history essay
rakanza
assignment.docxAssignment:
Explain what you believe your professor’s agenda was in this class—how and why I constructed the historical narrative of this version of World History since. Also, be sure to tell me whether or not the agenda of this class was successful in your case (and why that was so). In other words, tell me what you learned, how you learned it, and why you think I was trying to teach it to you in the way I taught it (which may have been devious). This is a historiographic exercise that requires critical thinking, analytical skills, and significant recall of course content. In reality, there is no right or wrong answer; I expect each of you to have a different view of the class, informed by your own beliefs, commitments, and life experiences. You do not have to agree with or even approve of my agenda—in fact, I encourage you not to. The ultimate point of this final essay is not only to sum up the experience of this class (for you) and to showcase what you have taken away from the course (for me), but also to force you to really think about how college courses are a form of ideological indoctrination—albeit a benign indoctrination, intended to make you a functional member of the middle class, an informed global citizen, and a more ethical human being. If you can deconstruct a college course like this, you can also apply the same analytical method to any form of media or social ritual, which is an incredibly valuable skill that has the potential to open new doors in your consciousness. Construct your final paper according to standard academic writing expectations: thesis, argument with evidence, conclusion. The evidence in this case can be drawn from any of the readings we did, all of the assignments you wrote and performed, any of the discussions and discussion questions, and basically every topic (digression or not) we talked about during the course of the semester. You must choose what you think are the best pieces of evidence of my professorial agenda out of the sum total of what we covered in this class.
Paper Topics we did in the class so the essay should contain ideas from those topics, and I did write some papers you can go through them and build the essay:
1-New World: The European invasion, occupation, and colonization of the so-called ‘New World’ provided the historical model for modern capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism; it is, not inconsequentially, the largest mass genocide in the recorded history of humankind. Compare our readings to the Eurocentric narratives you have previously been taught about ‘the Age of Exploration’ and the history of the Americas.
2-Race: Race—a mishmash of cultural categories with zero basis in biology—is among the most critical and invidious concepts of the modern world. Compare how race is discussed in our readings to what you have been taught about race (formally and informally) during your life.
3-Class: Class warfare is what history actually is, Marx suggests; the upper-class exploits, the lower is exploited, and the middle is stuck in between. Based on your life experiences, your understanding of what is happening in the world today, and our readings, write an essay suggesting a possible solution to this chronic social problem.
