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Jul. 31st, 2006 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lollardfishChapter 5 done. Working on syllabus for commodities course:
"The goals of this class are twofold: we will open up the history of the world, and we will learn the methods that historians employ to interpret that history.
This type of course cannot include everything, and we will not try. Although we will generally focus on earlier material at the beginning of the semester, and more recent material at the end, chronology will not govern our scope of inquiry at any point. We cannot talk about the entire world, either. Instead, I have organized the class around commodities that were particularly important at various points in history. We will look at primary and secondary material that talks about exchange - exchange of goods, ideas, germs, techniques, and anything else we can study. We will look at codfish in the North Atlantic, Silk in Central Asia, the myriad cash crops that transformed the Carribean and sparked the Atlantic Slave Trade, a commodity in and of itself, spices and cloth from the Indian Ocean, and many more. Our work will focus on the period from antiquity to the beginnings of the modern era. At the end of the semester, you will work in small groups to put together a presentation and a final paper on a modern commodity that you find important.
The work will vary. You will write many short assignments on primary and secondary reading, and twice you will need to do a small amount of research on a specific product. When necessary, I will give you lectures on the history of a particular place and time, and at other times will rely on you to use your textbook as a resource. We will read literature, histories, popular writing, serious scholarship, look at images of artifacts and art, and use the internet heavily. This is an introductory course, which means that I do not expect you to come to class with pre-existing knowledge. Instead, I expect flexibility and diligence."
"The goals of this class are twofold: we will open up the history of the world, and we will learn the methods that historians employ to interpret that history.
This type of course cannot include everything, and we will not try. Although we will generally focus on earlier material at the beginning of the semester, and more recent material at the end, chronology will not govern our scope of inquiry at any point. We cannot talk about the entire world, either. Instead, I have organized the class around commodities that were particularly important at various points in history. We will look at primary and secondary material that talks about exchange - exchange of goods, ideas, germs, techniques, and anything else we can study. We will look at codfish in the North Atlantic, Silk in Central Asia, the myriad cash crops that transformed the Carribean and sparked the Atlantic Slave Trade, a commodity in and of itself, spices and cloth from the Indian Ocean, and many more. Our work will focus on the period from antiquity to the beginnings of the modern era. At the end of the semester, you will work in small groups to put together a presentation and a final paper on a modern commodity that you find important.
The work will vary. You will write many short assignments on primary and secondary reading, and twice you will need to do a small amount of research on a specific product. When necessary, I will give you lectures on the history of a particular place and time, and at other times will rely on you to use your textbook as a resource. We will read literature, histories, popular writing, serious scholarship, look at images of artifacts and art, and use the internet heavily. This is an introductory course, which means that I do not expect you to come to class with pre-existing knowledge. Instead, I expect flexibility and diligence."
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Date: 2006-07-31 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 03:52 pm (UTC)