My last post was in November of 2012. I once went two and a half years without updating my car's inspection sticker, and I would prefer to not beat that record with a delinquency in my attempts to figure out a few things about the world or worlds we inhabit. In the 24 months since the 2013 return of spring somewhere north of 1000 students have cycled through ~25 sections of my Poli Sci classes, with a small History class here and there. There were many continuing frustrations with these conditions and even realizations of new irritants as well, and my focus in the classroom was too often subpar by my standards. On the other hand, I can't ask for better colleagues in our little concrete corner. I feel a close bond among the faculty there and more generally, bound both by the sort of shared together-in-the-trenches thousand-mile-stares we exchange at times and by the laughter and sincere respect we hold for one another. We are also encouraged by a small but noteworthy number of students who have come to us as new History majors, most of them deciding they liked learning about history and how to study it more so than whatever previous major they had declared. I find that many who switch to Liberal Arts from Education and Nursing initially declared due to family expectations. Well, onward to Spring 2015, my 38th semester at NSU.
In spring I'm teaching two of my favorite classes. PSCI 4080 U.S. Foreign Policy is always fun, and the last six months alone have provided ample references for our discussions. The readings will combine the theoretical with the historical, and of course end on the only remaining answer to the question, "To what future is all this is headed?"-- "More research is required." I expect to have perhaps 15 students in the class. I'd be happy with a few more, even, but given my large loads in Intro (American Gov't) classes, it's nice to keep it small. Most students, I expect, will be from the PPL (Philosophy, Political Science, and Law) Concentration under the honors Liberal Arts major.
The second upper division class is History of Nuclear Weapons in World Affairs (HIST 4980), which I'm teaching online for the fourth time, I think. Maybe third. Anyway, it's been maybe 2 years so I'm looking forward to it. Again, usually a small class (I'm at the moment avoiding empirical checks on my enrollment or much else) of 15 or less, it attracts a variety of students especially in regard to the age range. Thus, some remember or are quite familiar with, e.g., the Cuban missile crisis, while others have heard of it but know little about it beyond what an uncle or grandmother might talk about at Thanksgiving. In this class, I assign a text with which I'm also becoming familiar and feeling confident it offers the right mix of the histories of science, individuals, epistemic communities, and policy processes that make up the global story of nukes and humankind. Mostly, however, the class uses a great deal of primary materials, mostly documents from sources like the National Archives as well as non-government sources such as the Internet Archive and the National Security Archives. Videos as posted to Youtube and other online platforms are also used, such as of nuclear tests and news reels from the early atomic era.
I'll share and offer for discussion many of these materials as we progress, but this blog will ... or is intended to ... offer a platform for sharing information and questions for analysis involving mostly current global affairs. The political context, particularly with the U.S. presidential election entering its first quarter of play (Jeb Bush at bat as of this writing, still warming up), will unavoidably color the topics under discussion. That we are facing an open election during a time of strong ideological polarization and global systemic change will no doubt be fodder for the political junkies among us, myself included.
I hope everyone is navigating the winter and our emergence into 2015 with warmth and many smiles. I will return with a post on Monday, to include a calendar of sorts of how I see this blog as unfolding. Please feel free to scroll through and comment upon the extant blog posts, many of which were tied to the 2012 election. All the best, Dr. G
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