Category Archives: hist 102 (Spring 2012)

New Scholarship on the Enlightenment

Fascinating review of Jonathan Israel’s new scholarship on the European Enlightenment, in particular the influence of philosopher Baruch Spinoza by Robert Leventhal.

In particular, note the definition of the “Radical Enlightenment”:

1) philosophical reason as the criterion of what is true;
2) rejection of supernatural agency (divine providence);
3) equality of all mankind (racial and sexual equality);
4) secular universalism in ethics anchored in equality and stressing equity, justice, and charity;
5) comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought;
6) personal liberty of lifestyle between consenting adults, safeguarding the dignity and freedom of the unmarried and homosexuals;
7) freedom of expression, political criticism, and the press in the public sphere; and
8.) democratic republicanism.

While Leventhal praises Israel’s defense of Spinoza’s influence, he also says that

One can reasonably advocate all of the values and moral precepts Israel attributes to the Radical Enlightenment on pragmatic grounds and not be a metaphysical monist. In other words, we do not need to believe in Spinoza’s metaphysics to believe in democracy, freedom of expression, social justice, equality, fairness, and tolerance. We can, but do not need to, align historical truth with progressive values. We can, but are not required to, adopt a naturalist vision of science and philosophy to be thoughtful and moral citizens.

Extra Credit Opportunity: Distinguished Visiting Writers

Pittsburg State University’s Distinguished Visiting Writers Series presents the 7th Annual Faculty Reading, featuring fiction writers Lizanne Minerva and Lori Baker Martin. The reading takes place at 7:00 PM, Thursday, February 2 in the Governor’s Room of the Overman Student Center. A reception follows in the Heritage Room. The reading is free and open to the public.
Lizanne Minerva has published short stories in literary journals such as Puerto del Sol, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, and Apalachee Quarterly. Originally from Tallahassee, Florida, Minerva was the recipient of the Ernest Hemingway Fellowship in fiction at Indiana University, where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing in 1992. She later completed a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Minerva has taught fiction and literature at Missouri State University and is currently an instructor at PSU. Fiction writer Roland Sodowsky says Minerva “creates characters both believable and surprising in their complexity. Her fiction is a pleasure to read.” Novelist Kathy De Grave says Minerva’s stories present “an incisive depiction of women’s lives in middle-class America. Lizanne’s characters are spunky and humorous. We laugh with them as they reveal their flaws. We recognize these women and sympathize with the hard choices they have to make every day!” Minerva is working on a collection of short stories about mothers and children, and on Thursday she will be reading some of her recent fiction.
Lori Baker Martin earned a Master’s degree in English from PSU in 2009, then completed her MFA at The Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she was named a Truman Capote Fellow. She was also the recipient of The Writer’s Workshop Clark Fischer Ansley Award for Excellence in Fiction. She has also received awards from Kansas Voices and the Cincinnati Review Schiff Prose Contest. Her work has been published in Prick of the Spindle and The MacGuffin, and is forthcoming in The Little Balkans Review. Novelist Kathy De Grave says that Martins’s writing “has a haunting quality.  Scene by scene the images are vivid and original; they stay in one’s mind. The characters, too, are so fully drawn they seem real, even though the story they inhabit often verges on the mysterious. Lori finds beauty in the grotesque and sees the struggle of the human spirit in everyday choices.”  Hailing from rural southeast Kansas, Martin is a third-generation Pitt State graduate, and on Thursday she will be reading from Bitter Water, her novel-in-progress set in Civil War-era Edna, Kansas and Carthage, Missouri.
For more information, contact the English Department at x4689.

Extra Credit Opportunity: Space Shuttle History

2012 Physics, Mathematics & Engineering Lecture Series
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
102 Yates Hall
2:00 pm

Dr. Steven Alan Hawley (a former NASA astronaut who flew on five spaceflights and currently a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas) will present

The Engineering, Scientific, and Cultural Legacy of the Space Shuttle

For more information, please contact Dr. Tim Flood (235-4401)

Abstract
April 12, 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of the first human in space and the 30th anniversary of the initial launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-1.  Between 1981 and 2011, five Space Shuttles flew 135 missions with Atlantis completing the final mission last July.  Astrophysicist and Kansas native Dr. Steve Hawley was one of the first class of astronauts selected specifically for the Shuttle in 1978.  He flew as a crewmember on 5 missions, including the deployment of both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.  He also had positions in flight operations management and astronaut selection during his 30-year NASA career.  Dr. Hawley will share his perspectives on the challenges and accomplishments of the Space Shuttle program.

World History Since 1500

  • The main course page can be found in the header links above, or here. This will have the current schedule, including any changes, links to resources like the syllabus (also available through the Past Syllabi tab above), my Powerpoint Slides when relelvant, and assignment handouts.
  • Your first homework, in addition to starting the reading in Spence and the document collection, is to complete the Student Information Form and email it to me before class on Friday.

Book list for World Since 1500

(Hist 102 sections 02, 03; Spring 2012)

History is the study of humanity and change over time. In this class we’ll have lots of both: the whole world over the last five hundred years (that’s about one year per four minutes of class time), from our pre-industrial heritage to our hypertext present, from five hundred million people to over seven billion. We will recreate the present from the past, and see how our current situation is in many ways the legacy of earlier cultures and processes. Who we are and where we are in the world is very much a historical question, as we will discover.

This class will examine this history through many lenses: political, economic, social, cultural, personal. The textbook will provide the basic survey of the history, supplemented by readings that will give greater depth and texture to subjects we will be discussing. The lectures and discussions will cover some of the same ground, but from different perspectives, including an introduction to the challenges and pleasures of Doing History.

Required Texts:

  • Peter N. Stearns, Michael B. Adas, Stuart B. Schwartz, Marc Jason Gilbert, World Civilizations: The Global Experience, Volume 2 (6th Edition). 978-0205659593
  • Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Schocken Books, Rev. and Expanded Ed., 1997. 978-0805210606
  • Andrew F. Smith’s Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine (Columbia University Press, 2009) 978-0231140935