tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36653212024-03-07T11:01:13.419-05:00Historianessfrom the hallowed halls of academia, thoughts about history, etc.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger394125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-41352912048884965172012-01-11T22:08:00.002-05:002012-01-11T22:10:22.521-05:00<b>Goodbye, Hello, Historianess </b><br /><br />With this, my 400th post at the URL, I announce that I am moving Historianess to a new service.<br /><br />You can find Historianess now at http://historianess.wordpress.com/<br /><br />Please join me (and Pepper the Crazy Cat) there!<br /><br />(This site will be deleted in six months.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-48202297601352531022011-08-19T16:43:00.002-04:002011-08-19T16:44:10.510-04:00<b>Welcome to Sex, Lies, and Depositions</b>
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<br />Since the good folks at Phi Beta Kappa were interested, I'm posting this! I've taught versions of the course before.
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<br />Prof. R. Goetz History 486 Spring 2011 (Office Hours Mon 10-12) rgoetz@rice.edu
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<br />Sex, Lies, and Depositions
<br />(Microhistories of Virginia County Court Records)
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<br />Court records are fascinating sources for understanding the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of early Virginians. The surviving court records of Northampton County, Virginia are full of amazing stories of libel, slander, theft, attempted murder, fights, great escapes by servants and slaves, rape, and illicit sex. They are also full of the more mundane legalities of everyday Virginia life: petitions, suits for the collection of debt, probate of wills, and the registration of cattle brands. These seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century records are by far the best source for hearing the echoes of the voices of ordinary Virginians; nowhere else can historians find the words and experiences of planters, both wealthy and poor, indentured servants, African slaves, free blacks, and women, both married and unwed. In this course students will read in these records and produce a 20-25 page research paper based on a court case or set of court cases, learning as they work the historians’ craft of researching and writing about the past.
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<br />Required Readings:
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<br />• John Ruston Pagan, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia (Oxford University Press, 2003).
<br />• Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Seventh Edition) (University of Chicago Press, 2007).
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<br />Expectations and Grading Scheme:
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<br />There are a number of writing assignments, both graded and ungraded. Every piece of writing you do in this class will help you write the final paper, so even though most writing assignments are “worth” only a small percentage of your grade, they make producing your final paper much easier. Therefore, I do not recommend skipping them. Additionally, you will have three individual conferences with me during the course of the semester. Although these are also ungraded, they are specifically designed to help you with the research and writing process. I do not recommend skipping those either.
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<br />* 1st short writing assignment 5%
<br />* 2nd short writing assignment 5%
<br />* annotated bibliography 5%
<br />* proposal 5%
<br />* narrative history assignment 5%
<br />* comments on partner’s narrative 5%
<br />* outline 5%
<br />* first draft evaluation 5%
<br />* comments on partner’s first draft 5%
<br />* revision plan 5%
<br />* First Draft 20%
<br />* Final Draft 30%
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<br />You will note that there is no percentage for participation. This does not mean, however, that your presence in class and active involvement in our discussions is not expected. Many aspects of your work rely on collaboration with your classmates, and so unexcused absences harm everyone in the class, not just yourself. I take attendance at each class; after three unexcused absences your final grade, based on the percentages listed above, will fall by one letter grade. Your grade will fall by another letter grade for each unexcused absence after the third. That means even the perfect A student will fail the course after six absences. So, the moral of the story is…come to class!
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<br />If you are sick or have a personal emergency that requires your absence from class, please provide the appropriate documentation and I will excuse you. You may come to office hours or make an appointment with me to discuss material you missed.
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<br />I will NOT accept late papers. Papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date (unless otherwise noted)…not halfway through the class, not at the end of class, not slipped under my office door sometime after the start of class. Only illness and personal emergency are suitable excuses for turning in a paper late with no penalty. Papers turned in late without verification of illness or personal emergency will receive a grade of ZERO.
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<br />If you are traveling on the day a paper is due for an athletic event or other college event, you must make arrangements with me to turn in your paper before you leave. I do not accept emailed papers (as we all know, attachments sometimes get lost—there is no substitute for a hard copy!).
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<br />All assignments in this course are covered by the honor code. You may NOT work together on writing assignments or on the final paper.
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<br />Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations must speak with me during the first two weeks of class. All discussions will remain confidential. Students with disabilities should also contact Disabled Student Services in the Allen Center.
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<br />Week 1: Introduction
<br /> Mon 22 August: Course Introduction, What is Microhistory?
<br />* handout: “What is Microhistory?/Reading Guide to Anne Orthwood’s Bastard”
<br /> Wed 24 August: Primary and Secondary Sources
<br />* Pagan, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, pps. 3-80.
<br /> * receive first short writing assignment (primary and secondary sources)
<br />Week 2: What is Microhistory?
<br />Mon 29 August: Argument and Interpretation in Microhistory
<br />* read Pagan, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, 81-150
<br /> * first short writing assignment due
<br /> * receive second short writing assignment (writing about argument)
<br /> Mon 31 August: What is Microhistory, all over again!
<br />* Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “The Significance of Trivia” Journal of Mormon History vol. 19, no. 1 (Winter 1993), 52-66. (in class handout)
<br />* Jill Lepore, “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography” Journal of American History vol. 88, no.1 (June 2001), 129-144. (online through JSTOR)
<br />* second short writing assignment due
<br /> * receive York County Microfilm Assignments
<br /> * handout “Reading Virginia Court Hand”
<br /> * explore online resources for transcription assistance
<br />Week 3: Defining a Topic
<br />Mon 5 Sept: NO CLASS (LABOR DAY)
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<br />Wed 7 Sept: Library Scavenger Hunt (meet in our classroom)
<br /> * Booth, Craft of Research, 283-311. (handout)
<br /> * handout “Generating an Annotated Bibliography”
<br /> *Be wary of the web! Separating the useful from the useless
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<br />*resources of the week: JSTOR, America: History and Life, Academic Search Complete, Virginia Index.
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<br />Week 4: Topics and Sources
<br />Mon Sept 12: Topics→Questions→Problems
<br /> * Turabian, 5-35.
<br /> * receive county court record presentation assignment
<br /> Wed Sept 14: The Parts of a County Court Record
<br />*bring a printout of your case(s), a preliminary transcription, and Anne Orthwood’s Bastard to class with you
<br />*receive annotated bibliography assignment
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<br />*resource of the week: The Oxford English Dictionary Online, 3rd Edition
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<br />Week 5: Interpretation, interpretation, interpretation
<br />Mon Sept 19: Thurs 29 January: County Court Record Presentations; Transcribing
<br />Helps/Hints
<br /> *schedule individual conferences with me (bibliographies)
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<br />Wed Sept 21: Source materials and inferences
<br />* read Storey, Chapter Two (Interpreting Source Materials) and Chapter Four (Use Sources to Make Inferences) (handouts in class)
<br />* final court record selection due, bring a clean photocopy of the actual records and your transcription to class with you (note: this assignment is ungraded but still required!)
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<br />*resource of the week: Minutes of the Council and General Court
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<br />Week 6: From Research to Writing, part I
<br />Mon Sept 26: Taking and organizing notes; Importance of Citing Properly
<br />* read Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graf, The Modern Researcher, Chapter Two (The ABC of Technique) (Handout in class)
<br />* Turabian, 36-47.
<br />* Warren Billings, “The Cases of Fernando and Elizabeth Key: A Note on the Status of Blacks in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. vol. 30, no. 3 (July 1973), 467-474. (JSTOR)
<br />Wed Sept 28: February: arguments and proposals
<br />*write three-five sentences that you think represent your argument to class with you (again, not graded, but crucial!)
<br /> * receive formal proposal assignment
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<br />*resource of the week: the oeuvre of Warren Billings
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<br />Week 7: From research to writing, part II
<br />Mon Oct 3: Formulating arguments
<br />*Turabian, 48-61.
<br /> *be ready to think about what “warrants” mean to solid argumentation
<br /> *bring your revised three-five sentence argument to class with you
<br /> *annotated bibliography due
<br /> Wed Oct 5: Formal Proposal Presentations
<br /> *3-5-page formal proposal due
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<br />Week 8: From Nothing to Something: First Drafts
<br />Mon Oct 10: NO CLASS (FALL RECESS)
<br />Wed Oct 12: Writing narrative, or, what really happened?
<br /> * read Narrative Techniques for Historians (handout)
<br /> * receive narrative history assignment
<br /> *Meet with me, Wed-Fri to discuss proposals
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<br />Week 9: First drafts, continued.
<br /> Sun Oct 16: Exchange narrative assignments with your partners by 5pm
<br />Mon Oct 17: Uncertainty in historical narratives
<br /> * meet with your partner, discuss narrative history assignment
<br />* bring a clean copy of your narrative history assignment, plus your comments on your partner’s work to class with you
<br />Wed Oct 19: To outline or not to outline, that is the question
<br />* Storey, Chapter Five (Get Writing!) and Chapter Six (Build an Argument) [handouts]
<br />* Turabian, 62-81.
<br />* receive outline assignment
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<br />Week 10: OUTLINE → DRAFT!
<br /> Sun Oct 23: Exchange outlines by 5pm
<br /> Mon Oct 24: Brainstorm your outlines in class
<br />Wed Oct 26: no class; private meetings with me
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<br />Week 11: Research and Writing Problems
<br />Mon Oct 31: Troubleshooting in your Research (or, Solving the Unsolvable)
<br />* bring a one-page description of a research or interpretation problem you’re having to class for discussion (note: this assignment is ungraded but still required!)
<br />Wed Nov 2: Strategies for Writing a First Draft
<br />* read Storey, Chapter Three (Writing History Faithfully), Chapter Eight (Writing Sentences in History), and Chapter Nine (Choose Precise Words)
<br />[handouts]
<br />* handout on free writing
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<br />Week 12: First drafts, continued….
<br /> Mon Nov 7: Introductions and Conclusions
<br />* Turabian, 102-108.
<br />* receive first draft evaluation assignment
<br />*receive First Draft FAQ
<br />Wed Nov 9: no class, individual conferences with me
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<br />Week 13: First drafts and Revision!
<br /> Sun Nov 13: Exchange First Drafts by 5pm
<br /> Mon Nov 16: First draft discussions in class
<br /> *bring your evaluation of your own paper and that of your partner to class
<br /> *receive revision assignment
<br /> Wed Nov 18: Writing a plan for revision
<br />*Storey, Chapter Ten (handout)
<br />* bring a draft of your revision plan to class
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<br />Week 14: Towards a Final Draft: Revising content
<br /> Mon Nov 21: No class, individual conferences with me
<br />Wed Nov 23: No class, THANKSGIVING
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<br />Week 15: Towards a Final Draft: Revising Style
<br /> Mon Nov 28: Style!
<br /> * Turabian, 109-119.
<br /> * bring a problem paragraph to class with you
<br />Wed Nov 30: The Perfect Word/Form over Function (just this once)
<br /> * Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, 193-234 (in class handout).
<br /> * bring your partially revised draft to class with you
<br /> *look over your footnotes, especially.
<br /> * bring Turabian, A Manual for Writers to class with you.
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<br />ALL FINAL DRAFTS ARE DUE TO MY OFFICE ON WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 14th IN HARD COPY NO LATER THAN 5 P.M.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-80125774636082039452011-05-06T23:46:00.002-04:002011-05-06T23:56:23.106-04:00<span style="font-weight:bold;">Parson Weems and David Barton--Traveling Salesmen/preachers<br /></span><br />I have a fondness for the absurd, and there are few things more absurdly enjoyable than the collected writings of Mason Locke Weems. Parson Weems, as he dubbed himself, was not actually a parson, but rather a printer, traveling books salesman, entrepreneur, and fabulist of the highest order. He had an eye for opportunity, making his name (though his fame was unaccompanied by fortune) by publishing his masterpiece, A History of the Life, Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington (1800), a few weeks after his hero’s death. The good parson circumnavigated the southern United States peddling his biography of Washington—I say “biography,” but Parson Weems’s writing hardly meets the modern definition. Weems has the dubious distinction of being the originator of the story of little George chopping down his father’s prized cherry tree, and then owning up to his sin by piously intoning “I can’t tell a lie, Pa, you know I can’t.” Parson Weems made that story up out of whole cloth, as he did so many others about Washington and his other subjects (Francis Marion, Benjamin Franklin, and William Penn).<br />Weems had a habit of recreating the colonial and revolutionary American world for his readers, and he did it, I think, to show readers a lost world of religiosity and virtue, and to urge them to begin that lost world anew. Weems was a prophet of the past as well as the future, fashioning each to suit his vision of what America was and would be yet again.<br />Weems was much on my mind this morning, since my twitter feed and email inbox overflowed with the New York Times story about David Barton. Mr. Barton, the Times tells us helpfully, “is a self-taught historian who is described by several conservative presidential aspirants as a valued adviser and a source of historical and biblical justification for their policies.” I have long familiarly with Barton; he has been a thorn in the side of progressive educators in Texas for decades. (I myself am the product of public education in Texas.) Barton, autodidact and spiritual advisor, is also the founder of Wallbuilders, a dominionist organization whose goal “is to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values; and (3) encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena.” Barton sees the hand of God clearly in the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and in the country’s early history, and he also sees a present in which secularists and atheists are destroying the fabric of God’s kingdom on earth. In a well-publicized controversy last year, Barton was hired by the Texas State Board of Education as an evaluator of the state’s social studies curriculum; he billed himself an “expert reviewer” (though his formal education, from Oral Roberts University, is in religion) and offered factually, er, unreliable recommendations to increase schoolchildren’s knowledge of the virtue and religion of the founding generation. <br />I have long thought that Parson Weems, nineteenth-century fantasist, and David Barton have much in common. Like Weems, Barton criss-crosses the country selling his version of the past to all comers. Like Weems, Barton excels at cherry-picking quotes from the hallowed Founders, often folks like George Washington, to suit not the art of historical inquiry, but rather to bring about a future that matches the past—or the past as he remembers it to have been. David Barton’s American history is untainted by nastiness—it is a peaceful place, inhabited by industrious, pious, Christian white people who brought the light and wonder of God to the new world. In return, God granted them a biblical Republic and His protection—a protection that Barton darkly believes will soon be withdrawn if the United States does not change course. In this past, there was no violence, imperialism, slavery, or racism. Such blemishes do not become a vision of the past perfect.<br />Weems looked upon the past in similar terms, creating a history that would be a model for the future. Weems, writing about Washington’s virtue: “And truly Washington had abundant reason, from his own happy experience, to recommend Religion so heartily to others. For besides all those inestimable favours which he received from her at the hands of her celestial daughters, the Virtues; she threw over him her own magic mantle of Character. And it was this that immortalized Washington. By inspiring his countrymen with the profoundest veneration for him as the best of men, it naturally smoothed his way to supreme command; so that when War, that monster of Satan, came on roaring against America, with all his death's heads and garments rolled in blood, the nation unanimously placed Washington at the head of their armies, from a natural persuasion that so good a man must be the peculiar favourite of Heaven, and the fastest friend of his country. How far this precious instinct in favour of goodness was correct, or how far Washington's conduct was honourable to Religion and glorious to himself and country, bright age to come and happy millions yet unborn, will, we confidently hope, declare to the most distant posterity.”<br />David Barton might have written something like that, perhaps in a less flowery way. And Barton would have found a way to work supply-side economics into it, but the sentiment is the same.<br />Weems and Barton, prophets of the past and the future. Their concerns are the same, though separated by two hundred years: that the nation is losing its virtue, its religion, and its place in God’s favor. The “most distant posterity” they both fear, will lose God’s blessings and squander the Founders’ efforts. Yet that past remains a mystery for Barton, as it did for Weems. As Barton told the Times, “We haven’t had the time to read through even 5 percent of these things,” he said, opening a sheaf of 18th-century newspapers. “You never know what you’ll find.” And I wonder what would happen if Barton read, truly read, those newspapers. Is he prepared for what he might learn?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-30807772361327324432009-05-15T17:49:00.001-04:002009-05-15T17:51:33.098-04:00<b>Friday Cat Blogging with Pepper the Crazy Cat</b><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPjN1wJrOTC3Tjlt1k6Oipa9t-cpT6wFOOQmOty3RRGFC73aa35EJAGXPUwLhjwp3vepM-MqyH5doHEFA23dnsXTtciUKnhZeesmpIBODeTQQxmh1Hbj2jDtP9hy3xJKXNGwH/s1600-h/IMG_0001.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDPjN1wJrOTC3Tjlt1k6Oipa9t-cpT6wFOOQmOty3RRGFC73aa35EJAGXPUwLhjwp3vepM-MqyH5doHEFA23dnsXTtciUKnhZeesmpIBODeTQQxmh1Hbj2jDtP9hy3xJKXNGwH/s320/IMG_0001.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336171347635474338" /></a><br /><br />I'm feeling very zen today. Mom rescued another kitty. He's living in the bathroom and I am pretending not to care. <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-46395202082357123142009-05-14T14:46:00.000-04:002009-05-14T14:47:20.542-04:00<b>On Leave!</b><br /><br />Schedule<br /><br />15 June 2009<br /> *finish proposal and table of contents<br /><br />30 June 2009<br /> *rewrite of Chapter Two (Converting Indians, Converting Europeans)<br /><br />31 July 2009<br />*rewrite of Chapter Three (The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-Indian Christian Commonwealth)<br /><br />31 August 2009<br /> *finish research for the new Chapter One<br /><br />30 September 2009<br /> *rewrite of Chapter One incorporating new research (Title TBA)<br />*draft of historiographical piece buttressing more sensational claims in Chapter Eight<br /><br />31 October 2009<br /> *rewrite of Chapter Four (Faith in the Blood)<br /><br />15 December 2009<br /> *rewrite of Chapter Five (Baptism and the Birth of Race)<br /><br />BREAK 15 December 2009-15 January 2010<br /><br />15 February 2010<br /> *rewrite of Chapter Six (title TBA)<br /><br />15 March 2010<br /> *complete research for new Chapter Seven<br /><br />15 April 2010 <br /> *new draft of Chapter Seven (Becoming Christian, Becoming White)<br /><br />1 June 2010<br />*rewrite of Chapter Eight (An Empire of Christian Slaves) and new draft of supporting historiographical article for separate publication<br /><br />15 June 2010<br /> *draft of Epilogue (Towards Christian Abolitionism and Scientific Racism)<br /><br />15 June 2010-15 July 2010 BREAK<br /><br />1 August 2010<br /> *draft of introduction (Christians and Heathens in the Atlantic World)<br /><br />=FULL DRAFT OF THE AMAZING MR BOOK (ROUND II) <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-71497795032103690202009-02-27T18:02:00.004-05:002009-02-27T18:04:33.318-05:00<b>Friday Cat Blogging with Pepper the Crazy Cat</b><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8DL04sTfb9JnI1J3lT-zCAYrA_PKEMXfy_MiSsRCgBfee-SLj30IpUR0xLWc7tEigKNennX4wwzFSy4n8GQWO13FetJTU0oP5q2gKUqjsM-K8RGe6MyigzKYpu53U5MmUqVD/s1600-h/IMG_0005.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8DL04sTfb9JnI1J3lT-zCAYrA_PKEMXfy_MiSsRCgBfee-SLj30IpUR0xLWc7tEigKNennX4wwzFSy4n8GQWO13FetJTU0oP5q2gKUqjsM-K8RGe6MyigzKYpu53U5MmUqVD/s320/IMG_0005.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307616589708675234" /></a><br /><br />I make my triumphant return to Friday cat blogging with this portrait! Mom has a new digital camera to replace the old broken one. She told me she really needed the camera so she can take pictures of documents (she is going to someplace called England to look at these document things) but so far she has just been laying on the floor taking pictures of me. Aren't I cute?<br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-486451284893631312009-02-12T20:30:00.001-05:002009-02-12T20:32:52.481-05:00<b>Happy 200th Birthday Mr. Charles Darwin!</b><br /><br />And, Mr. Lincoln, too. <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-22443307246797064552009-01-23T23:01:00.003-05:002009-01-23T23:04:45.363-05:00<b>Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passes Senate, 61-36</b><br /><br />Now, who are the thirty-six miserable Senators who think it is OK to pay women less than men for the same job? And how hard are we going to work to throw the bums out?<br /><br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-3100019770896479042009-01-16T17:58:00.002-05:002009-01-16T18:07:29.775-05:00<b>Notes and observations from the course evaluation wars</b><br /><br />One of the fun things about the first half of the survey is anticipating what sorts of things students will say on their evals at the end of the semester. It's always interesting to see what students understood the course was about. Case in point from Fall 2008's HIST 117: <blockquote>Good, not outstanding because we talked way more about Indians than I would have expected for this class.<br /></blockquote> Clearly I must have failed to make the point that understanding why Indians did what they did is critical to understanding American history! I guess from this student's point of view, outstanding courses only focus on white Americans?<br /><br />Another of my favorites: <blockquote>There is no textbook and there are four to five novels to read.</blockquote> Novels? Novels! At first I thought that perhaps my students are unaware of the difference between fiction and nonfiction, but one of my colleagues has suggested that many students use the words "book" and "novel" synonymously. Hilarious! This student went on to write: <blockquote>Keeping up with the reading will greatly increase your chances of succeeding in this class. </blockquote> At least I did manage to make that little fact clear!<br /><br />In the odd comment category, I place this evaluation of my teaching: <blockquote>I did not like the manner she spoke her lectures. She spoke them, rather than talked about them, and they were nonstop.</blockquote> I find this one pretty puzzling. One doesn't generally "speak" lectures, one "gives" or "delivers" them. How does one "speak" a lecture, rather than "talk" about a lecture? Sigh. At least I am not at a public university in Texas, where my receipt of a bonus might be contingent on the things students write about my class. <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-21849647498495271372008-12-14T16:23:00.003-05:002008-12-14T16:25:10.657-05:00<b>Whatever happened to "Mission Accomplished?"</b><br /><br />I'm reading the hilarious coverage of Bush ducking to avoid shoes an irate Iraqi journalist chucked at him. Very funny.<br /><br />At one point during his news conference, Bush declared, "The war is not over, it is decisively on its way to being won."<br /><br />As my post title asks...<br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-11831205544783604222008-12-05T15:29:00.003-05:002008-12-05T15:33:15.173-05:00<b>Why do the scientists have all the fun?</b><br /><br />The 2008 AAAS/Science dance your dissertation on YouTube awards are up <a href="http://gonzolabs.org/dance/contestants/">here</a>.<br /><br />I particularly like the human hemoglobin dance.<br /><br />I'm now wondering what my manuscript would look like if conveyed as an interpretive dance or as a musical. (Surely no one would tap-dance their way to spontaneous combustion a la Buffy.)<br /><br />What about you? What would your dramatized manuscript look like?<br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-31898945967371045522008-11-30T13:00:00.002-05:002008-11-30T13:02:54.412-05:00<b>Sex, Lies, and Depositions!</b><br /><br />Very few changes from this syllabus's previous iterations-I've had to change the end of the course to account for fewer instructional days in Rice's new calendar, and we're looking at a different county this time. Otherwise, this was such a success last time that it needed only a few tweaks.<br /><br />Sex, Lies, and Depositions<br />(Microhistories of Virginia County Court Records)<br /><br />Court records are fascinating sources for understanding the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of early Virginians. The surviving court records of Northampton County, Virginia are full of amazing stories of libel, slander, theft, attempted murder, fights, great escapes by servants and slaves, rape, and illicit sex. They are also full of the more mundane legalities of everyday Virginia life: petitions, suits for the collection of debt, probate of wills, and the registration of cattle brands. These seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century records are by far the best source for hearing the echoes of the voices of ordinary Virginians; nowhere else can historians find the words and experiences of planters, both wealthy and poor, indentured servants, African slaves, free blacks, and women, both married and unwed. In this course students will read in these records and produce a 20-25 page research paper based on a court case or set of court cases that they select, learning as they work the historians’ craft of researching and writing about the past.<br /><br />Required Readings:<br /><br />• Wayne C. Booth, et al. The Craft of Research (3rd Edition) (University of Chicago Press, 2007).<br />• John Ruston Pagan, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia (Oxford University Press, 2003).<br />• William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students (3rd Edition) (Oxford University Press, 2009).<br />• Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Seventh Edition) (University of Chicago Press, 2007).<br /><br />Expectations and Grading Scheme:<br /><br />There are a number of writing assignments, both graded and ungraded. Every piece of writing you do in this class will help you write the final paper, so even though most writing assignments are “worth” only a small percentage of your grade, they make producing your final paper much easier. Therefore, I do not recommend skipping them. Additionally, you will have three individual conferences with me during the course of the semester. Although these are also ungraded, they are specifically designed to help you with the research and writing process. I do not recommend skipping those either.<br /> <br />* 1st short writing assignment 5%<br />* 2nd short writing assignment 5%<br />* annotated bibliography 5%<br />* proposal 5%<br />* narrative history assignment 5%<br />* comments on partner’s narrative 5%<br />* outline 5%<br />* first draft evaluation 5%<br />* comments on partner’s first draft 5%<br />* revision plan 5%<br />* First Draft 20%<br />* Final Draft 30%<br /><br />You will note that there is no percentage for participation. This does not mean, however, that your presence in class and active involvement in our discussions is not expected. Many aspects of your work rely on collaboration with your classmates, and so unexcused absences harm everyone in the class, not just yourself. I take attendance at each class; after three unexcused absences your final grade, based on the percentages listed above, will fall by one letter grade. Your grade will fall by another letter grade for each unexcused absence after the third. That means even the perfect A student will fail the course after six absences. So, the moral of the story is…come to class!<br /><br />If you are sick or have a personal emergency that requires your absence from class, please provide the appropriate documentation and I will excuse you. You may come to office hours or make an appointment with me to discuss material you missed.<br /><br />I will NOT accept late papers. Papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date (unless otherwise noted)…not halfway through the class, not at the end of class, not slipped under my office door sometime after the start of class. Only illness and personal emergency are suitable excuses for turning in a paper late with no penalty. Papers turned in late without verification of illness or personal emergency will receive a grade of ZERO.<br /><br />If you are traveling on the day a paper is due for an athletic event or other college event, you must make arrangements with me to turn in your paper before you leave. I do not accept emailed papers (as we all know, attachments sometimes get lost—there is no substitute for a hard copy!).<br /><br />All assignments in this course are covered by the honor code. You may NOT work together on writing assignments or on the final paper.<br /><br />Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations must speak with me during the first two weeks of class. All discussions will remain confidential. Students with disabilities should also contact Disabled Student Services in the Ley Student Center.<br /><br />Week 1: Introduction <br /> Tues 6 January: Course Introduction, What is Microhistory?<br />* handout: “What is Microhistory?/Reading Guide to Anne Orthwood’s Bastard”<br /> Thurs 8 January: Primary and Secondary Sources<br />* Pagan, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, pps. 3-80.<br /> * receive first short writing assignment (primary and secondary sources)<br />Week 2: What is Microhistory?<br />Tues 13 January: Argument and Interpretation in Microhistory<br />* read Pagan, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, 81-150<br /> * first short writing assignment due<br /> * receive second short writing assignment (writing about argument)<br /> Thurs 15 January: What is Microhistory, all over again! <br />* Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “The Significance of Trivia” Journal of Mormon History vol. 19, no. 1 (Winter 1993), 52-66. (in class handout)<br />* Jill Lepore, “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography” Journal of American History vol. 88, no.1 (June 2001), 129-144. (online through JSTOR)<br />* second short writing assignment due<br /> * receive Northampton County Microfilm Assignments<br /> * handout “Reading Virginia Court Hand”<br /> * explore online resources for transcription assistance<br />Week 3: Defining a Topic<br />Tues 20 January: Library Scavenger Hunt (meet in our classroom)<br /> * Storey, Chapter One (Getting Started)<br /> * Turabian, Manual for Writers, 29-32.<br /> * Booth, Craft of Research, 283-311.<br /> * handout “Generating an Annotated Bibliography”<br /> *Be wary of the web! Separating the useful from the useless.<br />Thurs 22 January: Topics‡Questions‡Problems <br /> * Booth, Craft of Research, 35-82.<br /> * receive county court record presentation assignment<br />Week 4: Solidifying your Sources<br /> Tues 27 January: The Parts of a County Court Record<br />*bring a printout of your case(s), a preliminary transcription, and Anne Orthwood’s Bastard to class with you <br />*receive annotated bibliography assignment<br />*resource of the week: The Oxford English Dictionary Online, 3rd Edition<br />Thurs 29 January: County Court Record Presentations; Transcribing Helps/Hints<br /> *schedule individual conferences with me (bibliographies)<br />Week 5: Interpretation, interpretation, interpretation<br />Tues 3 February: Source materials and inferences<br />* read Storey, Chapter Two (Interpreting Source Materials) and Chapter Four (Use Sources to Make Inferences)<br />* final court record selection due, bring a clean photocopy of the actual records and your transcription to class with you (note: this assignment is ungraded but still required!)<br />Thurs 5 February: Taking and organizing notes; Importance of Citing Properly<br />* read Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graf, The Modern Researcher, Chapter Two (The ABC of Technique) (Handout in class)<br />* Booth, Craft of Research, 84-101.<br />* bring Turabian, A Manual for Writers to class with you<br />* Warren Billings, “The Cases of Fernando and Elizabeth Key: A Note on the Status of Blacks in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. vol. 30, no. 3 (July 1973), 467-474. (JSTOR)<br />Week 6: From research to writing, part I<br /> Tues 10 February: arguments and proposals<br />*write three-five sentences that you think represent your argument to class with you (again, not graded, but crucial!)<br /> * receive formal proposal assignment<br />Thurs 12 February: Formulating arguments<br /> *Booth, Craft of Research, 108-170.<br /> *reread Story, 63-67.<br /> *be ready to think about what “warrants” mean to solid argumentation<br /> *bring your revised three-five sentence argument to class with you<br /> *annotated bibliography due<br />Week 7: From research to writing, part II<br /> Tues 17 February: Formal Proposal Presentations<br /> *3-5-page formal proposal due <br />Thurs 19 February: Writing narrative, or, what really happened?<br /> * read Storey, Chapter Seven (Narrative Techniques for Historians)<br /> * receive narrative history assignment <br /> *Meet with me, Wed-Fri to discuss proposals<br />Week 8: From Nothing to Something: First Drafts<br /> Mon 23 February: Exchange narrative assignments with your partners by 5pm<br />Tues 24 February: Uncertainty in historical narratives<br /> * meet with your partner, discuss narrative history assignment<br />* bring a clean copy of your narrative history assignment, plus your comments on your partner’s work to class with you<br />Thurs 26 February: To outline or not to outline, that is the question<br />* Storey, Chapter Five (Get Writing!) and Chapter Six (Build an Argument)<br />* Booth, Craft of Research, 173-212.<br />* receive outline assignment<br /><br />Week 9: SPRING BREAK! Work on your Outlines <br /><br />Week 10: Outline ‡ Draft!<br /> Mon 10 March: Exchange outlines by 5pm<br /> Tues 11 March: Brainstorm your outlines in class<br />Thurs 13 March: no class; private meetings with me <br />Week 11: Research and Writing Problems<br />Tues 17 March: Troubleshooting in your Research (or, Solving the Unsolvable)<br />* bring a one-page description of a research or interpretation problem you’re having to class for discussion (note: this assignment is ungraded but still required!) <br />Thurs 19 March: Strategies for Writing a First Draft<br />* read Storey, Chapter Three (Writing History Faithfully), Chapter Eight (Writing Sentences in History), and Chapter Nine (Choose Precise Words)<br />* handout on free writing<br />Week 12: First drafts, continued….<br /> Tues 24 March: Introductions and Conclusions<br />* Booth, Craft of Research, 232-248.<br />* receive first draft evaluation assignment<br />*receive First Draft FAQ<br />Thurs 26 March: no class, individual conferences with me<br />Week 13: First drafts, concluded<br /> Mon 30 March: Exchange First Drafts by 5pm<br /> Tues 31 March: First draft discussions in class<br /> *bring your evaluation of your own paper and that of your partner to class<br /> *receive revision assignment<br /> Thurs 2 April: no class: Spring Recess<br />Week 14: Towards a Final Draft: Revising content<br /> Tues 7 April: Writing a plan for revision <br /> * Storey, Chapter Ten (Revising and Editing)<br /> * bring a draft of your revision plan to class<br />Thurs 9 April: no class, individual conferences with me<br /> *bring a clean copy of your revision plan to your meeting with me<br />Week 15: Towards a Final Draft: Revising Style<br /> Tues 14 April: Style!<br /> * Booth, Craft of Research, 249-269.<br /> * Turabian, Manual for Writers, 119-128, 283-358.<br /> * bring a problem paragraph to class with you<br />Thurs 16 April: The Perfect Word/Form over Function (just this once)<br /> * Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher, 193-234 (in class handout).<br /> * bring your partially revised draft to class with you<br /> *look over your footnotes, especially.<br /> * bring Turabian, A Manual for Writers to class with you.<br /><br /><br />ALL FINAL DRAFTS ARE DUE TO MY OFFICE ON WEDNESDAY 29 APRIL IN HARD COPY NO LATER THAN 5 P.M.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-47241063093641325352008-11-24T20:34:00.002-05:002008-11-24T20:43:37.178-05:00<b>Welcome to History 566</b><br /><br />Otherwise known as Readings in North American History, 1500-1800. It is somewhat changed from the Spring 2007 syllabus. I eliminated the week on Gender and Culture and added, in its stead, a Borderlands week. I'm OK with this since there are several gender readings scattered throughout the semester under other themes. The other major change is since Rice now has a slightly shorter semester, I have smooshed the old Republican Politics and Republican Cultures weeks into one called. simply, Republic. Other than that, a few small changes from week to week, but the structure of the course remains otherwise unchanged. It has been fun over the last two years making notes for changes, and as always, it has served as an incentive to constantly keep up with emerging literature. This is becoming more difficult task every year, as the geographical boundaries of "early America" broaden.<br /><br />***<br /><br />This graduate readings seminar introduces recent problems and questions as well as enduring issues in early American history. It is arranged both thematically and chronologically. Students will be expected to explore three key elements of early American historiography: chronology (the basic timeline and narrative of historical development), major events and turning points (periodization), and they will be expected to engage in critical analysis of the major works and themes in the field. By the end of the course you should be familiar with broad themes and interpretations in early American history, in preparation for oral exams, research in early American history, and teaching the first half of the standard American history survey. <br /><br />If you think you need a refresher course on background and basic chronology, you should consult Alan Taylor’s American Colonies (Viking, 2001), D.W. Meinig’s The Shaping of America, vol. I (Yale, 1986), and/or Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of the Early Modern British Empire and the Formation of American Culture (UNC, 1988). For a historiographical overview, you should read the relevant articles in Daniel Vickers, ed., A Companion to Colonial America (Blackwell, 2003). For the English background, you should consult the first two volumes of The Oxford History of the British Empire or Keith Wrightson’s English Society, 1580-1680 (London, 1982). For the Spanish in North America, see especially David Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (Yale, 1992). For the French in North America, see especially W.J. Eccles, The French in North America, 1500-1765 (Michigan State, 1998). These books are all on reserve at Fondren Library for you to consult.<br /><br />Each student in the course will participate in weekly discussions, review one week’s readings, and write a historiographical essay, due at the end of the semester (in lieu of a final exam). All reading is required (with the exception of the section labeled “recommended.” These readings are not required, will not be discussed in class, and are for your interest and future reference only.) Students should take notes on individual readings as well as make synthetic notes on each week’s topic as a whole. As the semester progresses, your knowledge and familiarity of the field will increase, and I will expect you to make methodological and historiographical connections with earlier readings. For the week you select to write a review of the readings, you must also submit (by 8pm on Monday the evening before class) a set of concise questions for the seminar, distributed via email to me and to the whole class. Your review of one week’s readings will be 8-10 pages in length, and your final paper, on a topic of your choosing, will be 12-15 pages. You are expected to do additional reading for the final paper; you will consult with me to formulate a topic and I will make recommendations for additional readings. A prospectus and annotated bibliography for the final paper is due on our final class meeting, Friday, 17 April 2009. The final paper is due to my office by 12 noon on Monday, 11 May 2009. No late papers will be accepted and no extensions will be granted (except in the case of severe illness or other personal emergency—any excuses must be accompanied by appropriate documentation).<br /><br />Your grade will be based on active participation in class discussion (30%), the 8-10 page review and pre-circulated questions (30%), and the final paper (40%).<br /><br />I recommend that you purchase books that are assigned in full (using Amazon or some other site). All books are also on reserve at Fondren Library. All assigned articles are online and available via JSTOR, History Cooperative, Informaworld, or Synergy.<br /><br />Tuesday 6 January: Introductions<br />For our first class, please read the following short articles, and prepare a 3-5 page essay answering the question “Why study early American history?” This essay won’t be graded, but I will read it and return it with comments. As you read and write, you should also consider some key thematic questions: what should be the geographical boundaries of early America? When should “early America” begin? Who were the early Americans? And, where has the historiography and methodology of early American history been, and where should it go next?<br />• James A. Hijiya, “Why the West is Lost” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. vol. 51, no. 2 (April 1994), 276-292. (JSTOR)<br />• Michael McGiffert, et al., “Forum: Why the West is Lost” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. vol. 51, no. 4 (October 1994), 717-754. (JSTOR)<br />• Claudio Saunt, “Mapping Early American Historiography,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 65, no. 4 (October 2008), 745-778. (History Cooperative)<br />• Juliana Barr, “How Do You Get from Jamestown to Santa Fe? A Colonial Sun Belt,” Journal of Southern History vol. 73, no. 3 (August 2007), 553-566. (available via History Cooperative)<br />• Philip Morgan, “Rethinking Early American Slavery,” in Pestana and Salinger, eds., Inequality in Early America (Dartmouth, 1999), 239-266. (on reserve)<br />• James Taylor Carson, “American Historians and Indians,” Historical Journal vol. 49, no. 3 (October 2006), 921-933. (I will provide copies.)<br />• Elizabeth Mancke, “Another British America: A Canadian Model for the Early Modern British Empire,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History vol. 25, no.1 (January 1997), 1-36. (Informaworld.com)<br />• Joyce E. Chaplin, “Expansion and Exceptionalism in Early American History Journal of American History vol. 89, no.4 (March 2003), 1431-1456. (available via History Cooperative)<br /><br />Tuesday 13 January: Native North America<br />• Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge University Press, 2001), entire.<br />• Neal Salisbury, “The Indians’ Old World: Native Americans and the Coming of Europeans” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. vol. 53, no. 3 (July 1996), 435-458. (JSTOR)<br />• John F. Scarry, “The Late Prehistoric Southeast” in Hudson and Tesser, eds., The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704 (University of Georgia Press, 1994), 17-35. (on reserve)<br />• Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (University of North Carolina, 1992), 1-49. (on reserve)<br />Recommended:<br />• Patricia Galloway, Choctaw Genesis, 1500-1700 (Nebraska, 1998), entire.<br /><br />Tuesday 20 January: Encounters<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (Yale, 2006), xiii-xx, 3-28, 57-87.<br />• Joshua Piker, Okfuskee: A Creek Indian Town in Colonial America (Harvard, 2004), entire.<br />• Nicholas P. Canny, “The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 50, no. 3 (July 1973), 575-598. (JSTOR)<br />• Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 33, no. 2 (April 1976), 289-299. (JSTOR)<br />• Joyce E. Chaplin, Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier, 1500-1676 (Harvard, 2001), 1-3, 157-198. (on reserve)<br />Recommended:<br />• Karen Kupperman, Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Cornell, 2000), entire.<br />• Michael Leroy Oberg, The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand: Roanoke’s Forgotten Indians (Penn, 2008).<br /><br />Tuesday 27 January: Migration<br />• Alexander X. Byrd, Migrants and Voyagers: Black Migrants Across the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World (LSU, 2008), entire.<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 29-56.<br />• Allan Greer, The People of New France (Toronto, 1997), 3-26. (on reserve)<br />• Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge, 1991), ix-xvi, 1-93.<br />• Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “Migrants and Motives: Religion and the Settlement of New England, 1630-1640” New England Quarterly vol 58, no. 3 (September 1985), 339-383. (JSTOR)<br />Special Guest Star: Dr. Alexander Byrd.<br />Recommended:<br />• Bernard Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction (Vintage, 1986), entire.<br />• James P.P. Horn, Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake (UNC, 1994), 1-120.<br /><br />Tuesday 3 February: Profit<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 88-116.<br />• Kenneth Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630 (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 1-40, 256-355. (on reserve)<br />• Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern (Verso, 1997), 127-184, 217-276. (on reserve)<br />• Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (W.W. Norton, 1975), 3-212. (on reserve)<br />• Richard White, The Middle Ground, 94-141.<br /><br />Tuesday 10 February: Work<br />• Jennifer L. Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Pennsylvania, 2004), entire.<br />• Richard White, The Middle Ground, 94-141 (think about this in the context of work as well as profit).<br />• Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800 (Verso, 1997), 307-368, 457-508. (on reserve)<br />• Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 213-292. (on reserve)<br />• Stephen Innes, ed., Work and Labor in Early America, (University of North Carolina, 1988), 3-47. (on reserve)<br />• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Martha Ballard and Her Girls: Women’s Work in Eighteenth-Century Maine,” in Ibid., 70-105. (on reserve)<br />• Philip D. Morgan, “Task and Gang Systems: The Organization of Labor on New World Plantations,” in Ibid., 189-220. (on reserve)<br />• Allan Greer, The People of New France, 27-42. (on reserve)<br />• Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, & Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and his Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (University of North Carolina, 2004), 37-68. (on reserve)<br />Recommended: <br />• Sharon B. Sundue, Industrious in Their Stations: Young People at Work in Urban America, 1720-1810 (UVA, 2008), entire.<br /><br />Tuesday 17 February: Religion and Belief<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 184-218.<br />• Perry Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness” in Errand into the Wilderness (Harvard, 1956), 1-16, 48-98. (on reserve)<br />• David Hall, “On Common Ground: The Coherence of American Puritan Studies” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 44, no. 2 (April 1987), 193-229. (JSTOR)<br />• Emma Anderson, The Betrayal of Faith: The Tragic Journey of a Colonial Native Convert (Harvard, 2007), entire.<br />• Rhys Isaac, “Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the Baptists’ Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765-1775” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser. vol. 31, no. 3 (July 1973), 345-368. (JSTOR)<br />Recommended:<br />• Jon E. Sensbach, Rebecca’s Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World (Harvard, 2005), entire.<br />• Rebecca Larsen, Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775 (Knopf, 1999), entire.<br />• Mary Maples Dunn, “Saints and Sisters: Congregational and Quaker Women in the Early Colonial Period” American Quarterly vol. 30, no. 5 (Winter 1978), 582-601. (JSTOR)<br />• Jon Butler, Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776 (Harvard, 2000), 185-224. (on reserve)<br />• E. Brooks Hollifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (Yale, 2003), entire.<br /><br />Tuesday 24 February: Borderlands<br />• James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (UNC, 2002), entire.<br />• Juliana Barr, “A Diplomacy of Gender: Rituals of First Contact in the ‘Land of the Tejas’”, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 61, no. 3 (July 2004), 393-434. (available via History Cooperative)<br />• Steven W. Hackel, “The Staff of Leadership: Indian Authority in the Missions of Alta California,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 54, no. 2 (April 1997), 347-376. (JSTOR)<br />• David J. Weber, “Bourbons and Bárbaros: Center and Periphery in the Reshaping of Spanish Indian Policy,” in Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy, eds., Negotiated Empires: Centers and Peripheries in the Americas, 1500-1820 (Routledge, 2002), 79-104. (on reserve)<br />• Forum on Richard White, The Middle Ground (articles by Susan Sleeper-Smith, Richard White, Philip J. Deloria, Heidi Bohaker, Brett Rushforth, and Catherine Desbarats), William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 63, no. 1 (January 2006), 1-96. (available via History Cooperative)<br /><br />Tuesday 3 March: No Class, Spring Break<br /><br />Tuesday 10 March: Politics, Authority, and Power<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 117-183.<br />• Holly Brewer, By Birth or Consent: Children, Law, and the Anglo-American Revolution in Authority (UNC, 2005), entire.<br />• Richard White, The Middle Ground, 142-268.<br />• Gary B. Nash, “The Transformation of Urban Politics, 1700-1764” Journal of American History vol. 60, no. 3 (December 1973), 605-632. (JSTOR)<br />• Jack P. Greene, Negotiated Authorities: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History (UVA, 1994), 1-24. (on reserve) <br />• Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (Yale, 1992), 11-54, 195-236 (on reserve)<br />Recommended:<br />• Adrian Howe, “The Bayard Treason Trial: Dramatizing Anglo-Dutch Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century New York City” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 47, no. 1 (January 1990), 57-89. (JSTOR)<br />• Daniel Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire: New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World (UNC, 2005), entire.<br />• Any of the other essays in Jack P. Greene, Negotiated Authorities: Essays in Colonial Political and Constitutional History (UVA, 1994).<br />• Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776 (UNC, 2006), entire.<br /><br />Tuesday 17 March: Political Economy<br />• Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton, 1997), entire.<br />• Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London, 1944), chapters 3-5. (on reserve)<br />• Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, 307-400. (on reserve)<br />• J.E. Crowley, This Sheba, Self: The Conceptualization of Economic Life in Eighteenth-Century America (Johns Hopkins, 1974), prologue, chapters 1, 2, 4. (on reserve)<br />• Joyce O. Appleby, “Ideology and Theory: The Tension between Political and Economic Liberalism in Seventeenth-Century England,” American Historical Review vol. 81 (1976), 499-515. (JSTOR)<br /><br />Tuesday 24 March: Material Culture<br />• James Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life (Anchor Books, 1996), entire.<br />• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (Knopf, 2001), 41-74 (“An Indian Basket”) and 108-141 (“Hannah Barnard’s Cupboard”). (on reserve)<br />• Rodris Roth, “Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage,” in Robert Blair St. George, ed., Material Life in America, 1600-1860 (Northeastern University Press, 1988), 439-462. (on reserve)<br />• Laurier Turgeon, “The Tale of the Kettle: Odyssey of an Intercultural Object” Ethnohistory vol. 44, no. 1 (Winter 1997), 1-29. (JSTOR)<br />• T.H. Breen, “An Empire of Goods: The Anglicization of Colonial America, 1690-1776” Journal of British Studies vol. 25, no. 3 (July 1986), 467-499. (JSTOR)<br /><br />Monday 2 April: Atlantic Worlds <br />• David Armitage, “Three Concepts of Atlantic History,” in Armitage and Braddick, eds., British Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (Palgrave, 2002), 11-30. (on reserve)<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 255-291.<br />• Vincent Brown, The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery (Harvard, 2008), entire.<br />• Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-1700 (Stanford, 2006), 1-34, 215-233. (on reserve)<br />• Joyce Chaplin, “Race” in Armitage and Braddick, eds., British Atlantic World, 1500-1800, 154-172. (on reserve)<br />• “Forum: Beyond the Atlantic” (essays by Alison Games, Philip J. Stern, Paul W. Mapp, and Peter Coclanis) William and Mary Quarterly vol. 63, no. 4 (October 2006), 675-742. (History Cooperative)<br />Recommended:<br />• John Thornton, African and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800, 2nd Edition (Cambridge, 1998), entire.<br /><br />Tuesday 7 April: Revolution<br />• J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 292-368.<br />• Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard, 1967), entire.<br />• David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Harvard, 2007), 1-102. <br />• Gary B. Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African-Americans in the Age of Revolution (Harvard, 2005), 1-68.<br />• Edmund S. Morgan, “The American Revolution: Revisions in Need of Revising” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 14, no. 1 (January 1957), 3-15. (JSTOR)<br />• T.H. Breen, “Ideology and Nationalism on the Eve of the American Revolution: Revisions Once More in Need of Revising” Journal of American History vol. 84, no. 1 (June 1997), 13-39. (JSTOR)<br />• Jesse Lemisch, “Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seamen in the Politics of Revolutionary America” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., vol. 25, no. 3 (July 1968), 371-407. (JSTOR)<br />Recommended:<br />• Charles Royster, “Founding a Nation in Blood: Military Conflict and American Nationality” in Hoffman and Albert, eds., Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution (Virginia, 1984), 25-49.<br />• Benjamin L. Carp, Rebels Rising: Cities in the American Revolution (Oxford, 2007), entire.<br /><br />Friday 17 April: Republic<br />• J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 369-411.<br />• Richard White, Middle Ground, 269-523.<br />• Gary B. Nash, The Forgotten Fifth, 69-170.<br />• Daniel T. Rodger, “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept” Journal of American History vol. 79, no. 1 (June 1992), 11-38. (JSTOR)<br />• Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Vintage, 1991), entire.<br />• “Forum: How Revolutionary was the Revolution? A Discussion of Gordon S. Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution (articles by Michael McGiffert, Joyce Appleby, Barbara Clark Smith, Michael Zuckerman, and Gordon S. Wood), William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 4 (October 1994), 677-716.<br />• James T. Kloppenberg, “The Virtues of Liberalism: Christianity, Republicanism, and Ethics in Early American Political Discourse,” Journal of American History vol. 74, no. 1 (June 1987), 9-33. (JSTOR)<br />Recommended:<br />• Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill, 1980), entire.<br />• Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (Hill and Wang, 2007), entire.<br />• Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (Knopf, 2006), entire.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-67479876006812950822008-11-24T15:27:00.003-05:002008-11-24T16:00:41.071-05:00<b>Ah, Monday!</b><br /><br /><ol><br /><li>I have learned, via a reliable informant, that the online <i>Bibliography of Slavery and World Slaving</i> has approximately 25,000 entries. Good thing I don't have to read them all in order to finish my slavery think piece!</li><br /><li><i>The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography</i> is now online via JSTOR. Hurrah!</li><br /><li>I just read a fantastic lit review in the March 2008 <i>Slavery and Abolition</i> by Sylvia Frey: "The Visible Church: HIstoriography of African American Religion since Raboteau." I highly recommend it. </li><br /><li>I finally got my books for HIST 486: Sex, Lies, and Depositions ordered--despite the fact that the bookstore's ordering website refused to acknowledge that my class exists. Sigh.</li><br /></ol>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-59948527517206744102008-11-12T15:11:00.003-05:002008-11-12T15:29:35.549-05:00<b>Quick post-election, non-Obama post</b><br /><br />So I'm working on a think piece for the <i>Journal of Southern History</i> about where we are in the origins debate (slavery), including transatlantic origins, and the role culture and religion played in sustaining slavery. (I know! This is a lot for 15 double-spaced pages!)<br /><br />I had thought it would be fun, and useful, to look through back issues of <i>Slavery and Abolition</i>, which includes a yearly bibliographical roundup of publications on slavery. This would be a way to gauge, in the first or second paragraph, the vastness of current scholarship on slavery generally, and then to show how large even a subset of slavery studies, say, the colonial south, is. <br /><br />To my joy, I discovered <i>S & A's</i> annual bibliographical supplement is now online at <a href="http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/bibliographyofslavery">http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/bibliographyofslavery</a>. The bibliography is fully searchable, which is neat. Not so neat is the opening page, which states clearly the number of entries in the bibliography: "The database contains over XXXX bibliographical references from XXXX to XXXX."<br /><br />Sigh. <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-16972518176258585792008-09-11T23:10:00.002-04:002008-09-11T23:15:37.211-04:00<b>IKE-O-RAMA!</b><br /><br />In response to the comment below, nope, not leaving, not ever, not nohow.<br /><br />Seriously though, I live outside all the mandatory evac zones, and we are supposed to stay put for now to give those folks who really do have to leave (especially anyone and everyone in Galveston) the road. Things are quiet here as I poach a little wifi from my fabulous neighbors; the moon in shining and the air is peculiarly calm. I've hurricane-proofed the house; no projectiles here! <br /><br />Since I live in the Houston Heights (elevation: 40 ft!) I won't flood. My house is set back from the street and is on a pier-and-beam foundation, so even if the streets flood (likely) my house will stay nice and dry.<br /><br />Unless 115 mph winds tear off my roof and blow out my windows.<br /><br />In which case, Pepper and I will retreat to the bedroom closet (the only windowless "room" in the house) and wait things out!<br /><br />We'll be fine. We'll check in after the storm as soon as we are able. <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-43258756802911519522008-08-18T16:16:00.006-04:002008-08-18T16:22:34.957-04:00<b>The Perils of the Academic Job Wiki</b><br /><br />It was truly bewildering to follow our job search on the Academic Job Wiki last year. We advertised a tenure-track position in the long nineteenth century (United States). It generated a lot of discussion, none of which made sense to those of us in the department or on the committee.<br /><br />The opening comment:<br /><blockquote>“the circles seem to inform that they want someone that has 20th century AFAM project/interests (9/11/07)”</blockquote><br />Huh?<br /><br />Another poster asked, sensibly: <blockquote>"What's "AFAM"?”</blockquote><br />Reply: <blockquote>That would imply African American related.”</blockquote><br />A request for another clarification: <blockquote>“okay, what's a "circle"?”</blockquote><br />Reply: <blockquote>“questions questions, meaning I heard! i am sure we ALL know the academic circles run small and are well connected. Not much more to add.”</blockquote><br /><br />At this point, I’m pretty puzzled. Circles? I’m in the department and I can’t think where this might be coming from. I’m actually here and I’m not aware of any circles of any type emphasizing anything in particular. I can certainly categorically state that it would be insane for us to advertise a nineteenth-century position if what we wanted was twentieth-century African-American history.<br /><br />Then: <blockquote>I must be in a different circle. It's my understanding that there will be a second position advertised. If you look at the chronology of this search and then observe what conspicuous fields are *not* represented currently on Rice's faculty (think kepis, funny beards, and hardtack), that should serve as some clue. Then again, maybe both circles are right. It wouldn't be the first time that a department had two circles, both with stong [sic] opinions for the type of person the department wants.”</blockquote><br />Again, Huh?<br /><br />Luckily, another reader requested some clarification there:<br /><br /><blockquote>“When thinking about the fields not represented, what does this mean: "think kepis, funny beards, and hardtack." I'm just not following”</blockquote><br /><br />Good, because I’m not either.<br /><br />Reply: <blockquote>“I'm not the OP [the person who made the original post], but I assume s/he meant Civil War”</blockquote><br /><br />So at this point, there are two rumors on the internet about our search: one that we want someone who does African-American history, and another that we want (or possibly don’t want? That wasn’t really clear) a Civil War historian. Neither of these two rumors are correct: we were looking for exactly what the ad said we were looking for: the long nineteenth century, subfield open. I was really bothered by this. It seemed to me that job seekers were on the wiki deliberately starting rumors about our search, possibly to limit the numbers or types of candidates. There was no such thing as the wiki a few short years ago when I was on the market; I used to think information was power, but the “information” being circulated here seems calculated to render competitors powerless.<br /><br />OK, next:<br /><br /><blockquote>“I received an email from someone on the search committee asking me to apply for the job before I had sent in my application. My specialty is not African American. They are running a second search for assoc./full professor in southern history”<br /></blockquote><br />Which prompts a crazy reply: <blockquote>This comment could possible [sic] go below [under another topic heading], but I have to object to the practice of sending select invitations to apply. It creates the impression of cherry-picking a candidate under the guise of conducting a national search. That kind of thing smacks of old-boy club and the old guild. Thoughts?”<br /></blockquote><br />Reply: <blockquote>“I guess it does smack of the OBC [Old Boy Club], but I think there are so many variables in a search that an invite does not mean slam dunk. As a grad student, we had a national search that we all thought was a dog and pony show for one candidate who had a well received book in the field of our specialized PHD program. She didn't even get an offer because department members didn't like her next project. Anyway if the dept. is a fossil of the dinosaur era and is full of Good Ole Boys, do you or I really want to work there anyway? Just a though[t].”</blockquote><br /><br />Letters to colleagues pointing out the existence of a position are fairly common. Most search committees want to widen their applicant pool, rather than narrow it. If you are a job seeker and you receive one of these letters asking you to apply for a job, pat yourself on the back and send in the application. If you don’t receive a letter, send in your app anyway. I also wondered here: was the poster suggesting that Rice's history department "is a fossil of the dinosaur era?" Or that it is full of Good Ol' Boys? Not amusing!<br /><br />And, don’t overthink the wiki. There’s a lot of emotional angst out there during the job season, which I totally understand, but it doesn’t seem to me that the wiki is really good for the delicate psyches of graduate students. Nor does it seem to provide accurate information beyond the scheduling of AHA interviews, etc. that help clarify the timeline of a particular search.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-55247700776041827642008-08-01T12:35:00.002-04:002008-08-01T12:47:31.974-04:00<b>The Survey, Again</b><br /><br />I'm teaching America to 1848 again this fall, and I'm glad to be doing it again so soon. This way lessons learned can be more quickly applied.<br /><br />I've made several changes:<br /><ol><br /><li> I've eliminated two sets of readings (one secondary and one primary) in favor of more dicussion on fewer readings. I've come to the conclusion that in the survey, less is more.</li><br /><li>I've rethought the relationship between reading and writing assignments. There will be two papers, one towards the beginning of the semester that allows students to work on interpreting a primary document they have read closely and that they have read a secondary interpretation of, and another that teaches them to identify primary sources in an online database and to interpret them on their own, using two secondary sources. So, a little research paper. I'm thinking of these as units, and the first unit will also involve a draft process. I can get away with this since surveys at Rice are small.</li><br /><li>I've kept the quiz structure, but regularized it (every Wednesday after the first week of class). I'd like to teach students to use these as a diagnostic tool for themselves.</li><br /><li> I've decided we'll have a primary source every lecture, one that relates to the lecture, which we'll discuss in the final ten-fifteen minutes of class. This will mean shorter lectures, but more meaningful engagement with material presented in the lecture.</li><br /><li> Though many people treat the survey as a content-driven class, this is fast becoming an experiment with making this a skills-based class: it is geared towards teaching freshmen basic skills they will need to function in a college environment: how to read effectively, how to interpret data (in this case, primary sources), how to listen to lectures and identify important points, how to study effectively for exams, how to write analytically, this list could go on. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with this; I do believe American History is important, and that every citizen of this country should have a basic grasp of our history. I'm afraid that a more skills-driven course might make more successful students but less engaged citizens. But, this is an ongoing experiment, and we'll see how it goes.</li><br /></ol><br /><br />I'm sticking with my no-textbook policy. This was, I think, successful, and I think other teachers are having some luck with it (most recently Kevin Levin over at Civil War Memory).<br /><br />Here's the syllabus:<br />HISTORY 117 <br />America to 1848<br /><br />This course examines the America’s colonial beginnings, the founding of the nation we now call the United States, and the early years of the Republic, as the United States sought to expand and cover the entire continent. The course will conclude at the end of the war between the United States and Mexico, and consider what it meant to be an American on the eve of the Civil War.<br /><br />Grading:<br /><br />Draft of First Paper……………...5%<br />First Paper…...…………………..10%<br />Final Paper Proposal…..………...10%<br />Final Paper………………………25%<br />Wednesday quizzes……………...10%<br />Midterm………………………….15%<br />Final Exam………………………25%<br /><br />The first paper (5-7 pages) will deal with the first two books we read about Cabeza de Vaca. The final paper will be a research paper (8-10 pages) based upon either Rothman’s Slave Country or West’s Contested Plains. You will receive more detailed assignments for each paper later.<br /><br />You’ll see in the syllabus that nine times in the semester we have a class period especially dedicated to “discussion.” In these sessions, you will be asked to participate in an in-depth analysis of our readings. Please come prepared: this means you must not only finish the reading but also spend some time thinking about it. Come to class ready to ask questions and make arguments!<br /><br />There will be a quiz covering reading material and lectures every Wednesday starting September 3 and continuing through December 3, for a total of 14 quizzes. I will count the top 12 grades you earn. I do not give make-ups for these quizzes, so if you plan on being absent more that two Wednesdays, please see me immediately. Please note: there will be a quiz on November 26 (the day before Thanksgiving). Please plan any plane travel accordingly.<br /><br />Required Readings:<br />• Alvar Nuñez Cabeva de Vaca, Castaways (California, 1993)<br />• Andrés Reséndez, A Land so Strange: The Extraordinary Tale of a Shipwrecked Spaniard Who Walked Across America in the Sixteenth Century (Basic Books, 2007)<br />• Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, Fifth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007)<br />• Elizabeth Fenn, Pox Americana (Hill and Wang, 2001)<br />• Adam Rothman, Slave Country (Harvard, 2005)<br />• Elliott West, The Contested Plains (Kansas, 1998)<br /><br />A copy of each of these books is available on reserve, or you may purchase them in our bookstore (or online if you prefer—be sure you get the right editions). I will also be handing out various primary sources in class. Make sure you keep these—I suspect some might turn up on exams. J You’ve probably noticed that I don’t use a textbook. I generally think textbooks are a huge waste of students’ money, so I don’t assign them. However, I have put a standard American history textbook on reserve at the library. If you feel like you need a refresher course on names, dates, places, facts, and figures, feel free to check it out. Nothing from the textbook will be discussed in class or on exams.<br /><br />Expectations:<br /><br />You will note that there is no percentage for participation. This does not mean, however, that your presence in class and active involvement in our discussions is not expected. Many aspects of your work rely on collaboration with your classmates, and so unexcused absences harm everyone in the class, not just yourself. I take attendance at each class; after three unexcused absences your final grade, based on the percentages listed above, will fall by one letter grade. Your grade will fall by another letter grade for each unexcused absence after the third. That means even the perfect A student will fail the course after six absences. So, the moral of the story is…come to class!<br /><br />If you are sick, or if you have a personal emergency that requires your absence from class, please provide appropriate documentation and I will excuse you. You should come to my office hours or make an appointment with me to discuss material you missed.<br /><br />As a matter of fairness, I do NOT accept late papers. Papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date (unless otherwise noted)…not halfway through the class, not at the end of class, not slipped under my office door sometime after the start of class. Only illness and personal emergency are suitable excuses for turning in a paper late with no penalty. Papers turned in late without verification of illness or personal emergency will receive a grade of ZERO.<br /><br />If you are traveling on the day a paper is due for an athletic event or other college event, you must make arrangements with me to turn in your paper before you leave. I do not accept emailed papers (as we all know, attachments sometimes go astray—there is no substitute for a hard copy!).<br /><br />All assignments in this course are covered by the honor code. You may NOT work together on writing assignments or on the final paper.<br /><br />Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations must speak with me during the first two weeks of class. All discussions will remain confidential. Students with disabilities should also contact Disabled Student Services in the Ley Student Center.<br /><br />Week 1 Reading: Cabeza de Vaca, Castaways, xv-xxx, 1-45; Rampolla 1-10<br />Monday August 25: Introduction<br />Wednesday August 27: Native North America<br />Friday August 29: The Columbian Exchange<br /><br />Week 2 Reading: Cabeza de Vaca, Castaways, 47-127.<br />Monday September 1: Labor Day (No Class)<br />Wednesday September 3: Three North American Beginnings<br />Friday September 5: Discussion: Castaways<br /><br />Week 3 Reading: Resendez, A Land so Strange, 1-110; Rampolla, 14-16, 25-28.<br />Monday September 8: English North America<br />Wednesday September 10: Profits from the Wilderness <br />Friday September 12: Discussion: A Land so Strange<br /><br />Week 4 Reading: Resendez, A Land so Strange, 111-225; Rampolla, 48-60, 88-94, 96-130.<br />Monday September 15: From Servitude to Slavery, part I<br />Wednesday September 17: From Servitude to Slavery, part II<br />Friday September 19: Discussion: A Land so Strange <br /><br />Week 5 Reading: Fenn, Pox Americana, ix-91.<br />Monday September 22: Imperial Clashes<br />Wednesday September 24: The Empire Strikes Back<br /> Draft of First Short Essay Due at the beginning of class (5% of your grade)<br />Friday September 26: Discussion of essays/please read Rampolla, 60-68. <br /><br />Week 6 Reading: Fenn, Pox Americana, 92-184, Rampolla, 38-42.<br />Monday October 29: Declaring Independence <br />Wednesday October 1: Liberty & Tyranny, Part I <br /> First Short Essay Due at the beginning of class (15% of your grade)<br />Friday October 3: Liberty & Tyranny, Part II<br /><br />Week 7 Reading: Fenn, Pox Americana, 185-277.<br />Monday October 6: Republic<br />Wednesday October 8: Discussion: Pox Americana<br />Friday October 10: MIDTERM EXAM (Dr. Goetz in New Orleans)<br /><br />Week 8 Reading: Rothman, Slave Country, ix-70.<br />Monday, October 13: Midterm Recess (no class)<br />Wednesday October 15: Politics in the New Republic<br />Friday October 17: NO CLASS (Dr. Goetz in Indianapolis)<br /><br />Week 9 Reading: Rothman, Slave Country, 71-163.<br />Monday October 20: Jefferson and his United States<br />Wednesday October 22: Independence Confirmed<br />Friday October 24: The Cotton Frontier and the Prairie Frontier<br /><br />Week 10 Reading: Rothman, Slave Country, 164-224.<br />Monday October 27: Discussion: Slave Country<br />Wednesday October 29: The United States, 1815-1848: Many Revolutions?<br />Friday October 31: Democratizing Politics<br /><br />Week 11 Reading: Rampolla, 70-87.<br />Monday November 3: The Religious Republic<br />Wedneday November 5: From Awakening to Reform<br />Friday November 7: Meet in Fondren to learn how to use the America’s Historical Newspapers database<br /><br />Week 12 Reading: West. The Contested Plains, xv-xxiv, 1-62.<br />Monday November 10: Slavery and Freedom in Jacksonian America<br />Wednesday November 12: Urbanization and Immigration<br />Friday November 14: A Market Revolution? An Industrial Revolution?<br /><br />Week 13 Reading: West, The Contested Plains, 63-170.<br />Monday November 17: Technology and Communications (or: More Revolutions?<br />Wednesday November 19: Andrew Jackson and the Indians<br /> Proposal for Final Paper Due at the beginning of class<br />Friday November 21: Discussion: The Contested Plains/Paper Proposals<br /><br />Week 14 Reading: West, The Contested Plains, 171-271.<br />Monday November 24: Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion<br />Wednesday November 26: The Texas Revolution<br />Friday November 28: NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Recess)<br /><br />Week 15 Reading: West, The Contested Plains, finish.<br />Monday December 1: War with Mexico<br />Wednesday December 3: Discussion: The Contested Plains<br />Friday December 5: The United States after 1848<br /> Final Exam Information <br /> Final paper due at the beginning of class, Friday, December 5Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-56748674590468457532008-07-22T19:01:00.003-04:002008-07-22T19:17:24.192-04:00<b>When the Editor Won't Print Your Letter....</b><br /><br />Those with blogs have the option of self-publishing! Hurrah for the blogs!<br /><br /><a href="http://scottsowerby.net/Welcome.html">Scott Sowerby</a> and <a href="http://civilwarmemory.typepad.com/">Kevin Levin</a> have written recently to ask if everything is all right...I'm perfectly fine! I just had a busy semester (what with the primary and all) and graduated from a busy spring to a busy summer. But, I return to the 'sphere now with my unprinted Letter to the Editor.<br /><br />The Houston Chronicle <a href="http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2008_4582557">reported</a> a little over a month ago that our lovely Governor is contemplating linking professorial salaries to student evaluations. I find this to be a horrific idea, and here's why:<br /><br /><blockquote>To the Editor:<br /><br />The Chronicle reports that the University of Houston is contemplating adopting Governor Perry’s plan of linking bonuses for professors to student evaluations (see “UH regents receptive to state’s reform pitch,” 10 June 2008). This is a lazy and unworkable solution to perceived teaching problems in higher education.<br /><br />Student evaluations are useful for many things. They help me gauge the effectiveness of my lectures, discussions, assignments, and exams. They also help me determine which reading materials worked, and they help me pinpoint concepts that students had difficulty grasping. I can then revise and improve my courses based in part upon student responses. But evaluations are not good indicators of a professor’s quality. Students tend to reward courses with little required effort or professors who grade generously with positive evaluations. I suspect implementing the Governor Perry’s plan of linking “performance” to pay would encourage professors to avoid teaching difficult or unpopular courses and would contribute to grade inflation. Additionally, this plan would discourage professors from teaching necessary introductory courses that attract large numbers of non-specialists and new college students. In my experience, these courses teach students to adapt to doing college-level work, but they tend to get fewer positive reviews. Eighteen-year-olds are often not appropriate judges of whether or not a classroom experience was good for them or not.<br /><br />This does not mean that collegiate instructors should not be thinking about effective teaching and finding ways to evaluate it. I find that having conversations with colleagues about trouble spots in my teaching and asking them to attend my classes and give me feedback are far better ways of encouraging my improvement in the classroom. These kinds of interactions, though, should not be mandated by the state but discussed in individual departments and schools. Surely our government can find more workable and effective ways of improving collegiate teaching than rebranding our universities as consumer goods.<br /><br />Rebecca A. Goetz<br />The writer is Assistant Professor of History at Rice University.</blockquote><br /><br />Now, I feel better! I can't believe this idea is getting serious attention, but there you have it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-52026828625483738862008-03-27T18:03:00.003-04:002008-03-28T10:42:26.166-04:00<b>UNBELIEVABLE!</b><br /><br />So Bill Clinton gets on the conference call, and announces that "Hillary is only 16 pledged delegates behind."<br /><br />HUH?<br /><br />Oh wait, that's only if you count states that had primaries (and presumably Michigan and Florida as well). "It's the caucuses that are killing her," he goes on to say.<br /><br />It's Clinton logic, again. If caucuses don't work to our advantage, then don't count them.<br /><br />The rest of the call was focused on remedying the nine-vote deficit Hillary has in caucus delegates in Texas. But since those are caucus votes and not primary votes, does that mean that picking up those votes would make Hillary 7 pledged delegates behind? Yes--because caucuses count when Hillary wins them. <br /><br />UPDATE: Talking Points Memo's Election Central has the <a href="http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/bill_clinton_hillary_will_win.php">full story</a> (and a better transcript than mine).<br /><br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-22997831937249182902008-03-27T17:50:00.001-04:002008-03-27T18:14:51.538-04:00<b>And, update</b><br /><br />There are 950 people on the conference call. I wonder how many are actually Obama supporters? Want to join?<br /><br />Dial in: 1-800-214-0745 <br />Participant password: 498616 <br /><br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-52941857848415922902008-03-27T17:44:00.002-04:002008-03-27T17:49:11.994-04:00<b>On the Clinton Conference Call</b><br /><br />This is really entertaining. I've been mistaken for a Hillary supporter and I was invited to participate in a conference call with the Texas Hillary campaign and with Bill. It's like drinking Hillary kool-aid!<br /><br />Gary Mauro "We're going to do better than expected in the county and state senate district conventions."<br /><br />Yeah, right. If you're so disorganized you can't tell the difference between an Obama supporter and a Hillary supporter, you're in BAD SHAPE.<br /><br />They are also reporting that they have never had such good turnout on a conference call. Well, I'm signing on just to cost ya'll money!<br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-30203264018498668712008-03-18T15:55:00.002-04:002008-03-18T16:12:56.700-04:00<b>This I have to read</b><br /><br />From the <i>Briefly Noted</i> section of the <i>New Yorker</i>:<br /><br /><blockquote><i>Johnny One-Eye</i>, by Jerome Charyn (Norton, $25.95). Set on Manhattan Island during the Revolutionary War, this leisurely picaresque concerns the adventures of an orphan reared in a brothel who loses an eye when he follows Benedict Arnold into battle. Johnny is a man of both nations; he joins up with Arnold as a secret agent for the British, but his admiration for him [Arnold] is genuine. His feelings are further complicated by his discovery that George Washington--here gentle, intelligent, and tortured by love for the brothel's madam--may be his father, but ultimately his loyalty lies with his true love, an octoroon prostitute named Clara. Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons like Arnold, Washington, and Alexander Hamilton, and constructs a careful plot of shifting alliances, roving spies, and double-dealing.</blockquote><br /><br />I've long searched for a good historical novel of the American Revolution, but aside from Esther Forbes' classic <i>Johnny Tremaine</i> and Nelson's excellent Hornblower-esque novels of the Revolution at sea, I've never found something I could really embrace. Perhaps this will be the one? <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-28633347386950762392008-03-05T10:38:00.003-05:002008-03-05T12:21:48.802-05:00<b>The Texas Two-Step, from the inside</b><br /><br />I've been ridiculously busy these last few weeks as a Precinct Captain for Barack Obama. I'll say I'm disappointed in yesterday's results; I do not understand the appeal Hillary Clinton has for Democrats. Nevertheless, I've been out in force for the last two weeks working for Obama: making phone calls, canvassing, recruiting for my precinct convention at the primary location yesterday, and helping run my precinct's convention and its Obama caucus last night. It was a crazy evening. I do know that there were complaints aired on CNN last night by Clinton's people about irregularities at the conventions, so here's my tale of what went down last night.<br /><br />I spent the afternoon at my precinct's polling place (oh joy, oh rapture, oh sunburn). My job was basically to hand out information to Obama supporters about the evening's conventions, and to provide some Obama visibility. I got one of the grad students to help out. We were also there to counterbalance the Hillary folks, who were also present. (It was during the afternoon that I learned that the state chairperson for NOW lives in my precinct.) There were representatives of other campaigns--state reps, constables, judges, etc., and some candidates even dropped by to shake hands and kiss babies. It was a friendly gathering of primary opponents--we were all excruciatingly polite to one another and I provided pizza around 5pm. (This was followed by a crazy interlude involving a drunk driver/domestic violence/car crash/assault of a police officer--it facilitated bonding and high blood pressure for everyone.)<br /><br />At last another of my precinct's captains showed up, and we were able to start preparing for the convention. Two precincts voted in one tiny building, but luckily our convention was moved a few doors down to a Presbyterian church. Our first job, then, was to make sure all of our precinct's people went through the right door. I soon found, though, that some HIllary folks inside who were running the sign in began the sign in BEFORE the last person had voted in the primary. This was, of course, a violation of Texas Democratic Party rules. Though the polls closed at 7, those people waiting in line at 7 were entitled to vote and then take part in the convention, so the convention itself could not start until the last person voted. I sent two Obama supporters in to stop the process but they came back out and reported that they had been unsuccessful. So I stood in the doorway and yelled, "We cannot start the sign in until the last person has voted. We are in violation of Democratic Party rules!" There were other folks there, including Hillary supporters, who also knew the rules, which was lucky for me, because one particularly nasty Hillary supporter (who had already tried to engage me on the subject on Tony Resko) demanded to know my credentials. I responded that I was a registered Democrat, just like her, and that I had been trained in Democratic Party rules, and that she was welcome to call the Harris County party to confirm. She continued to harass me while I prevented the convention from starting. About five minutes later the election judge came to tell us that the last voted had cast a ballot and we could start.<br /><br />The Clinton folks later asked me if I was going to lodge a protest, and I said no, that the sign in process had stopped, and that I was satisfied. "You're sure?" he asked. "You're not going to make the people who signed in early go to the end of the line?" Since the people who had signed in early had done so in good faith, mostly because someone told them to, I declined to pursue it. I've thought about this since: most of the people who signed in early were also elderly or disabled. In my most cynical heart of hearts, I wonder if the Clinton people wanted me to say yes, send them to the end of the line. This would have allowed them to then say that the Obama campaign hates little old ladies and folks in wheelchairs.<br /><br />We signed in 257 people. It took almost two hours to accomplish that, so while people waited in line, I made name tags for Obama supporters and explained the convention system impartially to anyone who would listen. (I also talked to two people who claimed to be McCain supporters who had voted Democratic in order to attend a convention for Hillary. Dirty, dirty, dirty.) I was elected Convention secretary--a fun job involving filling out forms and assisting in the vote count. (Let me tell you, deciphering messy handwriting and counting lines on a ballot at ten at night is no picnic!) About halfway through the count a representative of the Hillary campaign turned up wanting to investigate claims that HIllary supporters were prevented from voting in the precinct convention. Someone apparently had called her campaign to complain (dare I suggest--I bet it was the Hillary supporter who questioned my competence and motives and who wanted to talk about Tony Resko). We had to briefly stop counting to inform him that everyone who wanted to vote had voted here without any trouble. The Hillary folks and the Obama folks agreed on that point, so finally he was persuaded to go away. I'm wondering, though, if the brief trouble at our precinct was one of the sources for the CNN stories that Obama supporters were preventing Clinton supporters from voting.<br /><br />We wrapped things up around 11. I'm an Obama delegate for our precinct, and couldn't be more pleased to do so (although we lost the precinct by a small margin). I thought that overall the process was fair, fun, and interesting. I think the Democrats can be proud that so many people turned out around the state. I used to think that the convention system was antiquated and useless, but I now think it's great to see democracy in action.<br /><br />Lastly, it seems that Clinton's victories last night made only the smallest of dents in Obama's lead. So, I am still convinced he will be our nominee. And, I couldn't be happier about that! <br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3665321.post-88584364887462078422008-02-15T15:46:00.001-05:002008-02-15T15:47:28.510-05:00<b>New Identity!</b><br /><br />I'm an Obamazon. (translation: a staunch woman supporter of Barack Obama.)<br /><br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5