Here… • I’m normally a big proponent of empathy as a historical virtue. But I can’t say that I grieved all that much to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Josef Stalin suffering the stroke that killed him. I did, however, enjoy teaching my students a song about said demise… • What is the poor Downton … More That Was The Week That Was
In my recent post on why I enjoy teaching the history of the Cold War, I mentioned the odd pleasure I take in forcingencouraging my students to sing along as I play country-western songs about the evils of Communism… (You wouldn’t think there’s anywhere else to go from there, but…) As it happens, today — … More This Day In History: Stalin’s Stroke
After taking a day off from social media yesterday as part of the END IT movement’s attempt to draw some attention to the continued enslavement of at least 27 million people around the world, it seems right to return to blogging/Facebooking/Tweeting with something on slavery. But while I think yesterday’s “disappearance” was a well-intended, perhaps … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Abolition as Grace
If you’re like me, you emerged from the Christmas special that served as the final episode of the third series of Downton Abbey with two questions: 1. What kind of a tacked-on, half-baked ending was THAT?!?! I’ll never watch again! (aloud) 2. When does the next series start? (unspoken) Answers: 1. It’s Christmas show tradition, says … More Life after Downton: A Survival Guide
Our textbook orders for next fall are due this Friday, and I’m absolutely not prepared. But I can take some solace in the fact that I already know exactly what text I’ll be using in Spring 2014 for our department’s capstone Senior Seminar: Why Study History? Reflecting on the Importance of the Past, by friend-of-this-blog … More Why Study History?
Here… • The news of Cedarville University dropping its philosophy major made me curious how many of its fellow members in the evangelical Council for Christian Colleges and Universities actually offered such a field of study. (Bethel does, and has the fourth largest philosophy faculty in the CCCU.) • Part two of my series ruminating … More That Was The Week That Was
As part of a larger controversy boiling over at Cedarville University, its board of trustees last month voted to cut the school’s philosophy major, approving a recommendation made by the Academic Council earlier in January. Reporters and commentators tended to associate the elimination of philosophy (along with the resignation of the school’s president and vice … More Philosophy at Evangelical Colleges
One of the statistics provided every day by WordPress (the service that hosts this blog) is a list of “referrers,” websites that blog visitors click on to get to your blog. Most of the referrers for this blog are sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, and WordPress itself. Most visitors have been here before and … More Fun with Googling
How do historians define what it is that they do? Is it a profession? A vocation? Both? As I mentioned last week, as part of Bethel’s faculty promotion process I recently wrote a lengthy essay on the meaning of vocation for a Christian historian like myself. In my first post stemming from that essay, I … More The Vocation of a Christian Historian: Profession vs. Calling
The Pietist Schoolman 