Learning Outcomes

What am I going to learn?

I want you to learn how to read, how to write, how to research and most importantly how to think like a digital medievalist. With a focus on medieval book history, this course will generally answer the questions, "what is a book?", "how did medieval people communicate?" and "what changes when we digitize medieval material?".

As your professor, I want to be clear about what you will learn (or what I want you to learn if all goes well) by the end of the year. I think a lot about what I want my students to learn so that they (i.e. you) can make progress in becoming a historian.

When you're applying to a new university program, or trying to get a scholarship, or looking for a job, people will want to know what skills you have and how you can demonstrate them. Being able to refer to concrete examples helps. When you can say, "I can work and organize in digital teams" and can also point to your work in this class with enterprise tools (such as Teams), you can show (not just hint at) your expertise...

What are the Learning Outcomes for this Class?

Generally...

  1. You will learn how to work together in order to research and write up findings on the book history of the Middle Ages

  2. You will experience an ersatz academic life, by discovering history, sharing your findings and receiving peer feedback

  3. You will learn about the nature, construction and description of medieval manuscripts (and books more generally)

  4. You will learn about the principles of digitization, what goes into the planning and execution of a digital project

  5. The class will produce a public-facing digital project showcasing our work on Carleton's medieval manuscripts

Specifically ....

  1. You will learn how to read and interpret medieval evidence and learn the advantages and difficulties of working with them.

  2. You will learn the limitations of evidence (and thus our knowledge) of the Middle Ages. Being a medieval historian means that you have to come to terms with ambiguity and that you will not always have a clear answer.

  3. You will learn terminology (i.e. the language used by professional historians) and different ways (i.e. methodologies) to describe medieval evidence.

  4. You will learn to work independently and as a group, using digital "enterprise" tools to plan and execute written assignments. You will learn ways to manage your time and your work flow.

  5. By working in a digital environment, you can begin to craft a digital identity which reflects a professional you – its a good way to make the University-You rise up the google rankings (to hide those embarrassing posts on someone's tumblr feed...).

Learning outcomes are usually practical things, such as (imagine this said in a grumpy professor voice), "Learning enterprise tools allow you to succeed in the world after graduation". But one of the most important things to do in this class is to get to know your fellow students!

Your classmates are potential essay editors, project brainstormers, emotional supports and –dare I say– possible friends. Try to reach out and befriend at least one other of your classmates, because the odds are, the effort you put into it will be paid back. Even if we're stuck doing this all online, it'll be worth it.

Why Study History?

Everyone has their own reason to study history and if you're in this class, you likely already have a sense why it appeals to you. The AHA (American Historical Association) will tell you about the good job prospects that await you after graduation (it was written before the pandemic, mind you...). This practical advice supersedes the previous explanations from 1985 and 1998. Read these explanations and you'll see that even the reasons to study history, have a history.

I don't think many people study history because they worry, as George Santayana put it, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". When I've asked students over the years, "why did you take this or that course" they have tended to say they decided to take history (or medieval studies) because of a book, movie or video game that they played – maybe when they were kids, maybe what they were playing at the time. That "something" kindled an interest in the period and a desire to learn more.

That's why I study and teach the Middle Ages. Long long ago (the 1990s) in a land far, far away (i.e. Winnipeg), I fell in love with the period by reading novels about the Middle Ages - especially Arthuriana like T.H. White's Once and Future King or Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex. So I studied history because I fell in love with the subject and then, during university, became passionate about how exciting the world of the past showed people to be. The past was a wonderful refuge for me to explore its complexity and to see a world so different (but related) to our own. It suggested ways in which our world could be different (for better or worse). It revealed how people who say that the world "has always been this way" are usually lying. So I saw the study of history as liberating. And this, I deeply believe, is the value of History. It liberates us by showing us how we (as individuals or as a society) could be different and better.

So, once you're ready, go save the world with History.

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