That's the title of my history class this semester. The very first say of classes, we used half of the hour discussing the course title. Why not "Europe: 1789-1918"? Why that time frame? Earlier in the discussion we'd talked about sustainability, so by eliminating punctuation, ink was being saved - a stretch, but we all laughed. Literally, the title indicates exactly the topic of the class - Europe between 1789 and 1918. And of course it's clever and witty and essentially set the tone for the class.
Later, when the floor was open for questions, it was brought up that Geoff (the prof) had neglected to mention Heart of Darkness as a required text. His reaction? "Oh yes! Huh." He checked his stack of books. "What happened to my Heart of Darkness? Well, everyone needs a Heart of Darkness." More laughter.
Geoff is always saying things like that. Here're some of the things I've jotted down:
"God loves cows."
"Ask some people, Hitler was a great leader - he embodied the people he led. Of course, we all know that can lead to...unpleasantness."
"The bourgeoisie were gaining power at this time. And they were for the most part literate, they could read and write." Student's response: "Oh crap!"
He also boiled the study of history down to two equations:
Em = (Rf + Ri) / Ra
where Em is modern Europe, Rf is the French Revolution, Ri the Industrial Revolution and Ra the Agricultural Revolution, and
C19 = Cfr + Pir + Pn
where C19 is 19th-century Europe, Cfr is change due to the French Revolution, Pir are the products of industrialization, and Pn is the power of nations.
He wrote those on the board, and our jaws dropped. I, for one, was impressed. Math that made sense to me! Amazing!
The actual course material is great as well - we're not reading textbooks, but literature (and things like it) and relating them to their corresponding time periods, while the lectures actually discuss history. The first book up is A Tale of Two Cities, and the part we have to keep reminding ourselves is that it was written retrospectively about the French Revolution. Good old 20/20 hindsight.
That's the class so far, and we're only four sessions in. It's gonna be a good semester.
I'll do Geology next, but not right now.
平和
Remus
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