Week 1: Introduction to Course
Week 1: Course Introduction
Hello students and fellow travelers on the path(s) through U.S. history! This blog serves as a crucial companion to our weekly class time. Discussions will include further explorations into the assigned readings, suggested related websites and links, and questions about assignments and/or historical issues related to our course. It is also a tool for you to share questions and thoughts with each other.
A couple of brief ground rules:
This blog is meant for academic discussions directly related to the course only! No private information or inappropriate discussions please.
Discussions should be respectful, cooperative, and articulate. By all means, feel free to use this blog to debate but remember to do so with respect and keep in mind that you're all on the same journey and will be working together in class as well.
History is as much a synthesis of analytical frameworks and scholarly debates as “just the facts.” Thus, throughout this course we will tackle historical topics as historians frequently do—through spirited conversation.
As a way to kick off this conversation, I invite you watch this brief video which claims to reveal the history of the world in 7 minutes:
World History for Us All - History of the World in Seven Minutes Video
My question: is this history?
I look forward to your comments, questions, and discussions!
After watching the video it is clear to see that yes the video shows us what history is. I believe that a way to define what history is, recorded events of the pass which have been passed down from generation orally or written. This video definitely does show us many different events of the past.
ReplyDeleteThis is gavel history because it assumes a set of facts, and events as moving through a "truthful" timeline, and thus, that all movement is heading to a modern point in time. History is not about facts, or events, but instead an assessment of the questions left behind from those periods of time. Thus, history seeks to answer, or better yet, ask the right questions about speculative, even relative truths. Furthermore, real history is not displayed here because it does not assess human actions, the question that the dates are contingent on other happenings, and finally, the identity that can be derived from such events.
ReplyDelete