As the final installment in our exciting series of syllabus posts I present my last class for the semester, Nomadic Empires and China It is a topics class, so it is supposed to get our majors to do more focused historical work (the bulk of our upper-divisions are surveys, Modern Japan, Modern Italy, Colonial America, etc.) It is also supposed to get them to do some research. As I am already teaching it and may never teach it again I welcome any sort of comments but particularly any on things to watch out for/change for this semester.
The only really interesting thing about the syllabus is how new it is. A lot of work has been done on these topics in the last 20 years or so, and as a result the class is almost entirely different than it would have been had I taken it as an undergrad. That’s one of the reasons I picked it, of course. Lots of cool stuff and much of it in paperback. The Mote book is turning out to be particularly helpful. 80% of them bought it, even though it was optional.
Oh, that looks good. It’s definitely a nagging thing for me, that I still am weak on these relationships. I do the best I can, but “and then the semi-nomadic warriors swept down… again” is getting a bit old.
Johathan,
Yes, that is one of the reasons I wanted to teach the class, to force myself to really get into the literature. So far Barfield and Mote are the things that have been most helpful.