As you may be able to tell, our class has now reached the era of the #RussianRevolution
So, continuing our exploration of student #cultural #literacy (as always: descriptive, not prescriptive!):
1) As I expected, "Battleship Potemkin" was something completely new to them. They were suitably moved by the famous scene on the Odessa steps
https://archive.org/details/BattleshipPotemkin
(but why I did I first have to admonish a couple of them focused on their laptops or phones to turn toward the screen? WTF)
1/n
If "Battleship Potemkin" meant nothing to our students, then they were certainly not aware of Eisenstein's great "October," either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k62eaN9-TLY
I hinted that, when their cultural tastes had further matured, I might at last introduce them to
"Aelita Queen of Mars" (1924)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014646/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
3/n
But back to issues of students' cultural literacy, for lack of a better term (as noted, always descriptive rather than prescriptive)
Today, re: Bolshevik Revolution
One had an idea of housing blocks & monumental architecture
The rest: pretty much: 0
I noted opinion polls showing that students/young people had more positive views of socialism vs. capitalism--which I found interesting insofar as they had 0 knowledge of Marxism, socialist theory, revolutionary history
All instructive!
4/n
Final/bonus point about students' cultural literacy. I did not expect them to know "Battleship Potemkin" and the like: it's my job to introduce them to it.
But I thought I'd try something more recent, if still before when they were born:
Mikhail Gorbachev, (a) a major historical figure (b) who died only last August (so that should in some sense mitigate the before-you-were-born factor)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/world/europe/mikhail-gorbachev-dead.html
Nothing. A few had heard the name, none could attach anything specific to it
5/n
Finally:
It was ironic that I was teaching about the #RussianRevolution/ October Revolution (1st task: explain Julian versus Gregorian calendar!) on the anniversary of the establishment of the #Comintern (2 March 1919)
Didn't even have time to discuss the history of the previous Internationals in detail, though I did explain the splits in the socialist movement, 1905-1917 over issues of radical action vs. reform & social democracy vs. communism, so that probably sufficed for their needs
6/n
@CitizenWald if one will ask in the Russian schools these days about Gorbachev and the Potemkin, not many students will answer you surely. Same about many countries. Sometimes it depends on the history teachers. My were great but I'm talking about 1975-80.
@victorbz Really? Very interesting! I am surprised. I thought Gorbachev would at least be seen as the destroyer of Russian power and greatness (from the perspective of the Putin era)
@CitizenWald Yes, but also like one who desired to change the gray life of the Soviet ppl and opened the iron curtain (once again). As well many western countries got the freedom thanks to him. Right now the history books are changing and Stalin returns back as a savior of the motherland.
Yes, exactly what I meant: here (US), he is seen as a hero, a visionary, and a wise man of peace.
I was thinking that in former USSR/current Russian Federation, he is today viewed negatively (as you say: Stalin viewed more positively again)
@CitizenWald same is here in Israel, where i'm living already 30 years. Most of the people of the USSR territory never felt the difference of the life before perestroika and after. But after the perestroika were a few years of the the "dry law" which was much more memorable for many. But in many villages not too far from Moscow still there is no gas and central water system.
@victorbz Ah, I see: you are in Israel! So, you left just around/after the fall of communism. I remember how exciting the time of Glasnost and Perestroika was: like the "thaw" in the Krushchev era, only more radical: such hope and sense of possibilities. And instead, here we are today....
@CitizenWald Perestroika happened during my service in the USSR army, so always drunk officers were in trouble with how to explain to us, soldiers and servants what exactly happened and KGB was strong as never and checked every said and written word.
Yes here are we today. I was born in Ukraine, remember the dark days of rebellious Kazakhstan, and now attend here in Israel the demonstrations against the extreme right government pushing us to an even darker era.
@CitizenWald They have an intimate knowledge of capitalism, though.
Indeed! As I told them, though, historical context varies:
Today: shitloads of college debt, prospect they won't live quite as well as their parents
Back then: my grandfather got shitloads of banknotes, filled a wheelbarrow, and rushed to the bakery before they had lost half their value.
Or: some years later: went without work and pay.
(Of course, I also talked to them about long-term structural and cyclical issues and validated the importance of subjective experience)
@CitizenWald
I’m curious what the composition of this class is—e.g. is this upper-division history majors or first-years in a gen ed class?
But I do find that even history majors don’t necessarily come in with a good background in the history of political ideologies (socialism, fascism, or even liberalism).
@tkinias Short answer: small seminar with students at various points in their studies. Our course numbers reflect general levels, and this one is classified intermediate, but there is no set sequence, and few courses have prerequisites, so anyone can take pretty much anything. All but one are in their first year (counting spring-semester transfers)
And as I've said: I am not criticizing or testing them: just need to know what they know or don't know so that I can pitch my explanations correctly
@CitizenWald
Oh yeah, I know you’re not “kids today”-ing!—just trying to calibrate to what I see with my own students.
@tkinias Right, that was just for the benefit of anyone jumping in here in midstream.
And what do you find?
(I have taught a large gen-ed lecture course at UMass but that was via Zoom during COVID and TA's had all the direct contact with the students, so it was hard to draw too many inferences from that)
@CitizenWald
I find students vary quite a lot in what kind of knowledge they bring in—but that I can’t really make any assumptions. (E.g., when I taught modern Britain last year, I wound up taking a class period in the early 20C to explain what socialism and Communism are, because I realized students didn’t have the background to understand the significance of the rise of Labour).
@CitizenWald
But things vary quite dramatically between the lower-division courses which are mostly nonmajors taking their general education courses and the upper-division courses full of history majors. Our history majors are very good at synthesizing material from different courses, so by the time they’re juniors & seniors they’re building a network of good background knowledge.
@CitizenWald
One thing I find interesting is that a lot of our students come in with big holes in their history knowledge, but they *know* they have big holes. A lot of them—especially the more politically engaged ones—are a bit frustrated by what they didn’t learn in K12 history.
@tkinias Totally agree. The students here, too, are aware there is a lot they do not know, and are happy to learn.
Interestingly, I do find a certain kind of, let us say, overestimation of their own expertise or sophistication when it comes to certain topics such as gender and sexuality and religion: which may, historically, have been more complex than they imagine
@CitizenWald
yeah, I find religion is where students tend to overestimate their expertise the most—both students with devout Christian upbringings and students with strong anti-theist views tend to think they understand Christianity (and the influence of religion in general on history) better than they really do
@tkinias Exactly what I meant. Here, of course, it is mostly the atheist/ anti-theist. They just have a very cynical/instrumental view of things--but I should add, that they are not, ultimately, closed to a more complex view; just that it takes work
@CitizenWald
Yes, precisely.
And I can’t be too judgemental, because sometimes they sound a lot like I did when I was 19.
@tkinias Same. I periodically try to remind myself of some of the dumb shit I said when I was that age
@tkinias I would say the same. However, not only are we small: with a greatly shrunken faculty and a student body just starting to grow again after our near-death experience and the decision not to take a new entering class in 2019, we are being asked to teach more courses at intermediate or lower level, so in effect we need to teach more to generalists (fine with me)
@CitizenWald
that makes sense—we haven’t been through that kind of crisis, but history has shrunk to the point that I am one of only two T/TT historians on campus, so there’s similarly not a lot of opportunity for narrow specialization!
@tkinias Ah, not so different, then. I enjoy teaching beginning students or those otherwise not specialized, but I do think/fear, that, for this reason and others, our courses are going to have to change a lot in the next few years. I think I'll be able to do what I need to, but the curriculum may lose a lot
@CitizenWald
Yeah, our curriculum is going to wind up being very different from what we had when I was an undergrad in a department with a few dozen faculty. But letting go of the old way of narrowly slicing things up by nation-state is probably a good thing anyway.
@tkinias Sure, the national organizing principle is a relic of the 19th century. What I worry about it just a new thinness of the curriculum, a situation in which we tackle things eclectically and superficially. One advantage here is that we have a consortium with a fuller range of course offerings. But that places more stress on good academic advising, which in turn requires faculty who are both broadly and deeply educated.
@CitizenWald
Yes, exactly. I think we need to have more conversations in our discipline about how we organize curriculum in small departments.
@tkinias Exactly. I am the only European historian here now (!). The other is still on leave (departed temporarily during the budget crisis as part of our strategy to save the institution), however, tends to teach rather niche courses. We have more Americanists: some actual historians, and others in sort of "studies"-ish areas.
Our current transition is a bit hard to explain in the limited number of characters available. Suffice it to say, I will continue to teach whatever current courses still
@tkinias seem viable, and pivot (as we say nowadays) more toward those (+ new ones I'll need to create) that are somewhere between "special topics" and "methods": in practice, find some themes and readings that really interest me, and use those to illustrate what it means to "do history" and at the same time impart some general sense of the broad sweep of history or a particular era. I can live with that. If they let me.
@CitizenWald
an example of where I’m trying to be creative with this is a “1914” course I’m teaching in the fall—it’s basically a survey of the world just before the Great War
it’s a snapshot in time, but the idea is just to give students a taste of how vast and interconnected and dynamic the world was a century ago
@tkinias @CitizenWald That would make a great book!
@avielroshwald @CitizenWald
The course was kind of inspired by Charles Emmerson’s “1913: In Search of the World before the Great War” so at this point it’s not really a novel idea, unfortunately.
@avielroshwald @CitizenWald
Of course, my version of the book would be better but it would be a tough idea to sell, I expect.
@tkinias @CitizenWald Ah—don’t know that one. Thanks for the reference!
@avielroshwald @CitizenWald
I listened to it as an audiobook a couple years ago. I wouldn’t say there’s anything terribly novel for a historian who has basic familiarity with the time period, but I still enjoyed it and think my students will get a lot out of it.
@tkinias @CitizenWald Well, then you could write a better version!
@avielroshwald Has that not, since time immemorial, been the essence of our profession?
@CitizenWald @avielroshwald
Yes! My colleague actually uses that book as the starting point for her Latin America survey course.
@tkinias @avielroshwald Don't know him personally though he is a close friend of a friend, lives nearby. Sometimes (actually, often), the non-professionals are the ones who strive for the big synthesis
@CitizenWald @avielroshwald
And then there’s Osterhammel.
@tkinias @avielroshwald For that matter, one could teach a course consisting entirely of books whose titles consist of a date. Maybe I should do that.
@tkinias Exactly. Great example
@tkinias @CitizenWald A friend told me he realized only very recently that various 19th-century cultural icons (the "old West," Sherlock Holmes, samurai [in certain settings], etc.) were or would have been contemporaneous. A lot of people only ever learn history as totally disconnected "time periods" that turn everything into a kind of mystical totem rather than a thing in (or a piece of fiction pretending to be in) a real and interconnected world.
@jnthnwwlsn @tkinias @CitizenWald making a timeline and stacking random events across the globe on it is always informative.
@lizrdeb @jnthnwwlsn @CitizenWald
I’ve been talking with my honors HIST 101 students about how when the textbook is like “Greeks chapter, China chapter, Africa chapter” it breaks our ability to keep things chronologically lined up.
@lizrdeb @jnthnwwlsn @CitizenWald
I’ve been doing a lot of synchronizing in my East Asia class this semester, trying to help students keep what we’re discussing in China, for example, lined up with what they know about European (and later, US) history.
@tkinias @lizrdeb @jnthnwwlsn As a kid and student, I always loved a nice big comparative chart, whether in a book on one of those subjects, or as a standalone document or book. Even the old Time-Life history volumes did that, as I recall.
@tkinias BTW I somehow always mention, but nonetheless not without a touch of amazement, that back in the '70s, i.e. well before our time, UMass had an English dept. of c. 100 faculty. I mean, sure: GenEd, expository and remedial writing included, but still....
Today:
The End of the English Major | The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major
WTAF, amirite?
@CitizenWald
WTAF indeed
@tkinias @CitizenWald And then there’s the perennial need to clarify for them why national socialism ain’t socialism.
@tkinias @avielroshwald Thankfully, I have not had to deal with that one yet, since these students are all left-leaning.
However, one students did say their high school history teacher had told them about the "horseshoe" model in which the extreme right and extreme left converge. I responded "So did mine, and even then I knew he was wrong." But I went on to explain where the idea came from, etc. etc.
@CitizenWald @avielroshwald
the horseshoe business is one I feel like I have to quash at least once a semster...