Biography/Gender

This week we will complete our discussion of course themes. Our discussion will focus on our biography projects. For our class meeting and discussion on our blog, consider the following questions: How does a good biographer approach his or her subject? What special problems does biography pose for the historian, who is often far removed in time from his or her subject? To what extent should the biographer attempt to explore motivations, thoughts, emotions, and other aspects of the subject as an individual that may or may not have influenced their decisions? To what extent can the biographer do this? Consider Robin Collingwood's claim that the biographer should attempt to "get inside the minds" of their subjects. What problems does such an approach create? Please listen to the presentations of your peers via our pod casting channel on biography. Get the link to the biography channel for the course on the left side of the blog main page. We have pod casts from all but two or three of the students.

Oral History

Several of our students presented at the iPod showcase for the Apple Digital Campus Leadership Institute. I am very proud of our projects, and you should be too. For this week, we have Dr. Lee Ann Caldwell with us to discuss oral hisory. Most of you know Dr. Caldwell and I know we will enjoy this session. It gets even better, as Dr. Jesse Hingson has arranged some projects for us to complete in oral history. You will be interviewing members of the Cuban community here. Dr. Hingson has graciously arranged all of this and will be lending his help to you while we work through the project. Once again, we will be pod casting the interviews along with your analysis of the material. If you have not listened to the genealogy projects of your peers, you will want to do that, as they were very interesting. We have lots to discuss about our materials over the last couple of weeks, so I am looking forward to our next class and to discussing these materials on the blog.