One of my favorite things about spring semester is that I get to teach a section of our department’s capstone course, HIS499 Senior Seminar. It’s fun in part because it’s so unlike anything else I teach — as close to a graduate seminar as I’m going to (or would like to) get as a professor … More What Historians Do
2/28/12 – Check out the new video preview for HIS230L World War I, reconfigured as a travel course that Sam Mulberry and I will lead for the first time in January 2013.
I happen to agree almost entirely with John’s column, but that’s irrelevant. Even if I didn’t share some of his disappointment in Obama the president vs. Obama the candidate, or if I didn’t think that Obama was unusually explicit about his faith by contrast with most of his predecessors in the White House, I’d still … More We Take Care of Our Own: Standing with John Fea
I don’t normally post anything in the evening (WordPress wasn’t letting me edit anything until now), but this has already been an abnormal day in other respects. My mother-in-law is up for a visit, so while our kids stayed home with grandma I put in a rare Tuesday at work. As a result, I got … More Scholarship, Contemplation, and Holiness
One week ago today Charles Dickens turned 200. For some, it was the most important thing to happen in England in 2012, a year in which London will host the Summer Olympics for the first time in over 60 years. I’m almost positive it was the most important thing to happen in the English town … More Dickens World
Key moments on my agenda for this particular workday: 7:45am – Drop off our twins (each suffering from an advanced case of being “terrible” two years old) at day care. Say quick prayer for their teachers. 9:00am – Deliver lecture in 100-level Western Civ course on post-exilic Judaism and its interactions with Hellenistic culture and … More The Dabbler
Are the liberal arts (e.g., history) irrelevant or out of date? Not according to Nannerl Keohane, former president of Duke University and Wellesley College: The very broad, capacious form of education that we call the liberal arts is rooted in a specific curriculum in classical and medieval times. But it would be wrong to … More A Defense of the Liberal Arts
Before the beginning of the semester last fall, I wrote a post on the challenges (or, as I called them in the post title, “blessings”) of teaching the same course (Modern Europe) year in and year out. Today, the start of our spring semester at Bethel, brings a different kind of problem: teaching a course … More Human Rights in International History
1/27/12 – As always, almost everything in the current issue of Books & Culture makes for compelling reading. Particularly if you’re interested in the state of higher education in this country, be sure to check out Jerry Pattengale’s essay, contrasting three critiques focused on public universities (by Naomi Schaefer Riley, Benjamin Ginsberg, and Richard A. … More Whither Higher Education?
Let’s dip into the imaginary mailbag, shall we? Dear Chris, It seems like you’ve got endless amounts of free time to fill. Have you ever considered engaging in some actual scholarship? Or, writing for another blog? Cordially, All those who invested time and money in your decades of education Excellent questions. I’ll defer the first … More Our New Blog!
The Pietist Schoolman 