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Post by hausmann on May 13, 2016 21:39:16 GMT
Periodically, I'll post an article, podcast or video I came across that pertains to the course in some (occasionally pretty oblique) way. You aren't required to read and respond but it'll make me happy if and when you do so! Saw this yesterday and had to post it - last American born in the 19th century just died!: www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36285083What a life she had! What do you think was the biggest change in America she witnessed between 1899 and 2016? The rise and fall of the Jim Crow South comes to mind, but what about just transportation? I'm currently posting this from southern Colorado (ah, the joys of online teaching!) and I got here in less than a day from Philadelphia. It would have taken three days to get here from Philly in 1930, and considerably longer in 1900. History moves fast!
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Post by Taylor B. on May 14, 2016 1:18:56 GMT
After reading this article, I think its just amazing to hear about someone that has lived through a whole century of change in the United States. It can be said that "Miss Susie" truly lived in history. She saw and done things that we only read about in history books. One thing that comes to mind that she had witness in her lifetime was the change in communication. She saw pictures come to life on movie screens to television sets, from black and white to color. She received her news from a radio to a movie theater to a television to the internet (probably with the help from her great(great?)-grandchildren). She went from writing letters to talking on the phone to FaceTime (again with the help of her great(great?)-grandchildren). To witness first hand how communication has evolved over time in America and to say that they used all these forms of communication can be said by no one, except for Miss Susie. Periodically, I'll post an article, podcast or video I came across that pertains to the course in some (occasionally pretty oblique) way. You aren't required to read and respond but it'll make me happy if and when you do so! Saw this yesterday and had to post it - last American born in the 19th century just died!: www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36285083What a life she had! What do you think was the biggest change in America she witnessed between 1899 and 2016? The rise and fall of the Jim Crow South comes to mind, but what about just transportation? I'm currently posting this from southern Colorado (ah, the joys of online teaching!) and I got here in less than a day from Philadelphia. It would have taken three days to get here from Philly in 1930, and considerably longer in 1900. History moves fast!
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Post by micathcart on May 20, 2016 2:38:23 GMT
This is an interesting question, because this woman experienced so much history in her 117. At first I thought of the technological revolution. When this woman was born people were still traveling by horse, now most of us walk around with sophisticated computers in our pockets. Also, she witnessed the rise of consumer capitalism in the United States, especially living in New York. She lived through the evolution from corner grocery stores and farmers' markets to superstores such as Walmart. Over the course of her lifetime, A-list celebrities went from Mark Twain to Kanye West. There has been a significant amount of change to American society over the last 117 years. However, I believe that the biggest change this woman experienced over her lifetime was the drastic rise of the United States on the international stage. At the time of her birth, the United States was far from an international superpower. It was still attempting to mend itself from the Civil War, while settling the west and establishing an industrialized economy, Europe (specifically England) remained the diplomatic epicenter of the world for almost half of her life. Then, after WWII, the United States rivaled Russia as master (somewhat satirical word choice) of the world. www.youtube.com/watch?v=okcfKaC87r4&t=687sIn completely unrelated news, I came across this interview with James Loewen, who is a sociologist with a history background. The interview references his book about historical inaccuracies in high school history textbooks and how they got (and remain) there. Loewen's work reminded me about Ulrich's view of the Betsy Ross myth, and i figured it relevant enough to share here.
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Post by hausmann on May 27, 2016 22:10:19 GMT
One of the reflections from last week brought up the game Uncharted 4 and how it uses historical events as backdrops for player adventures. The way history is portrayed in video games is actually a pet interest of mine so I wonder: how many of you have experiences with history via video games? I played a LOT of Civilization II growing up and feel like it put me on the path I'm on today. Lately, I've been playing with the game Europa Universalis 4, a historical simulation game that plays out the colonization of North and South America. Check this blog post out purposefulgames.blogspot.com/2013/08/replaying-history-europa-universalis-as.html and tell me whether you think EU4 would work as a teaching tool and your experiences with history in games.
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Post by kylokaitlyn on Jun 2, 2016 15:14:56 GMT
One of the reflections from last week brought up the game Uncharted 4 and how it uses historical events as backdrops for player adventures. The way history is portrayed in video games is actually a pet interest of mine so I wonder: how many of you have experiences with history via video games? I played a LOT of Civilization II growing up and feel like it put me on the path I'm on today. Lately, I've been playing with the game Europa Universalis 4, a historical simulation game that plays out the colonization of North and South America. Check this blog post out purposefulgames.blogspot.com/2013/08/replaying-history-europa-universalis-as.html and tell me whether you think EU4 would work as a teaching tool and your experiences with history in games. Being a Civilizations fan myself (I am playing as the Byzantines going for world domination now) I think it is a fantastic way to really engage in history. It is not necessarily with hard core facts, but with learning how to operate the empire of your choosing--bartering with other civilizations, developing a religion, and war strategies. You put yourself in the mind of the leader, something that requires you to think outside the box of traditional video games. Each empire has a historical figure that you engage with and that's a learning experience in itself. I wish this EU4 could be set up where everyone in the class could play against each other, can you imagine how competitive and fun that would be?
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Post by hausmann on Jun 13, 2016 17:29:46 GMT
There are some teachers who use EU4 in their classes but I haven't found a way to make it work that isn't terribly confusing and, frankly, probably a bit boring for some of the class. It's an interesting idea though. The phrase "political correctness" has been thrown around a lot on this message board and, lo and behold, the guys at BackStory made a podcast about the term! I highly suggest you all give this a listen to find out some background to this phrase which is so important in contemporary politics: backstoryradio.org/shows/politically-incorrect/
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Post by craigaway on Jun 15, 2016 17:02:11 GMT
Political Correctness
During the podcast, they point out that the American Communists in the 1960’s found that the politically correct “party lines” were anathema to the ideas of the leftists. Universities in the 1970’s and 80’s found power in the use of words and that if you could change words, you could dismantle the oppressive systems of the larger society. By the late 1980’s, these “speech codes” meant different things, depending on one’s political ideology. When politically correct (PC) speech started to make a transition to curriculum change, this developed into a broader critique of academics. The need for expanding from the old “white protestant male” narratives was sorely needed, and in particular in the Humanities.
Allan Bloom used the phrase cultural relativism (despair) to criticize the PC movement. He thought that there was too much expectation to see this kind of transformation of society. This viewpoint, although not without merit, I find is condescending. It hides the fact that there is a dominant culture, almost always conservative in their politics, that holds back needed change and transformation. I also found that the speech from George H.W. Bush claiming PC “replaces old prejudice with new” to be manipulative. He is admitting old prejudice, without explaining how PC creates new prejudice.
I do agree with Barbra Ehrenreich that PC fetishizes language by focusing hyper-attention on words instead of the policies that those words are supposed to expose. PC does some good: when words move away from visible inequalities, there is more reaction from the status quo. In PC, words are coded. The greatest impact that PC words can make is to make the politics embedded in language visible to all. Again, the status quo does not like this and, like kicking the hornet’s nest, there is an aggressive response. At one time the dominant culture did not have to be so afraid of what they said.
I have heard for a long time that Lincoln was not as interested in ending slavery so much as he wanted to keep the United States from dividing. After hearing this podcast, it sheds new light on what motives may have been involved. It seems that the Southern Democrats were making an open racist campaign that was gaining some traction. The Republicans were afraid to talk about the 13th Amendment prior to the election. With a high turnout voting for Democrats in that election (48%), it is no wonder that the 13th Amendment was kept quiet through the “power of silence”. Terms like “private rights” and “constitutional liberty” were being used back then, and this reminds me of conservative political expressions like states’ rights, tax cuts, and limited government today. These expressions both hide their real intent, and yet, like a whistle, call the militia to order. It seems that, like Lincoln, John F. Kennedy had to resort to the same type of silence when the civil Rights movement was growing.
I am a recovering Libertarian; it was practically a requirement when I lived in Montana. I was very caught up in the anti-PC movement in the 1990’s while living back here. I listened to Rush Limbaugh and voted all Republican in 1994, the “Year of the Angry White Male” and Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America”. I know what it is like to be young and suckered into the whole anti-PC politics. Back then it was a new political movement, but with the same old politics. The status quo figured out yet again how to make privileged people, like myself, angry about something. And I fear that this generation, with the anti-PC speech coming from Donald Trump, is getting suckered all over again. I do not think in a world of climate change and growing inequality that we can lose any more time letting the status quo have their way. Theirs is a greedy world bent on self-destruction. This generation must make this country better. They have the demographic superiority and awareness of the issues to fix past mistakes, unlike my generation. But, like in the reading on the internet, nothing changes until people change their priorities. If people are more interested in what the Kardashians are up to than changing things for the better, than Trump could actually win. He is very social media savvy. I do not think anything good can come from xenophobic, nationalistic, and proto-fascist policies that Trump and the right-wing espouses. PC is not the enemy, but it is a tool that must be used wisely.
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