HIST 10
The Mohawk Trail: History Here and Everywhere Winter 2022

Cross-listed AMST 10 / ENVI 10
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

History is everywhere, all around you, no matter where you are. That’s because history happens in place, and in specific places. Some places are spoken of as particularly “historical” but every place has its stories. This Winter Study course will use the case study of the Mohawk Trail road and region to explore the ways that history happens in place. Students will learn how to see the past all around them and apply these skills to a particular place of their choosing, whether along the Mohawk Trail, in or around the local Williamstown area, their hometown, or any other place they know well. We will meet twice a week for four hours where we’ll discuss readings, visit places along the Mohawk Trail, and practice the various skills of reading the landscape to better understand the past. Throughout the course students will analyze and conduct research on their particular place, present their preliminary findings to the class, and either write a traditional final research paper or produce a creative project. During the regular semester it might seem that the past is preserved in written documents and conveyed in books. That’s true but there are all sorts of ways that we can see the past in place outside the classroom. This is what we’ll explore together in this course.
The Class: Format: lecture
Limit: 11
Grading: pass/fail only
Requirements/Evaluation: research a particular place & present findings to the class; option to write a final research paper or to produce a creative project based on their analysis & research
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: student questionnaire
Unit Notes: Chris Slaby is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies Program at the College of William & Mary, where he is writing a dissertation on the history of the Mohawk Trail and Mohican Homelands. His scholarship exists at the intersection of Native American and Indigenous Studies and the environmental humanities.
Materials/Lab Fee: none
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
AMST 10 ENVI 10 HIST 10

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