Index
Staff
Contact Points
Introduction
Assignments
Grading
Electronic Media
Office Hours
Thomas J. Archdeacon
E-Mail:
Department of History
University of Wisconsin - Madison
5133 Humanities Building
455 North Park Street
Madison, WI 53711-1483
USA
Contact Points
tjarchde@facstaff.wisc.edu
Phones:
Office: 608-263-1778
Fax: 608-263-5302
Home: 608-251-7264
The people of Ireland are now marking
the 150th anniversary of An Gorta Mór, The Great
Hunger. The sudden collapse of the potato crop during the summer
of 1845, followed by additional failures in subsequent years,
wrecked havoc with the dietary staple on which as much as one-third
of the population relied for survival. That disaster, aggravated
by ineffectual and often mean-spirited efforts to relieve the
ensuing distress, plunged Ireland into a famine that profoundly
reshaped the island's demography, society, and mentality. The
Potato Famine also brought emigration, which was already important
in Irish life, to center stage. Long after the Famine ended,
but at least partly because of changes stemming from it, Ireland
experienced rates of population loss unmatched in any other nation
over so sustained a period.
This seminar has several goals.
The most obvious, of course, is to allow you to learn about the
causes and consequences of the Potato Famine and about the experiences
of the people who succumbed to it or survived. Studying the Famine,
however, will also be a means to other ends that may ultimately
be more important to your education.
The seminar will expose you to the
differences between popular and scholarly approaches to history,
and will attempt to demonstrate why the interpretation of historical
events is important for understanding the contemporary world.
We shall begin with an effort to lay out a basic narrative about
Ireland, the Famine, and emigration. We shall then break that
story into a series of analytical problems, and examine how historians
have attempted to answer the critical questions associated with
them. Toward the end of the seminar, we shall discuss how the
historical memories of the Famine held by various groups affect
their interpretations of today's political and social issues.
An Gorta Mór is a Bascom course fulfilling Part B of the General Education Communication Requirement for graduation. In order to qualify for the Bascom designation, the course must include a sequence of at least eight information-gathering and writing assignments that lead to the production of a total of 30 to 35 pages of prose. It must also provide regular opportunities for individual consultation with the instructor, for receiving feedback on assignments, and for revising work.
Students will produce two short papers
(3 pages each), two intermediate-length papers (5 pages), the
second of which will be revised, and one long paper (10 pages),
which will also be revised. I am requesting that you submit these
assignments to me in two formats. In addition to the standard,
printed, double-spaced paper copy, I expect to receive, through
E-mail, an electronic version of each assignment.
Assignments related to the seminar
will enable students to work with several different kinds of research
materials. You will watch and critique the contents of three
video presentations. You will examine a variety of primary sources,
including governmental and journalistic reports. In addition
to reporting on portions of the secondary readings assigned in
common to the class, each student will do research in other secondary
materials on topics for which he or she will be individually responsible.
Moreover, you will have the opportunity not only to deal with
printed materials but also to use the World Wide Web portion of
the Internet as a research tool.
The seminar format of the course
will require active involvement on the part of the students as
well as of the instructor. Your participation in the give-and-take
of each meeting will be essential for the overall success of the
course and will be evaluated. Each of you will also be expected
to make three oral presentations to the class during the semester.
Together, the two short papers will
contribute 10 percent of each student's final grade. The first
two oral presentations will also contribute 10 percent of it.
The two five-page papers, as revised, will each contribute 15
percent of the final grade. The ten-page paper, as revised, will
contribute 30 percent, and the oral presentation associated with
it another 10 percent. Class participation will determine the
last 10 percent of the final grade.
Use of electronic media will be integral
to History 200. As a student, each of you has a right, free from
additional charges beyond your tuition and fees, to an E-mail
account and access to the Internet. As indicated above, students
will use E-mail to submit an electronic version of their writing
assignments. Moreover, E-mail will also serve as a means of enabling
students to contact me outside of office hours and of allowing
me to deliver messages, individually and collectively, to members
of the class.
History 200 also has a "home
page" on the World Wide Web. The URL, or address, of the
page is www.history.edu/history200tja. The WWW offers advantages
beyond those that basic E-mail can provide. Access to the web
page for History 200 will be available to persons beyond the students
enrolled, and feedback from them - as well as from members of
the class - may lead to improvements in the course. Moreover,
while E-mail is a medium designed primarily for the dissemination
of simple text documents, the WWW makes possible the transmission
of enhanced text layouts, graphics, and other similarly complex
materials. Finally, a number of web pages with contents relevant
to historians and to other students of the Irish Famine already
exist, and the web page for History 200 incorporates links that
will enable students to have easy recourse to those sites.
I shall do my best to make myself
available for consultations with students. My scheduled office
hours are held in 5133 Humanities on Tuesdays from 4:00 to 5:00
P.M. and on Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00 P.M. I am often in the
office at other times as well, and you are free to stop by whenever
I am there. I shall try to accommodate you unless other pressing
business is pending. You may also make appointments to see me
at times other than the scheduled office hours. To do so, please
speak to me after class or call me at the office (263-1778) or
at home (251-7264). If necessary, leave a message; both phones
have answering machines. Finally, I check my E-mail frequently;
a message sent to me at tjarchde@facstaff.wisc.edu will usually
get a quick response.
