Sep 29, 2006
Secret Syllabus Redux
Two and a half addenda to my post about secret syllabi:
1. My colleague Bill Turkel assures me that his graduate course in digital history has no hidden syllabus; the questions he's assigned his students are exactly the questions he's wrestling with right now. In which case, I intend to get his students to see if they can hack my TiVo so it works in Canada. This reminds me: Bill's course here at the University of Western Ontario and Josh Greenberg's similar course at George Mason University have unleashed twenty-six new history bloggers on the 'sphere. Blogrollers take note, and completists despair.
2. The second half of my post was basically a mash note to Eric Rauchway... and that was written before he outed himself as a Whoey! If you thought I was a Rauchway fanboy before this, just watch me now. Eric sees the good Doctor (who?) as one in a long line of English heroes who are" crypto-foreigners," used by their creators to meditate on what it means to be British. I'd add to his list Christopher Banks, the Consulting Detective from Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, and, since he's already opened the door to geek culture, the principals in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The other consequence of Rauchway's post? If he can talk about Doctor Who at TNR's Open University, never again will I refrain from posting something at Cliopatria because I think it might be toonerdy.
2 1/2. Ralph's mentioned it already, but I will be hosting History Carnival XL (extra large?) at Old Is The New New on Sunday, October 1. Keep those nominations coming to electromail - at - robmacdougall - org (not com) or use the handy form.
1. My colleague Bill Turkel assures me that his graduate course in digital history has no hidden syllabus; the questions he's assigned his students are exactly the questions he's wrestling with right now. In which case, I intend to get his students to see if they can hack my TiVo so it works in Canada. This reminds me: Bill's course here at the University of Western Ontario and Josh Greenberg's similar course at George Mason University have unleashed twenty-six new history bloggers on the 'sphere. Blogrollers take note, and completists despair.
2. The second half of my post was basically a mash note to Eric Rauchway... and that was written before he outed himself as a Whoey! If you thought I was a Rauchway fanboy before this, just watch me now. Eric sees the good Doctor (who?) as one in a long line of English heroes who are" crypto-foreigners," used by their creators to meditate on what it means to be British. I'd add to his list Christopher Banks, the Consulting Detective from Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, and, since he's already opened the door to geek culture, the principals in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The other consequence of Rauchway's post? If he can talk about Doctor Who at TNR's Open University, never again will I refrain from posting something at Cliopatria because I think it might be toonerdy.
2 1/2. Ralph's mentioned it already, but I will be hosting History Carnival XL (extra large?) at Old Is The New New on Sunday, October 1. Keep those nominations coming to electromail - at - robmacdougall - org (not com) or use the handy form.