At Clark, I am teaching survey classes on Modern Europe and Nazi Germany, addressed primarily to freshmen, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate seminars on the history of racism in Europe, on Holocaust perpetrators, on the memorialization of mass violence, and on gender history. Any of these classes engage in historical explorations of change, choices, and ambiguity: the change of institutions, societies and cultures; the choices people had and took; the ambiguities people faced when taking choices, and the ambiguities historians face when trying to understand the choices historical actors took. Enabling students to constructively deal with ambiguities seems to be one the most important contributions history can offer in a time that is shaped more and more by the experience of cultural difference. When it comes to translate this agenda into classroom practice, I prefer dialogue, discussion, and dispute to lecturing, and I appreciate students who are ready to speak up —or to learn doing so.
Here are the most recent syllabi:
HIST 118: Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1918
HIST 153:Europe in the Age of Extremes: the 20th Century
HIST 165: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
HIST 234/334: Racial Thought and Body Politics in Modern Europe
HIST 236/336: Gender, War & Genocide in 20th Century Europe
HIST 237/337: The Holocaust Perpetrators
HIST 278/378: Collective Memory and Mass Violence