Statement of Teaching Interest and Experience
Why Does History Matter?
“Why does history matter?” This question summarizes my approach to teaching. The natural tendency is to view history as the study of “what happened in the past.” However, I encourage students to think of history as “what matters in the present about the past.” My courses thus highlight the circuits in which history and memory are produced and consumed. In addition, they foreground past and present interrelations of politics and culture. How and why is the memory of the resistance against Fascism in Italy contested? How do Europeans remember and contextualize the fall of the Berlin Wall? Why are debates over past genocides so controversial? Such questions compel students to recognize the linkages between accounts of the past and contemporary concerns and ambitions. Students then learn to comprehend the salience of historiographical debates – debates that are unavoidably political.
My teaching is thus shaped by comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary approaches with a particular focus on the agency and subjectivity of historical actors. In this vein, I have taught a class on European imperialisms from the 1850s to the present. In discussing formal as well as intimate colonial relationships and the markers of “Europeanness” and “Otherness,” the course explored the contradictions and inconsistencies of imperial power and traces the changes and continuities in colonial practices, relationships, and imageries. To widen the concept of the archive, I selected an array of sources ranging from political treatises and African novels to popular comics and Italian opera. A variety of theoretical and comparative approaches, most notably postcolonial theories and cultural studies, framed the course, enabling students to integrate a solid analysis of primary sources with secondary readings. For example, listening to passages of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida in class helped students discover inconsistencies in what have been termed “colonialist discourses.” Our engagement with Verdi’s opera allowed us to approach postcolonial theory from a concrete angle and made the theories of Edward Said and his critics less foreign, more understandable, and indeed audible.
Our collective imagination of the past is forged not only by historical accounts but also by artifacts of popular culture, such as comics and hit movies. By exploring their messages and influences in class rounds, students learn about the ways in which images, stories, and memories are contingent on the historical circumstances in which they are produced and reproduced. For instance, in my course on European Imperialisms, the juxtaposition of four different cultural texts – Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim, the story of Lawrence of Arabia, cartoons of Tarzan, and the Hollywood blockbuster The Last Samurai – facilitated a discussion about the persistent ways in which the colonial relationship, in particular the Western mastery over the native way of life, continues to be represented. Images, novels, film, and music can generate a different level of understanding than textual primary sources and historiographical accounts. Although their “truthfulness” may seem less secure than that of histories produced by historians, imaginative artifacts and interpretations touch upon the everyday, the intimate, and the marginal in a way that other texts cannot, and thus have the potential to affect and engage students on a deeper and more committed level.
I am currently teaching a lecture course on comparative fascism. The course introduces students to the primary theoretical and historiographical debates about fascism, focusing on the cases of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, while integrating the discussion of other examples labeled fascist in scholarly work and in everyday parlance. Through the analysis of primary sources and historiographical texts, students examine the interrelationship of terror and consensus in order to interrogate the category of “totalitarianism” without discounting the impositions of fascist regimes. Our goal is to understand the actions, thoughts, aspirations, and relations of historical actors – those of the victims and opponents of fascism but also those of “bystanders” and “perpetrators.” Understanding the Holocaust and the implication of the German people in this unique mass murder represents a great challenge, as it compels students to look beyond the easy answer of human evil. It is our responsibility to identify all the possible causes that led to this and other genocides. Understanding, however, does not imply justification. While I encourage students to empathize with historical actors and to consider the multiple forces that may have induced people to behave in certain ways, I also urge students to confront moral questions and debate social responsibilities.
The assignment of a group-based web project in this course fosters collaboration by requiring students to research, collect, edit, and interpret primary and secondary source material pertaining to a topic of their choosing. In the humanities, students are generally required to work independently, yet scholarly activity takes place through continuing conversation and confrontation. Indeed, understanding history and its relevance in the present is a synergistic project; insightful and creative thinking rarely develops in isolation. The web project thus gives students an opportunity to design an online “exhibit” and decide how to present the material they have selected in an effort to educate their audience about fascism. My general approach is to remind students that to overcome the challenges of intellectual engagement, they can rely on my support, but also seek the assistance of their peers.
In addition to the courses I have outlined, I have considerable experience in teaching Modern Europe more broadly; I served as a teaching assistant for a course on Europe from 1870-1945 and for an interdisciplinary course on the origins of Nazism. This winter, I will be offering a lecture course on post-1945 Europe and a seminar entitled “La dolce vita: Sports and Leisure in Modern Italy.”
I feel very passionately about this particular course, the topics of which include: Dancing and Dueling, Climbing the Nation’s Peaks, Pilgrimages, Destination Italy – Tourism in Italy, Fashion and Faux, The Tuscan Landscape, Soccer, Slow Food, and Coffee Culture. The course tackles such issues as the cultural expressions of “Italianness;” the relevance of class, gender, and regionalism in the subjectivities of modern Italians; and transnational connections, imitations, and desires in cultural and social movements. For example, the topic of Fashion and Faux discusses the high fashion industry and the identity politics of luxury as well as the business of fashion imitation. The examination of these interconnected global markets moreover carries to the fore the realms of criminal activity and illegal immigration, topics of relevance for the understanding of contemporary Europe.
All topics covered in the course offer a transnational perspective, as the aspects of “Italian” life under examination are intimately tied to worldwide developments. The use of film and novels accompanies historical accounts and the theories of such scholars as Stuart Hall, Pierre Bourdieu, and Dick Hebdige. In combining such material, I am interested in students’ understanding not only of the main arguments but also of the authors’ premises. As students confront stereotypes about Italy, they develop the tools to identify and interrogate their own assumptions about culture, society, and the world in general. The coursework culminates in an extensive research paper.
In all my courses I seek to nurture students’ interest in the world that surrounds them and foster their willingness to understand its complexity and its embeddedness in past developments. As historians in action, then, students amass the tools and refine the sensibilities that will help them excel in their careers and lives. It is my aspiration that each student emerge from our forays into history with a richer and more nuanced understanding of the complexities of the present. And on a more universal level, I always strive to introduce students to the beauty of knowledge and self-discovery, as well as the good company of fellow thinkers, readers, and writers.
Courses
Course: Comparative Fascism
University of Michigan, Fall 2007
Developed a lecture course introducing students to the primary theoretical and historiographical debates about fascism; material focused on the cases of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany while integrating the discussion of other examples that have been labeled fascist; fostered collaboration among students with the assignment of a group-based web project requiring students to research, collect, edit, and interpret primary and secondary source material pertaining to a topic of students’ choosing.
download Comparative Fascism Syllabus (PDF format)
Course: European Imperialisms - An Archive of Stories, Cartoons and Films
University of Michigan, Fall 2005
This course studied Western European colonial empires from the late 19th century to the present.
As practicing historians, we drew on an extensive archive of films, treatises, cartoons, poems, documentaries, speeches, and novels. Our goal was to explore a wide variety of topics including colonial regimes of terror and civilizing missions, notions of masculinity and domesticity, and colonial and postcolonial race relations. The course consisted of lectures, class discussions, and writing workshops. This course fulfilled the first-year writing requirement.
download European Imperialisms Syllabus (PDF format)
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