CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - At a time of year when people are firming up their summer plans, students in a college history course are wrapping up a three-month journey.
Using Marco Polo (1254-1324), the great Venetian traveler and travel writer, as their guide, the 21 undergraduates in History 201 are engaged in medieval travel and in a few related topics, "cross-cultural exchange and the phenomenon of travel to this day," says Sharon Michalove, who designed and is teaching the novel course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Along the way, the students are "looking at the principles of the discipline of history through the lens of medieval travelers," Michalove said, adding that she knows of only one other such course in U.S. higher education.
At the beginning of the semester, Michalove asked her students in "Medieval Travelers: Cultural Contact and Conflict" to "think of this class as a kind of journey." She chose a few sentences from Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad" to serve as a beacon: "Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Michalove said she tried to create a course that would teach research skills while showing students that neither tourism nor globalization is an invention of the modern world.
"Cultures have had contact and have borrowed from each other for centuries," Michalove said, "and many of the conflicts that we see today are rooted in events that took place in the Middle Ages and early modern period."
The most obvious early conflict, she said, was the crusades, a phenomenon she and her students are exploring.
"But we also are looking at the growth of Greater Serbia in the 14th century, which is connected to the problems in the Balkans today," she said, "and many of the territorial issues in the Middle East were issues among the Mongols, Persians and various Turkic tribes from the 13th century through the 16th. Certainly the rise of the Ottoman Turks influenced Western European history into the 20th century."
The class also is considering slavery, class distinctions and "the central role that long-distance trade - including the desire for luxury goods such as sugar and silk - played in cultural exchange," Michalove said.
Michalove's research focuses on medieval education, primarily women's education, and court culture and cultural exchange. A professor in educational policy studies, she is the author of many journal articles and book chapters and co-editor of three books, including "Reputation and Representation in Fifteenth-Century Europe" (Brill, 2004).
"Medieval Travelers: Cultural Contact and Conflict" is one in a series of new courses at Illinois that fall under the rubric of "Introduction to Historical Interpretation." Now in their second year, these courses focus on teaching students to do historical analysis, a radical departure from the more traditional courses. Most are taken by history majors.
"The reason we created the course," said Michalove, the associate director of undergraduate studies in history at Illinois, "was to give students research skills in history that they would need in upper-level courses and in their undergraduate research and writing seminar." The course is required for students taking a minor in the Teaching of Social Studies, she said and next fall, it will be required of all entering history majors.
To keep her course from being Eurocentric, Michalove is having her students focus on the Middle East, North Africa and Asia and on how the West related to these cultures. She said she is using Marco Polo as a major case study because, among other things, "he is the western quintessential traveler."
"The students have heard of him, his book is accessible in a modern English translation and he raises interesting questions about travel and travel writing as well as questions about how documents come down to future historians," Michalove said.
Thus, students are drawing heavily from "The Travels of Marco Polo." But in contrast, they also are studying writings by Muslim travelers such as Ibn Battuta and Babur, as well as writings by other merchants, pilgrims and crusaders, Michalove said.
The students also are required to do library and map exercises; four debates; seven film reviews; Web assignments; presentations; and a museum visit and essay on it.
Michalove's expectations have been up front since day one. On the course syllabus, she posted a list of 20 "subject objectives" - everything from "To understand the significance of the fall of Constantinople in 1453" to "To understand the role of art, music, printing, rhetoric and public display in the Middle Ages." She also posted 11 "skill objectives" - including "To be able to work as part of a team" and "To be able to write a piece of original research based on primary documents."
The students' final projects will examine why travel literature was popular in the Middle Ages and why it continues to be popular; which of our needs does travel meet, and what does it tell us about ourselves?
Michalove believes that travel "allows people to try the unknown."
"Some people never travel or only travel to familiar places because they can't cope with the unknown," Michalove said. "But generally, human beings are curious. They hear about or read about other places, other people, and they want those experiences - either experientially or vicariously.
"For example, I am fascinated with polar exploration, but I don't actually want to go to the Arctic or the Antarctic. So she has a large library of books on polar exploration, including "Terra Incognita" by Sara Wheeler, a book that makes her feel "as if I had been to Antarctica without having to suffer the discomfort."
Michalove said she intends to visit some of the places she and her students have been "traveling" to, including Turkey, Egypt and Morocco.
"I truly believe that you can only understand the world if you are willing to be part of it, and traveling is one way to be part of the larger world."