History of Exploration

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

We'll study what one might call the infrastructure of global history: the work of route-finders who led the dispersal of humankind into every habitable biome, then re-forged links between sundered cultures to make possible the world we inhabit today. Along the way we'll work on critical reading, unremitting perfectionism in writing, improved attentiveness in listening, and growing effectiveness in communicating. We'll focus on skills typically under-represented in students' education so far: how to identify and explore interesting problems in history and anthropology, and how to read texts from unfamiliar cultures by analyzing language and imagery.