- Saturday, 12/8 — Reminder: The final exam is on Tuesday, December 11, 1:00 — 2:50 PM. This is a bluebook exam. You can purchase bluebooks at the bookstore. Please come prepared with a bluebook (or two) and a pen (not a pencil), you will need nothing else.
- Saturday, 12/8 — I've posted in the Sakai/Resources directory a copy of the outline map I intend to use for the exam. Also, I've put a whole boat-load of blank maps in the same place in the folder: outline_maps. Perhaps you'll find them useful.
- Thursday, 12/6 — I've added some material to the study guide for the final exam. There will be no further additions. Come prepared on Friday to review for the final exam. Bring questions and your expertise to share with your colleagues. Note also that an updated description of the exam will be found below in the Exams section.
- Saturday, 11/24 — Note the readings for the last two weeks of the course. We will be spending a good deal of time with Memmi's The Colonizer and the Colonized. We will also be looking for opportunities to integrate that work with the themes of the textbook in chapters 25 — 28. Be alert for observations in Memmi's work that would bear upon Western Dominance, The Changing State, The Twentieth-Century Mind, and World Order and Disorder.
- Wednesday, 11/21 — I've posted a study guide for the final exam. I will continue to add to this through the final week of the course.
- Sunday, 11/4 — Please note the readings for the rest of This Week. A reminder that the term paper is due on Monday, November 26. You should have chosen a primary source for analysis and begun your library research so that you will have sufficient time for writing.
- Sunday, 11/4 — Please note our aganda for Week 10.
- Saturday, 11/3 — The prompt for the term paper has been posted HERE
- Sunday, 10/28 — Please note in our agenda for this week that we will be meeting at the library (in the basement, instruction B) on Wednesday, Oct. 31.
- Thursday, 10/25 — Have a look at the timeline you've created so far: class collaboration: Timeline of Events
- Wednesday, 10/24 — Remember, Friday we're meeting at the library in instruction room B in the basement. You should bring your xml file on disk, or make sure you can get to it in your web directory.
- Thursday, 10/11 — Here's an example of how the text for one of the <event></event> elements might look.
Dated items on the timeline should be specific, but for something like the Egyptian language, you might date the Rosetta stone created March 27, 196 BCE, a decree of Ptolemy V. Then the text for your event might be something like
- Who: Created by Ptolemy V, fifth of the Ptolemaic (helenistic) kings of Egypt, translated by French scholar Jean-Fran¨ois Champollion.
- What: A decree remitting or lessening certain taxes and payments to the crown, instructions for erecting temples, and recording certain military arrangements for defense of Egypt.
- When: March 27, 196 BCE, discovered in 1799, translated in 1822.
- Where: Discovered at Rosetta on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.
- Historical Significance: Important because it related the same edict in three different languages: Ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and Greek. This made it possible to translate ancient Egyptian Heiroglyphs which had been indecipherable since around the fourth century CE.
- Monday, 10/8 — Note that the prompt for the Close Reading Exercise has been posted. There is also a link to it below in the Written Assignments section. This paper will be due on Monday, October22.
Also, Oct. 22 is the deadline for the first cut at the timeline project. By then you should have all created your own web-site with a timeline populated with the ten events, people, or documents from the chapter you have taken responsibility for. You should by then also have copied those ten <event></event> elements to the wiki page for the class timeline website. These timeline elements are provisional. At some point later in the semester we will establish a cut-off point for any additions or alterations to the collective list so that it may serve as a study-guide for the final exam.
- Friday, 10/5 — Apologies and mea culpas. Soon after class on Wednesday I came across The New Laws of the Indies (1532), and seeing its relevance, I wrote up the following announcement, and then forgot to upload it to the web-site.
Wednesday, 10/3 — Good work on ibn Battuta and de las Casas today. I think it will be useful in our discussion of The True History and Broken Spears to give de las Casas's Brief Account some historical context. To that end, please read for discussion on Friday The New Laws of the Indies (from the Modern History Sourcebook): Legislation passed by Charles I of Spain in 1542. Do you think the work of de las Casas had anything to do with the passage of this legislation? For additional context, look ahead to Chapter 19, "Political Change in Europe" pp. 636 – 640.
I thought I had posted this, but after class today I found that I hadn't! Very sorry! - Sunday, 9/30 — I've now posted the Tutorial for creating a Timeline Web-site. The templates can be found in the Resources section of the Sakai site. Tomorrow I'll try to demonstrate how they are to be used and field questions
- Thursday, 9/27 — More additions to our agenda for weeks V and VI
- Tuesday, 9/25 — Please note the additions to our agenda for this week
- Sunday, 9/23 — Our discussion today will focus mainly on chapter review of Chapter 15 and the beginning of Chapter 16. Note the additions to our agenda for this week in the Schedule of Lectures and Readings.
- Wednesday, 9/19 — Kathryn noted a typo in the prompt for the writing assignment. The paper is NOT due on Friday, but on Monday the 24th as we discussed in class, and as is stated in the schedule
- Tuesday, 9/18 — Note the agenda for our discussion on Friday.
- Tuesday, 9/18 — The prompt for the preliminary close reading exercise has been posted here. The Written Assignments section below is also linked to it.
- Sunday, 9/16 — For our discussions this week, consider the social consequences of the changes discussed in chapter fourteen for the idea of "Expanding Worlds" as it is discussed in chapter fifteen. Note the changes in our agenda for this week in the Schedule of Lectures and Readings. And congratulations to all who contributed to discovering the identity of the person pictured here!
- Friday, 9/14 — Please note that our agenda for next week has been amended
- Saturday, 9/8 — I've put a new event on the Timeline of Events. I've also started the wiki page that we'll use to discuss the timeline events. Go to the Sakai wiki and either edit the text for Rabban Bar Sawma (or any of the other events so far), if you think it needs it; add some useful information to it; or just post a comment on it ( you know, like: "thanks for putting up this useful study tool!")
- Thursday, 9/6 — The Timeline of Events has now been posted to the website. You will find a link to it at the top of this page. Tomorrow we will talk a bit about how you can use this as a template for your own timeline and use it to organize your own historical interests, and study for the final exam.
This syllabus is permanently under construction. This course is a work in progress. How it proceeds will be, at least in part, a function of your interests. The schedule of discussions and lectures is thus a skeleton that will be fleshed out with additional or alternative readings as needed, or as the interests of the class dictate. From time to time I may add links to on-line resources of interest. Watch this space for changes. You should check for changes or new material at least once a week, they will be clearly noted at the top.
- Felipe Fernández-Armesto, World, The: A History Volume Two (since 1300), (Prentice Hall, 2006), 9780131777637
- Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and Colonized (Beacon Press), ISBN 978-080700301-5
There will be additional texts assigned or recommended as needed. It is also a requirement of this course that you do some additional reading in the research for your term paper.
These will be your aims in this class:
- To familiarize yourself with the broad strokes of the history of the world since about 1300CE. In particular, we will concern ourselves with the theme of connections: how various societies become aware of each other, interact, and form an understanding of an international, or 'world' community.
With this as our theme, we will be especially concerned with people like explorers, missionaries, merchants, and conquerers; economic phenomena like markets and trade-routes; political phenomena like treaties, alliances, wars between peoples and states; ideological phenomena that span the boundaries of states and empires: religions, ideas, social practices and cultural movements; and natural phenomena like natural resources, ecological relationships, the migration of gene pools, disease vectors and the transmission of species and foodstuffs.
- By writing some history yourself, practice some of the skills of the historian: close reading and critical analysis of sources;
- Examine and question the processes by which histories are constructed;
- By building a web-site of your own, and contributing to the course web-site, familiarize yourself with some of the basic technologies driving the computer tools that have become ubiquitous in the humanities; in particular: HTML, XML, wikis, and internet API's like the 'Timeline' software. We will spend some time discussing the legitimate role of computers and the internet in the humanities, and what does and does not constitute good historical source material on the web.
In addition to these goals, you should hope to identify some areas of personal historical interest, and begin to assemble notes and bibliographies which will help you pursue those interests in the future. A course like this should be only the beginning of a lifetime of informed inquiry.
Participation does not have to be confined to talking in class. One excellent way to participate in this course would be to contribute to the on-line discussion forum or chat-room for this class, available through the course Sakai site. History is, or can be, a collaborative enterprise. This Sakai site is established to facilitate such collaboration. Exploring and making creative, effective use of this resource is part of the substance of this course.
A required element of the class participation portion of your grade will be to create your own web-site containing a time-line of events that the class will decide upon collaboratively. Fulfilling this minimum requirement should not be too onerous or time-consuming: a template and in-class assistance will be provided.
In addition to the minimum web-site requirement, you may wish to expand upon the class timeline by providing additional explanatory text, analysis, bibliography, or links to the events that are decided upon by the class. You may also wish to expand upon your own web page, sharing the results with the class, or you may collaborate with others on a group web-site.
- Preliminary Close-reading Exercise This assignment is required and will be evaluated, but will not count toward your final grade. This will be an opportunity to practice writing the kind of source analysis that will be the basis of both of the other written assignments below.
- Close Reading Exercise This is intended to be a brief (600-900 words) analysis of an assigned primary source document. This assignment should also serve as practice for the term paper which will have at its core a close reading of a primary source constructed along similar lines. This paper will be due on Monday, October 22.
- A Term-Paper of about 2000 words (exclusive of apparatus). This paper will be on a subject of your choosing, but it should focus upon a close reading and analysis of some primary source. Suggested topics will be presented.
- Essay Questions: There will be two essay questions on the final exam. A guide to the kinds of questions that will be posed can be found in the study guide. One will be based upon the textbook, lectures and primary sources, and the other will be based upon The Colonizer and Colonized, by Albert Memmi. You will write an essay integrating your understanding of the material presented in lecture, the textbook, and your reading of the primary sources.
- Short Answer ID questions: For this part of the exam, you will choose several items from a list of specific events, people, circumstances and describe briefly what these things are (who, what, when, where, how and why) and, more important, what they mean. Why are these things important? We will compile this list throughout the semester and it will be maintained as a timeline on the course web-site.
- Map Quiz: I will provide an outline map with a number of sites and geographical features marked on it and you will identify them.
- Class participation: 25%
- Mid-term: Close Reading Exercise: 20%
- Term Paper: 30%
- Final Exam: 25%
Nota Bene: You must attempt and complete the minimum web-site assignment, both of the written assignments, and the exam in order to gain credit for the course.
- The study guide for the final exam.
- The Timeline Tutorial
- The Preliminary Close-reading Exercise is on this text by Ibn Battuta. A more extended excerpt of this text can be found here on Paul Halsall's Medieval Sourcebook. This is another invaluable resource for primary source material.
- The Monks of Kublai Kahn: Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo and others give us a look at the East from the point of view of the West. Here is a link to The Monks of Kublai Kahn Emperor of China. Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, trans., (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1928). The text in the Sakai resources, (The World-sources, pscd_docs_ch13, barsauma.pdf) is an excerpt from this text. How should we evaluate this source historically? How should we evaluate this as an on-line resource?
- Silk Road project The "Silk Road" constitutes an important element in our theme of "connections." This web-site has a lot of useful information, including a variety of primary sources that might serve as good subjects for term papers.
- PLU policy statement on academic integrity. This policy is also published in the student handbook and you should be completely familiar with it
| crumpjj@plu.edu NOTE: This is the best way to get in touch with me. I check my mail several times a day. | ||
| Office | Xavier — 333 | |
| Phone | (253) 535-7395 | |
| Office Hour | I will keep regular office hours on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM | |
| I have a mailbox at the History Department Office: Xavier — 101 |
