Students from the “Virginia Issues and Controversies” class paddled along the Rappahannock River last Friday after discussing the environmental issues facing Fredericksburg’s watershed.
In addition to observing various water pollutants, they had an opportunity to see some of the river’s local residents, including kingfishers, bald eagles, and even Goose George.
Carrie Schlupp ’13 examines James Monroe’s apron as part of the “World of James Monroe” history course.
“The World of James Monroe” history course, offered for the first time this semester, provides insight into the late 1700s and early 1800s in an innovative way.
For more information, see “Bringing History to Life,” a feature article at the University of Mary Washington’s own “Great Minds at Work” newsletter.
The Department of History and American Studies will be offering several new or significantly revised courses for the coming Spring 2012 semester. See below for full descriptions.
Field School in American Vernacular Architecture
University of Wisconsin-Madison & Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Program
(UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee)
Art History 600 – Summer 2010 (June 14 – July 9)
This course gives students an immersion experience in the field recording of
historic buildings and an opportunity to learn how to write history
literally “from the ground up.” Students will receive training in site
documentation (including photographs and measured drawings) and primary
source research. They will create site reports on historic buildings that
will become part of the historical record of southwestern Wisconsin. This
research will also be put towards a conference to be held in the region in
2012, hosting national members of the VAF (Vernacular Architecture Forum).
LONDON, PARIS, VIENNA, PRAGUE, AND BERLIN
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON
SUMMER EUROPEAN STUDY PROGRAM
“European Capitals”
YESTERDAY AND TODAY
2010
A TWENTY-SIX-DAY, SIX-CREDIT, STUDY ABROAD OFFERING IN EUROPE
The Departments of History and American Studies and Political Science and International Affairs regularly sponsor a six-credit course that takes a limited number of students to Europe for a twenty-six day period each summer. Participants can experience the Europe of yesterday, today, and tomorrow by visiting London, Paris, Vienna, Prague and Berlin.
Between mid-May and mid-June, participants visit various cultural, political and historical sites in or near the five cities listed above. The group also attends a number of artistic performances (either theatrical or musical) during the trip. There are also a number of one-day excursions to sites in the outlying suburbs or within an hour train or bus ride.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND FACULTY
The unique nature of this educational experience, with its emphasis on “experiential” learning outside the formal classroom setting, makes inappropriate the utilization of such traditional measures of student achievement as tests and term papers. Instead, a student’s final grade in the course is determined by the quality of their performance in class participation, the compilation of a course journal, and their knowledge of assigned course readings.
The faculty teaching European Capitals have a wide range of expertise in modern European history and politics and extensive experience in European travel. John Kramer, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, is Mary Washington’s resident expert on modern European politics, with an emphasis on the former Soviet Union and Eastern European. Porter Blakemore, Associate Professor of History, is also a modern Europeanist whose teaching and research fields include diplomatic, military, German and contemporary history. Both Mr. Kramer and Mr. Blakemore have traveled widely throughout Europe and have taken student groups abroad on more than fifteen earlier occasions.
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:
PROFESSOR JOHN M. KRAMER
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON
FREDERICKSBURG, VA 22401-5358
(540) 654-1495; E-MAIL: JKRAMER@UMW.EDU
or
PROFESSOR PORTER R. BLAKEMORE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND AMERICAN STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON
FREDERICKSBURG, VA 22401-5358
(540) 654-1588; E-MAIL: PBLAKEMO@UMW.EDU
Applications are now being accepted for the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport, a semester long program based in Mystic, Connecticut that looks at the world’s oceans. Students explore beyond the classroom in an interdisciplinary, academically-rigorous fashion. Our semester is packed with travel, learning about our own country as well as the global ocean and coastal environment. We read Moby-Dick at Mystic Seaport, with a historic whaleship nearly identical to Melville’s Acushnet. We read Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea-Wind beside the Mystic River estuary. We read, among others: Hemingway, Dana, Kipling, Steinbeck, Twain, Chopin, Langston Hughes, and Sarah Orne Jewett. We go to sea on a tall ship for more than a week out of sight of land. We travel in vans along the coasts of central California, the Pacific Northwest, and southern Louisiana. Our home is Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea, where students in addition to their four courses (Literature of the Sea, Maritime History, Marine Policy, and Oceanography or Marine Ecology), also take a skills course, such as blacksmithing, small boat sailing, or sea music.
As a Williams College program, students receive a Williams transcript and our curriculum is approved by and is consistent with courses taught at Williams.
Applications for the spring 2010 are due by November 15; for fall 2010 by May 1, 2010.
For more information, go to http://www.williams.edu/williamsmystic/.
