המתת השור

mportant letter from your world history professor -- Beginning Week 11‏   דואר נכנס x     A History of the World since 1300 Course Staff‏ <noreply@coursera.org‏> 1 דצמבר (לפני 1 יום)   אני     אנגלית     עברית       תרגם הודעה השבת עבור: אנגלית      

What is the difference between history and memory? As we start to discuss historical events of the twentieth century and the decades after World War II, we confront years in which we, or our parents, or grandparents lived. So, what we make of the past as History becomes entangled with memories we have or we received. This is not an easy reconciliation, and it forces us to recognize the limits of social memory when we discover uncomfortable truths that we, our families, our neighbors, and our leaders, truths that we/they prefer to leave out of the narrative of memory. It also asks us: what are the limits of historical knowledge? Can we ever really step out of time and place and tell history without a perspective of an author or teacher? Can memory ever be fully severed from history?

You will see this week's forums deal with these issues -- and they are not resolved; rather, what is remarkable is how open the debates are, and how they should be, at least for now. Rather than search for closure, reconciliation, or synthesis, the power of some of the forum discussions points to the need for deeper understanding. Even if it leaves us confused. And disturbed. 

Not surprisingly, it is how we deal with "Atrocities" and "Aftermaths" of the great world wars of the 20th century -- the themes of lectures 19 and 20 -- that have churned up the most discussion. But the issues roll back to how I have portrayed American killings of indigenous peoples, photographs of German troops standing before the hanging bodies of Africans before 1910.

The debates will not end with these horrors; the difficulties separating memory from history are not just the properties of difficulty, horrible, times. As we move into "our" own era, with our own achievements and disappointments, the tensions will only grow. 

One lesson we might draw from world history and the narrative of globalization, is that seeking certainty may have to take a back seat to appreciating complexity. This does not mean we can't "know" facts. Indeed, several of you have pointed our new facts that could inform our stories, or corrected some of my own (like the precise image of the Soviet tanks about to slam into the German Wehrmacht at the colossal battle of Kursk). Facts help; facts are necessary. But how they fit together and their meanings are the subject of dispute and contestation.

A thread I would especially urge you to follow concerns the depiction of the Siege of Leningrad, when civilians were forced to sacrifice some social norms to uphold other norms -- especially women, to feed their children, in some cases fed off cadavers of dead Russians -- while at the same time displaying a wrenching commitment to other norms where and when they could; like the determination to keep the Hermitage Museum open for starving civilians to see great works of art even as the curators froze in the effort. This is a case of incredible complexity that requires careful consideration.

https://class.coursera.org/wh1300-2012-001/forum/thread?thread_id=1286


I often wonder how I can make this course more interactive, closing the gap between me, Princeton students, and students around the world. In keeping with our experimental style, we will be organizing two global seminars inside this course. This coming Tuesday (Dec 4) and the following Tuesday (Dec 11), we are going to invite a group of 8 Princeton students and 8 students from around the world (including New York!), to talk to each other about the course, and what we have learned, for about one hour. These conversations will be recorded and then uploaded onto the Coursera site for the near 90,000 to watch.

Melissa Teixeira (whom you will all meet at this global seminar), will post a thread inviting you to submit questions in advance to your classmates in the seminars.

For those of you who recently joined the course, and hundreds are joining by the day as we approach the end, my suggestion is that you start where we are now: with lecture 19-20. You can backfill later.

Many of you ask me: will I teach the course again? My plan is yes. Will it be different? Yes. I will redo some of the lectures, especially in the first half of the course as I was just getting used to the format and was not as fluid as I became through the second half of the lectures (and correct all my factual mistakes -- see how they matter!).

I will also be working with my wonderful colleagues here at Princeton and the Coursera team to devise more interactive features. So, stay tuned. And enjoy the coming week.

Best wishes,

Jeremy Adelman & A History of the World since 1300 Course Staff