Week 6: Community, Culture, and Geography
The final Discussion is a chance to reflect on your journey through this course. There are many ways to study history, and there are many specialized approaches or lenses through which to view history. It’s not all dates and political facts. Traditionally, historians have studied specific time periods. However, there are dozens of other approaches to historical study. The study of the history of objects is called material culture history. There’s also the history of science, the history of ideas, gender history, economic history, food history, the history of dress, and several other approaches to historical study.
This course has looked at the same time period from the perspective of four different global cities. The goal has been to expose you, the historian, to four different perspectives. As such, political, or traditional history, has been combined with cultural resources to give a sense of place and time—to give you a sense of the global community.
Post 2-3 paragraphs responding to the following:
- Describe how you have used the cultural resources in this course to understand history.
- In the Class Café, you were asked to think about your own community. If you did not include this in the Class Cafe, imagine what you would have posted at the start of the term. Please provide an example of cultural expression (a piece of music or literature, a foodway, a piece of architecture, a festival, etc.) that connects to your own community.
- Has your understanding of community changed over this course? In what way or if not, how not?
- Many historians assert that geography is destiny. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
Tutorial for Community, Culture, and Geography
