An Archive

When constructing my plan for the majors’ “Approaches to European History” class that starts in January, should I scrap the Italian Renaissance third of the course I’ve used in the past (it’s set up 1/3 each to World War II, Crime in England, 1600-1900 and the Italian Renaissance as exemplary topics for historiographic issues) and turn it into a two-topic course?

Points in favour of this change:

• Students hate the Renaissance topics. It’s a little too far back in the past for some of them who haven’t even taken Western Civ but have to take this to cover their majors’ requirement.
• I haven’t yet found a book they really like. We’re using Alison Brown’s teeny tiny “Seminar Studies” volume The Renaissance and they think it’s too short, which is probably true, but I don’t want a conventional, complete textbook narrative for four weeks on a subject.
• I only get four class sessions on each topic which makes things feel a bit rushed (night class meets only once a week).
• I’m kind of tired of teaching the Italian Renaissance (excepting for sabbaticals, I’ve taught it every year since I started teaching in the waaaaay back).

Points against this change:

• We have lots of books and journals on the Italian Renaissance and, excepting for Western Civ, this is the only time I get to touch on this topic.
• There are many excellent examples of historiographic debate on the Renaissance (Boom or Bust? Whose Renaissance was it, anyway?) that I use to introduce my students to the concept of historiographic debate
• I have so many preps on the Renaissance I can use, it makes the last month of class a breeze from the classroom standpoint.

Book orders are due this weekend, dangit. I hate being under the gun!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2005 at 9:52 am and is filed under history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.