Another trimester of my Civil War Memory class has come to an end. This is my second go around with this particular elective and overall I am pleased with the results. This trimester I decided to focus the course on Civil War films. We viewed five full-length movies and numerous small videos that span the [...]
Civil War Memory Class
There is nothing too surprising about this short interview with Prof. David Blight, but I thought it would be a nice way to end the work week. Teachers may find this useful as a way of introducing basic questions of historical memory with students. Blight touches on how Americans remember the Civil War, race, the [...]
My Civil War Memory class has finally finished watching Shenandoah and students are now working on comparative reviews that incorporate their understanding of Gone With the Wind. Shenandoah represents a sharp transition in popular memory of the war in the roughly twenty-five years since the premier of GWTW. I want to wrap up this series [...]
The other day my students brought in newspaper articles about the Civil War that were published in the New York Times between 1961 and 1965. They were allowed to search any topic and then had to write up a brief analysis of what they discovered. I asked them to staple the articles to their analysis [...]
Shenandoah is a watershed movie for a number of reasons in my view. As I mentioned in my last post, the movie steers clear of many of the traditional Lost Cause themes that can be found in earlier movies. What I continue to be struck by, however, is the avoidance of any reference to what [...]
Students in my Civil War Memory course finally finished watching Gone With the Wind. With all of the discussion and analysis it took us two weeks to get through it. It was well worth it and for the most part they really enjoyed it. We are now transitioning to the Civil War Centennial and the [...]
I am not too surprised that my students are enjoying Gone With the Wind. The discussions have been pretty good thus far. For Monday they must bring in a newspaper article about the movie and share it with the rest of the group. I am hoping that they come in with articles from different decades [...]
This year is the 70th anniversary of Gone With the Wind and this week my Civil War Memory class will watch it. Depending on how they respond to it we may even watch it in its entirety. There are so many thought provoking scenes, which will allow us to address a number of interpretive threads [...]
