Over the weekend I had the pleasure of taking five Bethel University students to Mankato, Minnesota, where Bethany Lutheran College hosted the second annual Minnesota Undergraduate History Symposium. (#1 was at the University of Northwestern – St. Paul; #3 will be at Bethel next spring.) Thanks to @RyanCMacPherson and @BethanyLutheran for hosting a great #muhs2015! pic.twitter.com/PWQfixivkp … More Christianity and Western Civ
Here… • The Armenian genocide turned 100. (Lots more links below on this topic…) • Whatever it means to be a prophet, Michael Eric Dyson was pretty sure that Cornel West isn’t one. • There are worse ways to spend a Saturday than listening to enthusiastic undergraduates talk about history. (By the way, later this week I’ll share … More That Was The Week That Was
A century ago today, one of the great crimes in modern history began to unfold in the ancient city of Istanbul. In the middle of that Saturday night, Ottoman police rounded up the leading figures of their capital city’s Armenian community. One of them, an influential bishop named Grigoris Balakian, survived to leave behind this account: We arrived … More The 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
If not, this week is a great time to check in with Past & Presence, the weekly webisode series that Sam Mulberry and I have been producing with our colleagues and students in the Bethel University History Department. Today’s episode — #9 — is just packed with good stuff: As usual, I moderate everything with interstitial clips in … More Have You Seen Our Department Webisode Yet?
As I mentioned in a former post, I just wrapped up a class on the history and politics of the Middle East, a class I have taught for a number of years now. One of its goals is for students to wrestle with the complexities of revolutionary movements in the Middle East, the most recent and particularly … More How to Spark Islamic Revolution
It’s library week on Past & Presence, our department’s new webisode series: Not only do I host episode 3 from locations in the Bethel University Library, but we talk to two of our librarians. One of them is a former student in our department, as is our interview subject of the week: Kevin McGrew, director of … More Past and Presence: Secondary and Tertiary Sources
Last week at AC 2nd, our department blog, I posted a four-part photo essay about our January travel course on the history of World War I. For those who may not want to see quite that many photos but are interested in our trip… My attempt to sum up our twenty-one days in only eleven photos: Our course began … More Our WWI Travel Course in Eleven Photos
It was a week ago tonight that we returned to the States after spending three weeks in Europe, studying the history of World War I with a group of Bethel University students: Near the end of the last day of our #WWI travel course. Couldn't have asked for a better group of @BethelU students! pic.twitter.com/TQY70S4dEq — … More Recapping Our World War I Travel Course
Just a few of the more interesting history-related posts and articles that appeared during my month off from blogging: • Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, and nine other explorers to know. • The Charlie Hebdo shootings have rocketed Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance — published in 1763 — to the top of French bestseller lists. (Lots of important … More That Was The Month That Was: History
The blog is going to be quiet for much of the rest of the month, as I’ll be in Europe for three weeks teaching a Bethel University travel course on the history of World War I. It’s my second time teaching this course abroad, and if it’s anything like the first trip, it’ll be memorable. (And this … More How to Follow Our Trip in Europe
The Pietist Schoolman 