Post ATI0TTaKSeRqcam41o by CitizenWald@historians.social
(DIR) More posts by CitizenWald@historians.social
(DIR) Post #ATECucin1PMpatbSfQ by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T05:04:20Z
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As you may be able to tell, our class has now reached the era of the #RussianRevolution So, continuing our exploration of student #cultural #literacy (as always: descriptive, not proscriptive!):1) As I expected, "Battleship Potemkin" was something completely new to them. They were suitably moved by the famous scene on the Odessa stepshttps://archive.org/details/BattleshipPotemkin(but why I did I first have to admonish a couple of them focused on their laptops or phones to turn toward the screen? WTF)1/n
(DIR) Post #ATEEzr9kypWpifq82q by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T05:27:41Z
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If our students (quite understandably) were not familiar with "Battleship Potemkin," then that's great, because I can1) introduce them to something new & important (I was a student before the web existed, so I got a lot of my knowledge of film from college--though also a bit from parents & PBS)2) by showing its cultural resonance, get them to think about the Revolution as an event with far-reaching consequences for both avant-garde & mainstream culture through the 20th century & beyond2/n
(DIR) Post #ATEFfV2bavzHICLsMy by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T05:35:12Z
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If "Battleship Potemkin" meant nothing to our students, then they were certainly not aware of Eisenstein's great "October," either.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k62eaN9-TLYI hinted that, when their cultural tastes had further matured, I might at last introduce them to"Aelita Queen of Mars" (1924) š https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014646/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_plhttps://youtu.be/yoROo4Ur49c3/n
(DIR) Post #ATEGu1pYa3wgznjxIm by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T05:49:02Z
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But back to issues of students' cultural literacy, for lack of a better term (as noted, always descriptive rather than prescriptive)Today, re: Bolshevik Revolution One had an idea of housing blocks & monumental architecture The rest: pretty much: 0I noted opinion polls showing that students/young people had more positive views of socialism vs. capitalism--which I found interesting insofar as they had 0 knowledge of Marxism, socialist theory, revolutionary historyAll instructive!4/n
(DIR) Post #ATEGudM73yyLNUFygS by historian1661@c18.masto.host
2023-03-03T05:49:08Z
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@CitizenWald There's also Alexander Nevsky, which I saw in my college Russian history class. The Teutonic Knights attack Novgorod just like the Germans are about to attack Russia.
(DIR) Post #ATEHGDij3U4oF57vgu by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T05:53:03Z
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@historian1661 Yes, another of my favorites! (Not least because of the great Prokofiev score).And, after the August 1939 German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the latter pulled the film from cinemas
(DIR) Post #ATEJXNhxNHkM384tZg by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T06:18:34Z
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Final/bonus point about students' cultural literacy. I did not expect them to know "Battleship Potemkin" and the like: it's my job to introduce them to it.But I thought I'd try something more recent, if still before when they were born:Mikhail Gorbachev, (a) a major historical figure (b) who died only last August (so that should in some sense mitigate the before-you-were-born factor)https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/world/europe/mikhail-gorbachev-dead.htmlNothing. A few had heard the name, none could attach anything specific to it5/n
(DIR) Post #ATEKRtkFRtaxcw6Cci by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T06:28:46Z
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Finally:It was ironic that I was teaching about the #RussianRevolution/ October Revolution (1st task: explain Julian versus Gregorian calendar!) on the anniversary of the establishment of the #Comintern (2 March 1919)Didn't even have time to discuss the history of the previous Internationals in detail, though I did explain the splits in the socialist movement, 1905-1917 over issues of radical action vs. reform & social democracy vs. communism, so that probably sufficed for their needs6/n
(DIR) Post #ATEL3VF10AFGdNQBhg by aristofontes@mastodon.social
2023-03-03T06:35:34Z
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@CitizenWald They have an intimate knowledge of capitalism, though.
(DIR) Post #ATELVnRkuKdHCos84u by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T06:40:41Z
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@aristofontes Indeed! As I told them, though, historical context varies:Today: shitloads of college debt, prospect they won't live quite as well as their parentsBack then: my grandfather got shitloads of banknotes, filled a wheelbarrow, and rushed to the bakery before they had lost half their value. Or: some years later: went without work and pay.(Of course, I also talked to them about long-term structural and cyclical issues and validated the importance of subjective experience)
(DIR) Post #ATEPsACnN5wlyhnNY0 by victorbz@photog.social
2023-03-03T07:29:32Z
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@CitizenWald if one will ask in the Russian schools these days about Gorbachev and the Potemkin, not many students will answer you surely. Same about many countries. Sometimes it depends on the history teachers. My were great but I'm talking about 1975-80.
(DIR) Post #ATERK11PD41jYeJRk8 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T07:45:48Z
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@victorbz Really? Very interesting! I am surprised. I thought Gorbachev would at least be seen as the destroyer of Russian power and greatness (from the perspective of the Putin era)
(DIR) Post #ATERy9HNvX8QkgvL4S by victorbz@photog.social
2023-03-03T07:53:02Z
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@CitizenWald Yes, but also like one who desired to change the gray life of the Soviet ppl and opened the iron curtain (once again). As well many western countries got the freedom thanks to him. Right now the history books are changing and Stalin returns back as a savior of the motherland.
(DIR) Post #ATESGvytarZH0iEWUi by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T07:56:26Z
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@victorbz Yes, exactly what I meant: here (US), he is seen as a hero, a visionary, and a wise man of peace.I was thinking that in former USSR/current Russian Federation, he is today viewed negatively (as you say: Stalin viewed more positively again)
(DIR) Post #ATESq5q4vzphiesGPY by victorbz@photog.social
2023-03-03T08:02:47Z
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@CitizenWald same is here in Israel, where i'm living already 30 years. Most of the people of the USSR territory never felt the difference of the life before perestroika and after. But after the perestroika were a few years of the the "dry law" which was much more memorable for many. But in many villages not too far from Moscow still there is no gas and central water system.
(DIR) Post #ATETTF22gmU3Wa8aVk by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-03T08:09:52Z
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@victorbz Ah, I see: you are in Israel! So, you left just around/after the fall of communism. I remember how exciting the time of Glasnost and Perestroika was: like the "thaw" in the Krushchev era, only more radical: such hope and sense of possibilities. And instead, here we are today....
(DIR) Post #ATEUq0HJoC8GNihUOm by victorbz@photog.social
2023-03-03T08:25:10Z
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@CitizenWald Perestroika happened during my service in the USSR army, so always drunk officers were in trouble with how to explain to us, soldiers and servants what exactly happened and KGB was strong as never and checked every said and written word. Yes here are we today. I was born in Ukraine, remember the dark days of rebellious Kazakhstan, and now attend here in Israel the demonstrations against the extreme right government pushing us to an even darker era.
(DIR) Post #ATEcJ6LJ2XURGbO5q4 by MagdaTeter@hcommons.social
2023-03-03T09:48:52Z
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@CitizenWald I love Aelita Queen of Mars!
(DIR) Post #ATF5eHuC8teDscA3l2 by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-03T15:17:37Z
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@CitizenWald Iām curious what the composition of this class isāe.g. is this upper-division history majors or first-years in a gen ed class?But I do find that even history majors donāt necessarily come in with a good background in the history of political ideologies (socialism, fascism, or even liberalism).
(DIR) Post #ATFvA8WrdNPTjFBzou by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T00:54:50Z
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@tkinias Short answer: small seminar with students at various points in their studies. Our course numbers reflect general levels, and this one is classified intermediate, but there is no set sequence, and few courses have prerequisites, so anyone can take pretty much anything. All but one are in their first year (counting spring-semester transfers)And as I've said: I am not criticizing or testing them: just need to know what they know or don't know so that I can pitch my explanations correctly
(DIR) Post #ATFz1ZLowQDQ7rCI6q by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T01:38:04Z
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@CitizenWald Oh yeah, I know youāre not ākids todayā-ing!ājust trying to calibrate to what I see with my own students.
(DIR) Post #ATGDTHuMmlBDUiT20W by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T04:19:58Z
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@tkinias Right, that was just for the benefit of anyone jumping in here in midstream.And what do you find?(I have taught a large gen-ed lecture course at UMass but that was via Zoom during COVID and TA's had all the direct contact with the students, so it was hard to draw too many inferences from that)
(DIR) Post #ATGFnJesBipucdtkeW by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T04:46:03Z
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@MagdaTeter Once again, you demonstrate your exquisites taste š
(DIR) Post #ATH57muoDSW0obs4u0 by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T14:21:10Z
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@CitizenWald I find students vary quite a lot in what kind of knowledge they bring inābut that I canāt really make any assumptions. (E.g., when I taught modern Britain last year, I wound up taking a class period in the early 20C to explain what socialism and Communism are, because I realized students didnāt have the background to understand the significance of the rise of Labour).
(DIR) Post #ATHGVHR60Pstd7NTrU by avielroshwald@mstdn.social
2023-03-04T15:02:42Z
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@tkinias @CitizenWald And then thereās the perennial need to clarify for them why national socialism aināt socialism.
(DIR) Post #ATHGVIF50Zro88lOls by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T15:09:41Z
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@avielroshwald @CitizenWald š¬
(DIR) Post #ATHGVIkz5xO5j5gsV6 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T16:28:38Z
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@tkinias @avielroshwald Thankfully, I have not had to deal with that one yet, since these students are all left-leaning. However, one students did say their high school history teacher had told them about the "horseshoe" model in which the extreme right and extreme left converge. I responded "So did mine, and even then I knew he was wrong." But I went on to explain where the idea came from, etc. etc.
(DIR) Post #ATHGrMuALxZcxiVWjo by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T14:23:11Z
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@CitizenWald But things vary quite dramatically between the lower-division courses which are mostly nonmajors taking their general education courses and the upper-division courses full of history majors. Our history majors are very good at synthesizing material from different courses, so by the time theyāre juniors & seniors theyāre building a network of good background knowledge.
(DIR) Post #ATHGrNdBeZaPDLZTua by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T14:24:32Z
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@CitizenWald One thing I find interesting is that a lot of our students come in with big holes in their history knowledge, but they *know* they have big holes. A lot of themāespecially the more politically engaged onesāare a bit frustrated by what they didnāt learn in K12 history.
(DIR) Post #ATHGrOElOrdz5t9UTw by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T16:32:38Z
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@tkinias Totally agree. The students here, too, are aware there is a lot they do not know, and are happy to learn.Interestingly, I do find a certain kind of, let us say, overestimation of their own expertise or sophistication when it comes to certain topics such as gender and sexuality and religion: which may, historically, have been more complex than they imagine
(DIR) Post #ATHHBQKNKy6jMxKVf6 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T16:36:17Z
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@tkinias I would say the same. However, not only are we small: with a greatly shrunken faculty and a student body just starting to grow again after our near-death experience and the decision not to take a new entering class in 2019, we are being asked to teach more courses at intermediate or lower level, so in effect we need to teach more to generalists (fine with me)
(DIR) Post #ATHjlHLozGBOfbtL72 by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T21:56:30Z
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@CitizenWald yeah, I find religion is where students tend to overestimate their expertise the mostāboth students with devout Christian upbringings and students with strong anti-theist views tend to think they understand Christianity (and the influence of religion in general on history) better than they really do
(DIR) Post #ATHjoBN7foB0zlsv8C by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T21:57:02Z
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@CitizenWald @avielroshwald the horseshoe business is one I feel like I have to quash at least once a semster...
(DIR) Post #ATHjwGDBYyugK25YhM by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T21:58:29Z
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@tkinias Exactly what I meant. Here, of course, it is mostly the atheist/ anti-theist. They just have a very cynical/instrumental view of things--but I should add, that they are not, ultimately, closed to a more complex view; just that it takes work
(DIR) Post #ATHjwnRrzPGdP8DFfU by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T21:58:35Z
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@CitizenWald that makes senseāwe havenāt been through that kind of crisis, but history has shrunk to the point that I am one of only two T/TT historians on campus, so thereās similarly not a lot of opportunity for narrow specialization!
(DIR) Post #ATHk2smp3X2BhHuoAS by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T21:59:41Z
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@CitizenWald Yes, precisely.And I canāt be too judgemental, because sometimes they sound a lot like I did when I was 19.
(DIR) Post #ATHkLRTSpISAUYi6IC by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T22:03:03Z
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@tkinias Ah, not so different, then. I enjoy teaching beginning students or those otherwise not specialized, but I do think/fear, that, for this reason and others, our courses are going to have to change a lot in the next few years. I think I'll be able to do what I need to, but the curriculum may lose a lot
(DIR) Post #ATHkPSfoJHHTMxOybg by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T22:03:46Z
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@tkinias Same. I periodically try to remind myself of some of the dumb shit I said when I was that age š¤£
(DIR) Post #ATHl53ymVnquwd72jQ by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-04T22:11:16Z
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@CitizenWald Yeah, our curriculum is going to wind up being very different from what we had when I was an undergrad in a department with a few dozen faculty. But letting go of the old way of narrowly slicing things up by nation-state is probably a good thing anyway.
(DIR) Post #ATHlKWxX31frASu5QW by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-04T22:14:05Z
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@tkinias Sure, the national organizing principle is a relic of the 19th century. What I worry about it just a new thinness of the curriculum, a situation in which we tackle things eclectically and superficially. One advantage here is that we have a consortium with a fuller range of course offerings. But they places more stress on good academic advising, which in turn requires faculty who are both broadly and deeply educated.
(DIR) Post #ATHzhsAPlLHoxexCQy by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T00:55:10Z
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@CitizenWald Yes, exactly. I think we need to have more conversations in our discipline about how we organize curriculum in small departments.
(DIR) Post #ATI0AyjYQVIfj3GjfE by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T01:00:26Z
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@tkinias Exactly. I am the only European historian here now (!). The other is still on leave (departed temporarily during the budget crisis as part of our strategy to save the institution), however, tends to teach rather niche courses. We have more Americanists: some actual historians, and others in sort of "studies"-ish areas.Our current transition is a bit hard to explain in the limited number of characters available. Suffice it to say, I will continue to teach whatever current courses still
(DIR) Post #ATI0TTaKSeRqcam41o by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T01:03:46Z
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@tkinias seem viable, and pivot (as we say nowadays) more toward those (+ new ones I'll need to create) that are somewhere between "special topics" and "methods": in practice, find some themes and readings that really interest me, and use those to illustrate what it means to "do history" and at the same time impart some general sense of the broad sweep of history or a particular era. I can live with that. If they let me. š
(DIR) Post #ATI0mR57zaFUMNDkfI by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T01:07:12Z
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@tkinias BTW I somehow always mention, but nonetheless not without a touch of amazement, that back in the '70s, i.e. well before our time, UMass had an English dept. of c. 100 faculty. I mean, sure: GenEd, expository and remedial writing included, but still....Today:The End of the English Major | The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major WTAF, amirite?
(DIR) Post #ATI4M1HXgz3gdAgeKO by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T01:47:15Z
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@CitizenWald WTAF indeed
(DIR) Post #ATI4aZv5hqe8727yCW by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T01:49:53Z
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@CitizenWald an example of where Iām trying to be creative with this is a ā1914ā course Iām teaching in the fallāitās basically a survey of the world just before the Great Waritās a snapshot in time, but the idea is just to give students a taste of how vast and interconnected and dynamic the world was a century ago
(DIR) Post #ATIF7s5s9k2RZkgVN2 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T03:47:57Z
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@tkinias Exactly. Great example
(DIR) Post #ATIFNwcF6vjmEZUQ6a by avielroshwald@mstdn.social
2023-03-05T02:57:42Z
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@tkinias @CitizenWald That would make a great book!
(DIR) Post #ATIFNx7REwgtnK5KjI by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T03:02:12Z
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@avielroshwald @CitizenWald The course was kind of inspired by Charles Emmersonās ā1913: In Search of the World before the Great Warā so at this point itās not really a novel idea, unfortunately.
(DIR) Post #ATIFNxhx3BtjcZAUds by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T03:50:50Z
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@tkinias @avielroshwald And there is also 1491 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus
(DIR) Post #ATIFNyDV9t8RCPvgoq by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T03:03:26Z
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@avielroshwald @CitizenWald Of course, my version of the book would be better š but it would be a tough idea to sell, I expect.
(DIR) Post #ATIGFbEsnytfZZ9F68 by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T04:00:31Z
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@CitizenWald @avielroshwald Yes! My colleague actually uses that book as the starting point for her Latin America survey course.
(DIR) Post #ATIGKoDdyOpJHG3JVg by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T04:01:30Z
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@tkinias @avielroshwald Don't know him personally though he is a close friend of a friend, lives nearby. Sometimes (actually, often), the non-professionals are the ones who strive for the big synthesis
(DIR) Post #ATIGOyLMGyIRpte7M0 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T04:02:15Z
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@tkinias @avielroshwald For that matter, one could teach a course consisting entirely of books whose titles consist of a date. Maybe I should do that.
(DIR) Post #ATIHlkGorXgmnrwhzk by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T04:17:33Z
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@CitizenWald @avielroshwald And then thereās Osterhammel.
(DIR) Post #ATIHpcjqo7W0bPNHZA by avielroshwald@mstdn.social
2023-03-05T03:03:34Z
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@tkinias @CitizenWald Ahādonāt know that one. Thanks for the reference!
(DIR) Post #ATIHpe31wIS2fBM76G by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T03:05:58Z
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@avielroshwald @CitizenWald I listened to it as an audiobook a couple years ago. I wouldnāt say thereās anything terribly novel for a historian who has basic familiarity with the time period, but I still enjoyed it and think my students will get a lot out of it.
(DIR) Post #ATIHperMv8iXBIuJYu by avielroshwald@mstdn.social
2023-03-05T03:15:12Z
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@tkinias @CitizenWald Well, then you could write a better version!
(DIR) Post #ATIHphw5U3H4io8cpk by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T04:18:17Z
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@avielroshwald Has that not, since time immemorial, been the essence of our profession? š
(DIR) Post #ATJN1AK18uMM0Gm2nQ by jnthnwwlsn@historians.social
2023-03-05T11:06:20Z
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@tkinias @CitizenWald A friend told me he realized only very recently that various 19th-century cultural icons (the "old West," Sherlock Holmes, samurai [in certain settings], etc.) were or would have been contemporaneous. A lot of people only ever learn history as totally disconnected "time periods" that turn everything into a kind of mystical totem rather than a thing in (or a piece of fiction pretending to be in) a real and interconnected world.
(DIR) Post #ATJN1B2gSq5YEnfiPw by lizrdeb@mastodon.world
2023-03-05T12:59:44Z
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@jnthnwwlsn @tkinias @CitizenWald making a timeline and stacking random events across the globe on it is always informative.
(DIR) Post #ATJN1BmlhUx4XjEWFU by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T14:26:32Z
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@lizrdeb @jnthnwwlsn @CitizenWald Iāve been talking with my honors HIST 101 students about how when the textbook is like āGreeks chapter, China chapter, Africa chapterā it breaks our ability to keep things chronologically lined up.
(DIR) Post #ATJN1CNHVk9uMyJgA4 by tkinias@historians.social
2023-03-05T14:54:52Z
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@lizrdeb @jnthnwwlsn @CitizenWald Iāve been doing a lot of synchronizing in my East Asia class this semester, trying to help students keep what weāre discussing in China, for example, lined up with what they know about European (and later, US) history.
(DIR) Post #ATJN1Cx5McnaA14Gy8 by CitizenWald@historians.social
2023-03-05T16:51:03Z
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@tkinias @lizrdeb @jnthnwwlsn As a kid and student, I always loved a nice big comparative chart, whether in a book on one of those subjects, or as a standalone document or book. Even the old Time-Life history volumes did that, as I recall.