A recent Los Angeles Book Review piece argues that the digital humanities’ “most significant contribution to academic politics may lie in its (perhaps unintentional) facilitation of the neoliberal takeover of the university.” The article has series flaws, and insightful reactions have come from Matthew Kirshbaum, Alan Liu, and (I have to acknowledge UTD graduate) Michele Rosen. I am participating this…
Our post today comes from new contributor Dr. Kevin Gannon, who has his own excellent blog, The Tattooed Professor. This post was originally published November 14, 2015. If you watch sports regularly, you’re probably familiar with the concept of “East Coast Bias.” Teams from places New York, Boston, and Washington, DC, can seem to dominate…
I am teaching introductory digital humanities courses this spring at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Both courses have three goals. Students will engage in scholarly conversation on the key issues in the field. Students will learn to critically evaluate works of digital scholarship. Students produce a piece of original digital scholarship. We recently pivoted…
A few months ago, someone invited me to a hidden Facebook group for college-level instructors to ask questions, share successes, and vent frustrations. I recently left this group after having enough of the unceasing student-bashing. The most common complaint among these instructors is similar to the one I hear most from friends and colleagues, “these…
History came alive for me when, as an undergraduate, I learned that historians argue. I was already a history nerd who enjoyed learning (really, memorizing) the names and dates of the past. But the sense of satisfaction I derived from “knowing” the past paled before the enthusiasm I experienced when I began “engaging” history by…
Two and a half weeks ago, Molly Worthen published a much-discussed op-ed in the New York Times. I am a big fan of Worthen’s scholarship. Her 2013 study Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism is the best of many intellectual histories of modern evangelicalism. This semester, I am reading through academic…
Last month I complained about the anti-intellectualism exhibited when historians dismiss and even disparage research in teaching and learning. This semester I am trying to read through research in several pedagogy journals including, The Review of Higher Education, Review of Educational Research, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Learning and Instruction, and Educational Research Review. My first observation is that faculty can control…
Over the past several months, I have seen at least a half dozen academic friends circulate a piece from the Huffington Post College blog, entitled, “A Message to My Freshman Students.” The piece touches on some important issues regarding the differences between college-level and secondary-level instruction. I appreciate the author’s attempt to meet his students…
For at least the past year, my blogging here has been obsessed with beginnings and endings. This post will continue, and perhaps fittingly, end that trend. This spring, I tried to think deliberately about how to create a memorable moment at the very end of the semester. While attending a church service, I was struck by…
Established in 1986, the Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes outstanding teaching and advocacy for history teaching at two-year, four-year, and graduate colleges and universities. The award is named for the late Eugene Asher, for many years a leading advocate for history teaching. The Society for History Education shares the sponsorship of the award. The…
