This course will be an examination of a
particular region, a sweeping examination from the origins of
settlement up to the twenty-first century. In spite of repeated
waves of immigration, climate change, domination from afar, and
other upheavals, the basin of the Irish Sea has retained a kind of
commonality, a loose unity which stretches across both political
states and modern "nations." To put it plainly, the course will
encompass the history of the areas we now call Wales, Western
England, Western Scotland, the Western Islands, the Isle of Man, and
Ireland. From the neolithic to the twenty-first century, we will
have to take a macro-historical approach for the most part, and we
will be as interested in cultural and economic aspects of this
region's history as we will be interested in its politics.
Links of
Interest, Documentary Resources, and Some Other Generally Cool
Stuff
There will be two regular exams (each accounting for 15 % of the
course grade) and a final (25 %). The exams will be partly
objective, partly essay. There will be three map quizzes, each
counting 5%.
In this course, 80 to 82.5 is a B-, 82.5 to 87 is a B, 87 to 89.9 is
a B+ etc. Academic Integrity,
Attendance, and Late Project/Paper Penalties
This course will be run on the basis of the
Austin College Academic Integrity Policies. Group studying is
of course fine. But all students are required to do their own
work on tests and papers. By being enrolled in this course,
each student agrees to abide by the Academic Integrity principles
found in the most recent version of the Environment or in other
official college publications. All sources used in preparation
of the papers should be acknowledged appropriately. This
means that direct quotations, specific information, and specific
ideas should be attributed in the text or in a footnote to their
source. A sentence taken from someone else and slightly altered
still constitutes plagiarism, which the Environment specifically
names an honor offense. In terms of our journal assignments
for this course, the passing off of cut-and-paste material from
electronic sources is considered a major academic integrity
violation. I will respond to all violations with appropriate
penalties. In the case of cheating on a test, I will give the
student an F for the course. All violations of any kind will be
reported to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs.
Excessive absences will lead not only to
deterioration of the class participation grade, but also potentially
to faculty-initiated withdrawal from the class if the absences
amount to more than 5. After the open period for
student-initiated dropping without a grade, student-initiated
withdrawals are generally not approved. The Two Big
Presentation Projects
YOU WILL BE WORKING ON TWO PROJECTS THIS SEMESTER
WHICH MAY BE UNUSUAL IN YOUR EXPERIENCE. These
projects are of a non-traditional nature, but both projects must
be of a design, form, and result which is at least equal to the
effort of a seven-page research-based paper. I want you to
do some kind of presentation that will use other media than
paper-writing, but which will nonetheless involve analysis of
primary materials, or at the very least, unusual ways of conveying
history in some depth to a given (identified) public. This
could be an internet site. This could be a performance, with
commentary. This could relate to music or art. Or it
could be some kind of reconstruction of important events based on
primary documents. It could be a short movie, or a
documentary, if you have a video-camera and iMovie on your
computer. It is up to to you to decide the form of your
presentation. You may form a team of other class members,
but if so, you must delineate clearly to me what parts of the
project each student is responsible for. All this must be
done in consultation with me.
The topics of the two projects should correspond roughly to the part of the chronology we
are in: the first assignment, for example, should be
about some topic within the older material (Neolithic, early
Celts, Vikings, Tudors, etc.).
The
Blog
Project
Every week, you need to write a blog-type
entry, with pictures or videos if possible. The entry needs to
be short. But it needs to refer to a significant portion
of the "outside" parts of the course--readings, videos, etc.
Should you choose to do a full-scale blog, keeping it current
with at least two entries per week throughout the course, you
may replace one of the Big Presentation Projects with the
blog.
Otherwise, I need to receive from each of you (by each Tuesday
at 4:30) a "blog entry" or informal essay. If you choose
the essay form, then it should be at least 500 words in
length. If you do a blog, then the length is more
flexible, but it has to have some links and pictures or
embedded Youtube videos, etc. If you are really bold,
like so many who have traversed the Irish Sea, you may do a
Youtube blog for this assignment. Whatever you choose,
please work up the idea in consultation with me.
Books to Acquire
Thomas Cahill. How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of
History) [Paperback]
ISBN-10: 0385418493
ISBN-13: 978-0385418492
Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True
Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World
& Everything in It
ISBN-10: 0609809997
ISBN-13: 978-0609809990
