On Monday, we looked at the Paris Commune, an ill-fated attempt to force social change in post-war France in 1871. Today, we'll look at how the event relates to the modern day. Are there positive or negative examples that modern-day reformers can take from the commune? We'll examine these questions and also imagine what issues might … Continue reading April 4: Camden Commune

On Monday, we'll take some time to go in depth on the topic of the Paris Commune. The commune was a short-lived attempt by radical socialists to set up a separate society in Paris after France's humiliating loss in the Franco-Prussian War. Like the war itself, the commune ended in bloody failure. So why does … Continue reading April 3: Occupy Paris

On Tuesday, we're going to spend some more time with the Dreyfus Affair. On Monday, we got a good understanding of what happened and why it happened. Now, we'll use that knowledge to closely and carefully read a 1906 newspaper article about the incident. We'll discuss what kinds of strategies and annotations we can use … Continue reading March 28: Reading Closely

On Monday, we'll spend our class looking at the Dreyfus Affair in much more detail. We already know it was an incident where a French army officer was wrongly accused of being a spy for Germany. He was the army's highest ranking Jew at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. Now, we'll go a … Continue reading March 27: L’Affaire Dreyfus

On Thursday, we'll look at some key movements in American history, including the fight to abolish slavery an the movement for women's suffrage. We'll look at the Civil War and the impact it had on the lives of African-Americans, both during the war and after the war. To learn all of this, we'll break into … Continue reading March 23: America Comes Into Its Own