyehimba, Olio (2016).
Jones, Hugh, “Present State of Virginia” (1724)
Keayne, Robert, “The Apologia of Robert Keanye” (1653)
Kennan, George, “The Long Telegram.”
Kerouac, Jack, On the Road
Keynes, John Meynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936)                             
Kim, Myung Mi, Under Flag (1991)
Kimmerer, Robin Wall, Braiding Sweetgrass
King, Martin Luther, Strength to Love
King, Martin Luther, “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence.”
Klay, Phil, Redeployment
Kunz, Keneva and Sigurdsson, Gisli, The Vinland Sagas (c. 1250 [2008])
Kushner, Tony, Angels in America
Larson, Jonathan, Rent
Lawes Divine, Morall, and Martial (1612)
Lawrence, Jerome and Robert Edwin Lee, Inherit the Wind
Lewis, Sinclair, Babbit                               
Lewis, Sinclair, It Can’t Happen Here (1935)                   
Lincoln, Abraham, “,” (1863); Lincoln, “” (1861) and “", (1865)
Lippman, Walter, Public Opinion
Livingston, William, “Of Party Divisions” and “Of Patriotism”
Locke, John, Two Treatises on Government
Lorde, Audre, “I am Your Sister"
Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider (1984)
Luce, Henry, “The American Century”
McFeeley, William S., Proximity to Death, (2000).
Marden, Orison Swett, Pushing to the Front (1894)
Mayflower Compact
Mayhew, Jonathan, "A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Power” (1750)
Martí, José, “Our America” (1891)
Melville, Herman, The Confidence Man
Melville, Herman, Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur, Death of a Salesman
Miller, Arthur, The Crucible
Miranda, Lin Manuel, In the Heights
Moody, Anne, Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968)
Morrison, Toni, Beloved (1987)                               
Morrison, Toni, “The Future of Time: Literature and Diminished Expectations” (1996)   
Muir, John, “The American Forests” (1897)                        
Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma (1944)                   
Napoleon, Harold, Yuuyaraq
Nussbaum, Martha, “Education for Citizenship in an Era of Global Connection”   
O’Neill, Eugene, Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1956)
Obama, Barack, "Brother’s Keeper Speech" (2014)
Occom, Samson, “Sermon on the Execution of Moses Paul”
Otis, James, The Rights of the British Colonists Asserted and Proved (1764)
Paine, Thomas, Common Sense (1776)
Paine, Thomas, Rights of Man (1791)
Parker, Arthur, The Constitution of the Five Nations (1916)
Parsons, Lucy E., “Speech at the Founding Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World”
Pennsylvania Constitution (1776)
Perez, Craig Santos, from unincorporated territory [hacha] (2017 [2008]).
Philip, N. NorbeSe, Zong!
Prejean, Helen, Dead Man Walking
Proclamation of 1763 (1763)
Publius, The Federalist Papers
Putnam, Robert D. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, 6 (1995): 65-78
Rankine, Claudia, Citizen
Requerimiento (1503)
Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress (1765)
Riis, Jacob, How the Other Half Lives
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, “Four Freedoms” Speech
Sandel, What is the Right Thing to Do?
Scanlon, What We Owe Each Other
Samuel Sewell, “The Selling of Joseph” (1700)
Seneca Falls Convention, “Declaration of Sentiments,” 1848
Sinclair, Upton, The Jungle
Singer, The Most Good You Can Do
Smith, Clint, How the Word is Passed                         
Smith, Melancton, “Letters from a Federal Farmer,” No. I, IV, VI, X-XII, XV-XVI
Smith, Venture, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America. Related by Himself
SNCC, (1960)
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, “The Solitude of the Self” (1848)
Steinbeck, John, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)                  
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Taylor, Charles, The Malaise of Modernity (1991)                    
Texas, (1861)
Thompson, Hunter, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971)                
Thoreau, Henry David, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)
Thoreau, Henry David, (1849)
Thunberg, Greta, (2019)
Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America
, 1797
, 1794
Treaty of Middle Plantation (1677)
Treaty with the Six Nations at Canandaigua (1794)
Trump v. United States, (2024).
Truth, Sojourner, Narrative of Sojourner Truth
Truth, Sojourner, “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Turner, Frederick Jackson, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” (1893)
United States Constitution (1787) and amendments
Walker, David, (1829)
Warren, Mercy Otis, Observations on the new Constitution (1788)
Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence (1921)     
Wharton, Edith, Ethan Fromme (1911)                               
Wheatley, Phyllis, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
Whitaker, Alexander, Good Newes from Virginia (1613)
Whitehead, Colson, The Colossus of New York (2003)                          
Whitehead, Colson, The Underground Railroad (2016)                  
Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass (1855-92)
Wilder, Thornton, Our Town
Williams, Roger, “The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution” (1644)      
Williams, William Carlos, Paterson (1946-1958)                    
Winthrop, John, “Reasons to be Considered" (1629)                         
Winthrop, John, “Modell of Christian Charity" (1630)                       
Winthrop, John, “Defence of an Order of Court” (1637)                             
Wise, John, “Vindication of the Government of the New England Churches” (1717)
Wright, Richard, Black Boy (1945)                           
Wright, Richard, Native Son (1940)
X, Malcolm, Autobiography of Malcolm X
 

Why This Matters

The argues that “in this turbulent and dynamic century, our nation’s diverse democracy and interdependent global community require a more informed, engaged, and socially responsible citizenry.” This sort of civic engagement and civic learning, we believe, can occur in a more meaningful manner when our friends and neighbors know who and what and where they are in terms of connection to a certain location in place and time. How did we get here? Why is our community the way it is? What is the source of the challenges we face as members of communities? How can we confront those challenges effectively, and what have we tried before?

The American Cornerstones Project addresses important issues in American life. Half of American employers in a recent survey indicated that they wished the young people they hired had a firmer understanding of American constitutionalism and how the political system works. Historical and civic illiteracy in the United States has reached dangerous levels. Many more Americans, for instance, can identify the five members of the Simpsons family than they can the five freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. More than a third of Americans cannot name the Vice-President of the United States, their Senators, or congressional representative. If you do not know your rights, or the people elected to protect them, then those rights are in danger.

“This is an exciting project,” said American Cornerstones Project Director Michael Oberg , Distinguished Professor of History. If you enroll in the American Cornerstones project, you will work towards answers to pressing questions about freedom, equality, the nature of community life, and the practice of American Democracy. The American Cornerstones Project fits perfectly with SUNY Chancellor John King’s to “increase civic education, civil discourse, and civic awareness and participation across SUNY campuses.” Chancellor King recently said that “civic engagement and civil discourse are bedrock principles of our nation’s democracy,” and that “we are strongest as a nation when we teach the skills that lead to arguments informed by nuance, disagreements conducted respectfully, and questions that probe not only our opponents’ assumptions but our own as well.”

“We could not agree more,” said Professor Oberg. 

Meet the Faculty

The American Cornerstones Project is open to students from all majors. The courses will be taught by faculty from departments across the campus.  Michael Oberg, Distinguished Professor in the Department of History, is the program director, aided by Professor Kurt Fletcher (Physics) and Professor Cathy Adams (History).  

Other faculty members involved in planning the American Cornerstones Project include Professor David Levy from the Department of Philosophy, Professor Lytton Smith from the Department of English, Professor Hanna Brant from the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Professors Justin Behrend, Joe Cope and Kathy Mapes from the Department of History, Professor Mary Ellen Zuckerman from the School of Business, Professor Bruno Renero-Hannan from the Department of Anthropology, and Professor Bill Lofquist from the Department of Sociology.

Learn More

If you are interested in learning more about American Cornerstones, you can reach out to Dr. Oberg for more information at oberg@geneseo.edu or at 585-245-5730.