Historians make case for books that changed the world

Ten faculty and staff members and students associated with the department of history will get six minutes each to make their case for the book they think changed everything. A jury will then vote and declare a winner.

The second annual “History Soapbox” starts at 7 p.m. April 5 in Room 1092 Lincoln Hall.

The poster for the event suggests it will be “fun, informative and quite likely unbalanced,” and asks, “Where else are you going to get that much enlightenment, that fast?” The event is free and open to the public.

The first “soapbox” was organized by Antoinette Burton, a professor of history and now the director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, and grew out of department conversations about how to reflect “all the dynamic things that happen in history courses,” said Marc Hertzman, a professor of history. Burton and Hertzman are co-organizers of this year’s event.

“We find that some students come to Illinois with the idea that history is mainly about names, dates and memorization, when in fact our faculty regularly incorporate amazing, creative and interactive experiences into our courses,” Hertzman said.

Those same department conversations have led to several new courses and initiatives, Hertzman said, among them SourceLab, in which students verify online artifacts, and “Reacting to the Past,” a role-playing teaching tool that will be used in several classes in the fall.

Participants in this year’s event will be department chair Clare Crowston; professors Craig Koslofsky, Carol Symes (the defending champ) and Rod Wilson; graduate students Beth Eby and Robert Rouphail; undergraduate students Anqi Pan and Kylie Vickery; academic advisor Wendy Mathewson; and Liberal Arts and Sciences development officer Tony Pomonis, who works closely with the department.

For additional information, contact Hertzman at hertzman@illinois.edu.