Next week I will be heading down to Richmond to take part in the American Civil War Museum’s 3-day conference, “Lincoln and the South.” at the University of Richmond. It’s an all-star line-up of Civil War scholars, including William J. Cooper, Michael Burlingame, David Blight, Brian Dirck – you get the picture. I will be [...]
Teaching
I‘ve never quite understood the vehement anger expressed by some for Abraham Lincoln. Yes, I get the libertarian concern that Lincoln’s policies reflect a fundamental shift in the size and scope of the federal government. Funny that they rarely express the same concern for Jefferson Davis who went just as far in suspending civil liberties [...]
I‘ve got 55 exams to grade as well as end-of-the-trimester comments to write over the next few days. But for now I am enjoying the final projects from my students who spent this past trimester studying Civil War Memory. This was one of the most rewarding experiences for me to date. I had a wonderful [...]
The other day I came across the “Cotton Campus” website, which is an interactive website for teachers and children on the history of cotton and sponsored by Cotton Inc. As someone interested in how the history of slavery is remembered (and often ignored) I was curious as to how the people who brought us Mary [...]
This has been an extremely busy week for me. We just finished our second trimester and will give exams through next week. Luckily, the following week is spring break. My department is in the process of hiring and, because I am taking over next year as the head of the history department, I am much [...]
Please keep in mind that this is a very rough post. I didn’t take the time to review it for grammar since I wanted to post this as part of the day’s proceedings. Perhaps later I will follow-up with a short post on my session as well as my thoughts concerning Prof. Glymph’s presentation. We [...]
It’s never a good idea to approach the unknown with an attitude of fear. It distorts the subject from the outset and almost always results in judgments that emphasize worst-case scenarios rather than what is possible. Such is the case when schools try to figure out how to introduce and/or regulate student behavior on the [...]
On Friday I am heading down to South Boston, Virginia to lead a TAH Grant seminar of 28 high school history teachers. Our topic is Civil War Memory. I am going to take care of the morning session, including an overview of the topic as well as interpretive case studies with documents, film, and monuments. [...]
