A Quarter for Your Thoughts on the Quartering Acts For some reason, my San Diego friends in the military always want to tell me about their housing situations. Last weekend helping a family move out of military housing, the wife explained, “We get this much a month, but if Bobby is deployed, then we get…
I had a teacher once who always tried to tie the theme of that day’s lecture to a current event, hoping it would serve as a hook for us, her students. Sometimes it worked (David Koresh is a memorable example as an entry into the use of violence as a proper or improper form of…
Goods and the GoodHere is part 2 of our interview with Professor Linford Fisher. He discusses the kinds of primary sources he likes for the classroom and how to integrate commercial history with religious history in the colonial period. I also want to draw your attention to his marvelous historiographical essay on “Colonial Encounters” in…
Who here has had any luck teaching students to write? Come on, be honest. And if so, please tell me how you’ve done it. Every semester I start with the best intentions. I’ll go over writing for several days. I’ll let them do re-writes. I’ll painstakingly edit their papers. Every semester the numbers get me…
Religion, Religions, Religious, and Native Americans in Colonial America We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Linford Fisher, assistant professor of history at Brown University, for a two-part interview on religion in colonial New England. Fisher is one of the finest young scholars in the field of colonial America and Native American religions. His first book The…
Here is an amazing opportunity for our readers who teach in Community Colleges. The Newberry Library in Chicago will host a seminar on religious pluralism with an all-star cast of scholars to lead them, including Diana Eck, Tisa Wenger, and our own Kevin Schultz. Here’s more info: http://www.newberry.org/sites/default/files/calendar-attachments/FullProjectDescription%20d3%20Boggs.pdf
Teaching Salem Ten years ago, I spent a lot of time on Salem in the undergraduate survey. In part, this was self serving. I was a religious historian and the witch trials were a moment where I could harp on the importance of religion – how colonial New Englanders saw themselves living amid wonders, enchantments,…
When I was in graduate school, I TAed for a class on the Civil War. The prof usefully told us that the class would have almost nothing to do with the battles or the military strategy of the war or the generals, and everything to do with the context, the politics, and the ramifications. A…
What Salem Teaches Us After yesterday’s lecture on British colonial development from 1607 to 1698, one of my students asked at the end of class, “what do historians think happened at Salem? It just sounds kinda kooky.” Oh goodness, my friend. Do historians have thoughts about the Salem Witch Trials … why yes they do:…
The Scholars Speak (part 2 with Rebecca Goetz).Our thanks again to Rebecca Goetz of Rice University for discussing colonial settlement, the role of religion and enforced labor, and the differences and similitaries between the North and the South. 3. North versus South Ed’s third question deals with differences between the colonial North and the colonial…
