Making the Past Present

In a recent post, I mentioned a class on Berlin that I took as an undergraduate student and described it as one of the five best classes I took as an undergraduate. This superlative got me thinking about what other classes from my undergraduate career would round out my “five best” list. Now that I’ve taught undergraduate students myself, I know how difficult it is to create a really excellent undergraduate history course. So, as I prepare for the semester ahead (and more undergraduate teaching), I’m looking back to my own days in college and discussing the five best courses that I took as an undergraduate. My “five best” are in no particular order. It was hard enough picking just five best courses – I couldn’t possibly have picked a number one!

The Civil War & Reconstruction: As the title obviously suggests, this was a history class. This class is on my “five best” list because (1) the professor was a very engaging lecturer and (2) this class was the first time that I’d ever truly been exposed to the difficult, complicated questions surrounding the American Civil War and, especially, Reconstruction. Two books that I read in this class have stuck with me through the years: Confederates in the Attic (not about the Civil War, but about the ways in which the Civil War has been remembered – or misremembered; a bit of public history creeping in, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time) and Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (having never learned much about Reconstruction before, I was shocked to read about the lengths to which white Southerners went in order to destroy Black voting and civil rights during Reconstruction).

The Afterlife of the Holocaust: This was a German studies class. It wasn’t about the Holocaust per se, but rather about how the Holocaust has been remembered and represented in literature, films, television shows and documentaries, memoirs, art, architecture, and more. This class produced some incredibly interesting discussions that have shaped my perception of Holocaust memory and Holocaust education, especially the ways in which the Holocaust is taught to young people, ever since. We also watched two of the most powerful documentaries about the Holocaust: Night and Fog and Shoah.

World History of Communism: This was another history class, with a very engaging professor, who was probably one of the best lecturers I ever had. In this course, we took a deep dive into the history of communism, from Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto through the Russian Revolution and the founding of the Soviet Union, the Second World War, the Cold War and the Soviet bloc, communist regimes in China, Vietnam, Africa, and beyond, and more. Much of this history was new to me, and I found it fascinating. We read a number of books produced by people with first-hand experience of life under communism, including Execution by Hunger (a powerful and disturbing account of the Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s through the eyes of a survivor who was a young boy at the time; I now use this book in my own classes) and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (one of the first published indictments of the Gulag system in the Soviet Union, written by famous Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who had personal experience of the Gulag).

Berlin: Metropolis Revisited (class + study abroad trip): This was the class mentioned in my previous post, a German studies class accompanied by a short study-abroad trip to Berlin. As with the other classes mentioned here, the professor was amazing (both in the classroom and shepherding us around Berlin), and this class introduced me to Berlin, which is now one of my favorite European cities. On a more scholarly note, this was also the class that introduced me to architectural history, the study (and importance) of memory, and the importance of place when studying history, all of which were influential in my journey to becoming a public historian. One influential book from this class, which combined all of those things I just listed, was The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape.

East German Film: This was a German studies class, taught by the same professor as the Berlin class. For me, this class provided a fascinating window into East German history, society, and culture. We watched a wide array of East German films, from political films (both pro-government and critical of the East German state), to a 1970s cult classic (The Legend of Paul and Paula; Die Legende von Paul und Paula), to a science fiction film and even a Western (yes, East Germany produced Westerns, many of which starred a Yugoslavian actor as a Native American). This was the best example of a film class, in which we not only learned about the films, but also about the society that produced them and their historical context.

I couldn’t create a “five best” list without an honorable mention (as I said, I had difficulty narrowing down five classes). The honorable mention is:

Study abroad in Cambridge: This was a study abroad trip for honors students, led by faculty from my university. For five weeks, we stayed at a college at the University of Cambridge and took classes (taught by our faculty, not Cambridge’s) on early British history. These classes were interesting (this was my first introduction to Roman Britain and the Anglo-Saxons), and the weekly field trips to sites around East Anglia -and beyond – were always fascinating. Overall, the program was an amazing experience that introduced me to the UK (it was my first time visiting the UK) and cemented my desire to return, which I did, first as a tourist in 2017 and, later, in 2019 as a graduate student (and again this summer as a tourist). If I hadn’t studied abroad in Cambridge, I might not have gone to York, and my current career path would be very different!

After looking back on my five best undergraduate classes (and one honorable mention), I feel very grateful that I had these amazing experiences as an undergraduate (thank you to all my professors, if you ever happen to read this). I only hope I can have the same impact on my students one day.