Post ATBO98FSbSnALu4Jvc by edteck@mastodon.coffee
(DIR) More posts by edteck@mastodon.coffee
(DIR) Post #AT7pQLVOUIEeWN79uK by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-02-28T03:12:52Z
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Interesting to find that students this semester are having a harder time understanding medieval ideas of the economy (spoiler: basically, they did not really have one) and Catholic teachings on usury--vs. when I last taught this, just as the pandemic was unfolding (!). Wondering why.Definite upside, though: this time at least I was not foolish enough to try to get to read them even a few of the simplest pages of Marx's Capital as a supplement 😥
(DIR) Post #ATA7icUUGJ33u6TPzU by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T05:47:17Z
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Further insights gained from class today: Students were predictably moved by the standard sort of World War I literature I gave them to read.However, they really did not know what to do with the opening of Jaroslav Hašek's great _The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War_. They found the deadpan, absurdist response to historical events puzzling and confusingWhen I read it for the first time--and it was when I was their age--I thought it was absolutely hilarious. So I explained
(DIR) Post #ATA8K7yKB7OEFvJZmy by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T05:54:03Z
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Next time, it is on to the Russian Revolution. 2 things1) It is fascinating to see how understanding of the great event has evolved from the time it occurred, through the late communist era to the immediate post-communist era and down to the Putin era2) I still like to give students short excerpts from Lenin, Trotsky, etc., but I realize they don't even know how to approach it (whereas I used to stay up late and geek out reading Marx & Engels, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, Korsch, Lukacs...) 😄
(DIR) Post #ATABC3sPovgV6HOdCi by edteck@mastodon.coffee
2023-03-01T06:26:12Z
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@CitizenWald Sadly, for the students irony is dead.
(DIR) Post #ATABfp9D9CO06eRb28 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T06:31:36Z
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@edteck That is certainly one interesting hypothesis. I really don't quite know how to explain it, as I thought they live and breathe irony and such (apart from those stupid essays that told us irony was dead after 9-11; apparently, didn't hurt anyone's career, though).It may be they needed context, but they had every bit as much for this author & excerpt as for the others.Just too subtle for them I guess. And I stress: this is not a criticism, I just want to know how their minds work
(DIR) Post #ATABj5Ay0jocgaoqoa by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T06:32:11Z
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@CitizenWald Do you cover 1905, also?
(DIR) Post #ATAC0W2VO0MGvOArCq by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T06:35:20Z
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@vecrumba Not really, i.e. just some passing mentions in the main narrative text. This is a revised version of another course, now pretty much refocused on the era of the World Wars (though with a good bit of background on the preceding couple of decades).I will of course recommend to them Battleship Potemkin and October, which I doubt they will know (but maybe they will be familiar with the baby carriage-on-steps scene in later films :) )
(DIR) Post #ATAC4tJYnA1YGlEnui by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T06:36:08Z
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@CitizenWald Hmm... Have cable and video games bred out the ability to process more sophisticated humor?
(DIR) Post #ATACKGcePqYCtwV0To by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T06:38:55Z
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@vecrumba As i said in a response to another question about that: I really have no idea.Do you have a theory? I liked all that sort of stuff, e.g. French absurdist drama and the like. And maybe because my father taught me about Å vejk, it just came naturally to me.I am always fascinated to see what resonates and what does not. Today one student said she was "moved to [her] core" by something Barbusse said about war in Le Feu, so I am not saying they are not smart and attentive readers
(DIR) Post #ATAF0xMi5ZfxXLWhzU by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T07:09:02Z
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@CitizenWald Hmm. Ezergailis also studied/wrote about the 1917 Revolution. His materials don't appear to be widely available, though.Separately, when I (physically) crossed the street to take photography at Cooper, the photography professor grilled us on images in culture. Potemkin was on his list.Fir photography fans, my professor (at 88) is still making photographs:https://www.etulchin.net/
(DIR) Post #ATAHBBrzDTTrKGAC7k by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T07:33:18Z
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@CitizenWaldWell... for quite a while I've had a sense of declining intellect in comedy, IMHO a microcosm of popular culture decline.I grew up on TV populated by stars who came from radio and movies. Imagination required. Then came the generation that grew up on TV shows created by my generation. Then came the generation that grew up on TV shows created by a generation and featuring people who grew up on TV shows, that is, became a closed system. Quality degenerates each iteration.
(DIR) Post #ATAHuuqwog9ns0TtbM by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T07:41:34Z
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@vecrumba Agree (though there are of course exceptions). I see something of the same thing in tv commercials: a few are clever, but a good many that think they are funny are just rather banal and philistine.And different sets of cultural + in previous generations: Bug Bunny & opera; https://vimeo.com/4440028962nd movement of Beethoven's 9th as the theme music for the NBC evening news https://youtu.be/uYf3eyRjfYA?t=195(NOT, of course, that things need to stay that way; points of reference change)
(DIR) Post #ATAta60Twr7WdjRLbU by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-01T14:43:32Z
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@CitizenWald I used that in a modern Europe class a couple years ago, students also didn’t seem to get it. This was an on-line class, though, so discussions were always a bit lacking compared to a F2F class...
(DIR) Post #ATBAPkt1Jhv1SebZ3Y by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T17:47:16Z
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@CitizenWald P.S. I wish I could find the Art Linkletter book in which he quoted an ancient Greek philosopher on the younger generation, lack of discipline, the coming cultural decline,... Perhaps tastes change. I grew up on Gleason, Ball, Burns, Berle, Kaye, Skelton,, Burnett, the Rat Pack... and Ed Sullivan was the purveyor of popular culture.Last sitcom I watched semi-regularly was Seinfeld. After that, it seemed to all turn stupid.I don't mind silly, though. 😃
(DIR) Post #ATBAPlW0yj6vPaqhpw by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-01T17:52:12Z
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@vecrumba probably the supposed quotation from Socrates?https://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
(DIR) Post #ATBEsBUUOazRtjwToG by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T18:42:10Z
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@CitizenWald Somewhere I might still have my VHS tape of "Bugs Bunny Night at the Opera." The era when "children's" cartoons featured references to classical music and literature.
(DIR) Post #ATBH1pPLYQGyDHGNBA by vecrumba@historians.social
2023-03-01T19:06:19Z
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@CitizenWald That looks like it! Google Books returns "Kids Still Say the Darndest Things" (1961) as a match for Art Linkletter and "Socrates" (alas, no preview).
(DIR) Post #ATBO98FSbSnALu4Jvc by edteck@mastodon.coffee
2023-03-01T20:26:03Z
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One of the curious things about a career in teaching is while you get older, your students stay the same age, and their parents get younger. #Teaching #Education. #EdTech #EduTooter @CitizenWald