Earlier this year the New York Times ran a story about an English professor at Duke University named Cathy Davidson, who decided to replace more traditional term papers with a course blog for which students would regularly contribute 500-1500 word posts. While much of the Times article focused on the arguments for and against what … More Student Blogging: A Report from a Modern European History Course
Okay, one more Olympic post… Last fall I spent a couple of weeks attempting (with a big assist from my HIS354 Modern Europe students, and with tongue mostly in cheek) to determine the “best national anthem” — pointing out at least once or twice along the way that there’s really no objective way to determine … More The Best National Anthems: Special Olympic Edition
We’ll get to a pretty loathsome chapter in French history in about forty-eight hours, but today, in honor of France’s national holiday, here’s a repeat of my 2011 post declaring “La Marseillaise” the best national anthem. At long last (okay, six days) we come to the end of our series counting down the best national … More Happy Bastille Day!
I wrote this last year for the United States’ Independence Day. Still seems right… Though, for a slightly different take — one more amenable to a celebration of American independence by Christians — see the new Christianity Today interview with Os Guinness and Catholic philosopher Gary Gutting’s most recent post at The Stone. Both contend that … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Pledging Allegiance
Yesterday in Kiev, Spain routed Italy 4-0 to win the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, a tournament that (for many Europeans and no small number of non-Europeans) is only slightly less significant than the other international sporting competition with which it shares a quadrennium. As I wrote about early in Euro 2012, one match between … More Soccer and Nationalism
A relatively quiet week for The Pietist Schoolman (grading season, doncha know) was more than offset by some excellent blogging elsewhere. Here I’ve always wanted to write about my favorite punctuation mark — but to get to do that and respond to a New York Times op-ed piece on belief in God at the same … More That Was The Week That Was
During my Thanksgiving hiatus I’ll be reprising some older posts: one each from June/July, August, September, and October. The following comes from July 22, near the end of my series taking readers day-by-day through a proposed travel version of my course HIS230L World War I. You can see an overview/index of the whole series here. … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: A War of Words
In 1911, the country of Italy celebrated its 50th birthday as a unified nation-state. The Italian government marked the occasion with a special census that revealed, among other things, that one out of every six Italians lived outside of Italy. Between 1880 and 1914, thirteen million Italians emigrated to the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, … More Italy as an “Emigrant Nation”
What’s the best national anthem? I’ve spent much of the last two weeks taking a stab at giving a semi-serious answer to that question. Now I’d like to hear from you! First, do you agree with my students and me that “La Marseillaise” is clearly the best national anthem, or would you back a rival … More The Best National Anthems: Your Turn
At long last (okay, six days) we come to the end of our series counting down the best national anthems. And in the end, there was really only one choice. France, “La Marseillaise“ Longevity: official anthem since 1792 Singability: ranges from D4-E5 (C4 = middle C) Inspiration: 4.1% of Olympic golds won; 1 men’s World … More The Best National Anthems: France
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