Professor, History Department
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This upper-level history course examines the ways that images and understandings of the future have shaped cultures, societies, economies and politics in different places and times.
Our exploration of this topic will range across the globe and across centuries, with considerable attention paid to a modern 20th- and 21st-century interest in futurism. We will trace this interest both in the science of foresight and in science fiction. Imagined tomorrows often involve stories about technology and transformation, though we should not let this blind us. Examining the future in historical terms and with a historian’s appreciation of contingency and context provides a prism though which we can gain insights into the projection of human power—over others, over chance, and over the natural world.
Students in the course will encounter theoretical and historical understandings of time and temporality, as well as gain exposure to a range of practical futuring and speculation techniques. Students will conduct original historical research and sharpen their critical reasoning and writing skills.
PAST TEACHING
Undergraduate level
HIST 104 - Global History 1500-Present
HONR 216 - Encountering Europe
ELPS 219 - History of American Education
ELPS 230 - Globalization, Childhood and Education
ELPS 301 - History of Western Education [Rome, Italy]
ELPS 302 - Philosophy of Education [Chicago & Rome, Italy]
Graduate level
RMTD 401 - Discourse Analysis and Documentary Research
ELPS 405 - Introduction to Educational Policy Analysis
ELPS 420 - Philosophy of Education [Chicago & Havana, Cuba]
ELPS 444/HIST 454 - History of American School and Social Policy
ELPS 445/HIST 456 - US and Canadian Education in the 20th Century
ELPS 447/HIST 438 - Modern European Education (1800 to present)
ELPS 448 - International Higher Education [Beijing, China; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam]
ELPS 455 - Comparative Education
ELPS 500 - Immigration and Education Advanced Seminar
ELPS 540/HIST 560 - Hist of Education Seminar: Intl. Curriculum History
ELPS 540/HIST 560 - Hist of Education Seminar: Global Histories of Childhood
ELPS 540/HIST 560 - Hist of Education Seminar: Globalization and Knowledge
ELPS 550 - Seminar on Globalization and Education
ELPS 555 - Comparative Education Seminar: Data, Algorithms and Education
