Historical Teaching and Practice
Students in IU’s Historical Teaching and Practice graduate minor explore the production of history—from its origins in reflection and research; to its expression in classrooms, museums, digital sites, and other venues; through its reception and reinterpretation in the public sphere.
Teaching and Practice minors draw on Indiana University history faculty’s expertise in the areas of historical editing, oral history, film, and museum practice--to name just a few of the media through which historical research draws from and reaches a larger public. They take advantage of IU’s unique status as the home of a number of historical organizations, including the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning History; three historical journals; and the Organization of American Historians, the nation’s second-largest professional historical organization. Through their research as well as through reflection on their work in these or other historical venues, we encourage students in this minor field to explore historical teaching and practice as worthy subjects of study in their own right.
Faculty affiliates of the Teaching and Practice minor include:
Maria Bucur, who studies the representation of gender roles and wartime memories in both institutionalized settings and vernacular cultural practices in twentieth-century Eastern Europe
Arlene Diaz, David Pace, and Leah Shopkow, who together with Joan Middendorf of IU Instructional Support Services direct a Teagle/Spencer Foundation-funded research grant, “The History Learning Project: Decoding Critical Thinking and Writing”
Konstantin Dierks, who studies writing and moral conscience in early America, and who takes a particular interest in innovative historical pedagogy
Ben Eklof, a specialist in the history and practice of Russian education
Michael Grossberg, a former editor of the American Historical Review who teaches courses on American legal history and on teaching US history
Ed Linenthal, editor of the Journal of American History and a scholar of memorialization
James H. Madison, director of IU’s Liberal Arts and Management Program (LAMP)
Marissa Moorman, a scholar of southern African politics and popular culture
Scott O'Bryan, a historian of the modern period with specialties in Japan, environmental history, and the history of social science. He is motivated by the desire to develop teaching approaches that help students to examine the idea of national “cultures” as an explanatory device for historical change.
Eric Sandweiss, who edits the Indiana Magazine of History and studies museum practice
Rebecca Spang, a modern Europeanist who has published on French commemoration of the 1848 Revolution and on Fernand Braudel. A member of the History Workshop Journal editorial collective, she regularly teaches History H601, “Introduction to the Professional Study of History”
Steven Stowe, who served twice as Associate Editor for the Journal of American History, and who specializes in the history of the U.S. South, medicine, and the nineteenth century more generally, with a special interest in historical method and historical writing
Kirsten Sword, an early Americanist with expertise in digital history
Course of Study
The minor in historical teaching and practice will require evidence of mastery at the level of the graduate oral examination. This will be accomplished according to each student’s particular choice of curricular and work-based experiences, developed in conjunction with their minor-field advisor. The coursework common to all students in the minor includes:
1. Historical Teaching and Practice Discussion Group: students will enroll for one unit of credit (through H575) for at least one semester’s attendance in this monthly student-faculty reading and discussion group.
Students in the minor will also enroll in at least one of the following two courses:
2. Colloquium in Historical Practice
This course, to be taken after a student has completed H601, will analyze the context of historical practice as it has developed in a variety of venues--including museums and historic sites, the publishing world, new media, and the realm of government and policy.
3. Teaching College History
Students may take their choice of the World, College, or US history teaching options now offered, in order to examine the underpinnings of historical pedagogy and to sharpen their own skills in bringing historical interpretation into the classroom.
In addition, students are encouraged to add relevant coursework through one or more of the following options:
Practicum
A practicum may be constructed in any one of the following ways:
1) successful completion of H543, “Practicum in Public History,” based on a professional internship or position related to the student’s area of interest, with accompanying writing or other work deemed satisfactory by the faculty supervisor of the course; or
2) successful completion of a semester as a graduate editorial assistant at one of the three historical journals published within the department, with an additional one- to four-unit reading course (H575) related to a relevant project of the student’s choosing (and not required of their actual professional work); or
3) teaching a full-term college-level class, with an additional one- to four-unit reading course (H575) in history-pedagogy theory.
Related Coursework
Other courses relevant to the minor include those which examine at length either
--the history, theory, and practice of historical or social-science research and teaching methods
--the scholarship of teaching and learning history
--historical or practical aspects of the media through which historical ideas are conveyed and received
--historical constructions of the “public”
--public and political responses to historical issues and controversies
In the history department, these courses may include (among others):
H542 Public History
H547 Special Topics in Public History
H620 Constructions and Deconstructions of Jewish History
H645 Issues in the Historiography of Eastern Europe
H645 History and Memory in Modern Europe
H650 History in Public
H650 Space and Place in History
H650 Digital History
H665 Oral History
H710 Historical Writing in the Middle Ages
H750 Memory of Catastrophe
Alternatively, students may count at most one relevant course from another department, as approved by their minor-field advisor. Examples of such courses might include:
Anthropology
A408 Museum Practicum
P330 Historical Archaeology
Arts Administration
Y525 Museum Management
Communications and Culture
C560 Motion Picture Production
Comparative Literature
C580 History and Theory of Translation
Education
H504 History of American Education
J670 History of Curricular Thought in the US
Folklore
F722 Putting Cultural Theory to Use
Informatics
I541 Human-Computer Interaction Design
Journalism
J500 Introduction to Mass Media Research
Law
L766 Children and the Law in Modern America
Sociology
S510 Introduction to Social Organization
SPEA
V523 Civil Society and Public Policy
Telecommunications
T576 New Media Production
For information on our Graduate program requirements and guidelines see the “Guide to Graduate Study in History”, “Graduate School Bulletin” and the “Ph.D. Qualifying Exam Guidelines”.