by Will Katerberg Every year I teach a section of the history department's capstone course on historiography. The most basic questions in the course are: What is the nature of historical knowledge? Is objectivity possible? Is it necessarily desirable? How does historical thinking work? What is the purpose of historical study? To understand the world? To …
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by Will Katerberg. Take nothing for granted, I sometimes tell my students. Don’t assume that what a primary source tells you is accurate and true. The author might be a liar or a dupe, have an agenda, or be misinformed. Put the document in context. Check it against other sources. Be skeptical, even suspicious, before …
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by Will Katerberg. Today, I’m spending part of the day celebrating the July 4th Independence Day holiday. My neighborhood in Grand Rapids features the Hollyhock Lane Parade every year. It starts at 8:30am and has small floats, local and state politicians appealing to voters, kids on bikes and scooters, a historic fire engine, and the …
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by Will Katerberg. The battle for hearts and minds—and dollars—in higher education today often comes down to job training versus critical thinking. It sometimes is hard for advocates of becoming an artist or studying philosophy to even get a hearing. When they say that students should do what they love or argue that cultural life …
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by Will Katerberg. Once I had jury duty and ended up a jury foreman in a murder trial. The trial was unusual in that there were two defendants, two juries, and two defense attorneys. The victim was a drug dealer who’d taken money from a friend of the two defendants. They broke into his house …
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by Will Katerberg. Historians of the American West sometimes say that the region is like the rest of the United States, “only more so.” Recent news from Nevada has reminded me of this truth. American politics sometimes is crazy, Nevada politics only more so. This brings us to Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who this …
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Historical Horizons 