If you want your Easter holiday to be a lighthearted one, you may want to put this exercise off for a couple of days.
On the other hand, if you reserve any time for serious contemplation, this may be an appropriate subject.
For students in intro World History: Read the following report by Glenn Greenwald. Compare the people he quotes to various 19th and 2oth century ideologues discussed in Worlds Together, Worlds Apart.
For students in Islamic Civilization: Compare the impression you have of Iraqis from reading Night Draws Near to the picture sketched in the sources quoted by Greenwald.
Untermenschen, if you don't know, is a German word often translated as "sub-human."
Glenn Greenwald linked back to your blog here, and suggests that you might want to choose two or three of the best essays you receive and publish them at his website.
ReplyDeleteI forward his recommendation with a strong second. I'd like to see what your students do with this assignment. Of course, if they were living here in the U.S., I would rather strongly suggest that they publish anonymously.
Alas, Richard, the exercise is something that is entirely voluntary on the part of my students, who are now chiefly concerned with final exams. All the Islamic Civilization students have, however, already written on Shadid's Night Draws Near.
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