If you’re a presidential history buff — or if current events have you interested in the development of the presidency — consider attending a free lecture by presidential historian and NBC/PBS contributor Michael Beschloss: Sunday, May 21st, 2pm in the sanctuary of House of Hope Presbyterian Church, on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Most recently the author of the American Heritage History of the Presidents, Beschloss will appear at part of the church’s Sunday Series of talks.
Category: News & Announcements
Now Hiring: History Department TAs for 2017-2018
While our students are getting set to register for fall courses, our faculty are also looking ahead to next year and preparing to hire teaching assistants (TAs). Typically, each of our professors works with one or two TAs. While several current TAs will returning, we will need some new TAs for part or all of the 2017-18 academic year.
Students: if you’re interested in serving for the first time as a TA, start by clicking here to read the job description and requirements. Then to be considered for a TA position, complete this Google Form no later than April 18th.
To get some personal insight into what it’s like being a TA, skip ahead to 12:45 of this video for a 2016 interview with then-TAs Micayla Moore and Julia Muckenhirn.
Next Tuesday: Learn More about Digital Humanities at Bethel
We’re happy to report that our much-anticipated Digital Humanities program is moving forward, with the new DIG200 Intro to DH course debuting next fall. It’s being taught by Prof. Charlie Goldberg, who coordinates the DH program.
To learn more, plan to join us next Tuesday (April 4) at 10:20am in the Bethel Library. Charlie and digital librarian Kent Gerber will give an overview of DH, DIG200, and the new program. Bring a laptop or tablet to take part in a hands-on demonstration of one digital tool from the new course!
Summer 2017 Internships at the Minnesota Historical Society
One of the great things about studying history at a university in the Twin Cities is that you have access to the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), one of the largest and best organizations of its type in the country. For example, MNHS runs a significant internship program for college students and recent graduates, with cohorts recruited for the fall, spring, and summer.
If you’re interested in pursuing an MNHS internship for the summer, applications are being accepted all throughout the month of March, with intern orientation in May and jobs starting on June 1st. As usual, the program encompasses a wide variety of fields, with over twenty positions available in everything from digitization to web design, oral history to textile conservation, youth camps to special events.
Internships Available at the Minnesota Children’s Museum
As we near the end of the first month of the semester, we’re starting to learn of summer internship opportunities in and around the Twin Cities. We’ll share some of those announcements here at AC 2nd…
…starting today with internships at the Minnesota Children’s Museum. MCM currently has sixteen internships available, several of which could potentially fit the skills and interests of our students: e.g., exhibit documentation, grant writing, digital media, museum experience, and volunteer services. If you’re interested in working for a museum or other nonprofit, this kind of internship can be a very helpful experience.
Learn more by visiting MCM’s employment page.
Coming to Chicago: Chris Gehrz
For any of our Chicago-based alumni and friends… Prof. Chris Gehrz will be giving a free public lecture at North Park Theological Seminary next Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 7pm. Entitled “The Pietist Option for (Current and Former) Evangelicals,” the talk will preview some of the themes from Chris’ forthcoming book with Evangelical Covenant pastor Mark Pattie, The Pietist Option: Hope for the Renewal of Christianity (coming out later this year from InterVarsity Press).
Coming to Chapel: AnneMarie Kooistra
Join us for Chapel this Friday, February 17 (10:15am) in Benson Great Hall, when the speaker will be none other than our own Prof. AnneMarie Kooistra! To conclude a series on “The Art of Being WITH,” AnneMarie will reflect on finding God in the darknesses of our lives.
(If you can’t be in Chapel, stop back at Bethel’s iTunes U page to listen to AnneMarie’s talk.)
Our Spring 2017 Courses
Today marks the beginning of the Spring 2017 semester at Bethel, and we’re excited to welcome students to a new set of courses. (And to welcome Prof. Gehrz back from sabbatical!)
Here’s what our students will be studying this spring:
| Course | Professor |
| HIS200L American Civilization | Diana Magnuson |
| HIS207U Latin American Civilizations | Ruben Rivera |
| HIS/POS216L American Constitutional History |
AnneMarie Kooistra |
| HIS231L World War II | Chris Gehrz |
| HIS290 Intro to History (click here to see the course blog) |
Chris Gehrz |
| HIS307 The American Civil War | Diana Magnuson |
| HIS311 Roman Civilization | Charlie Goldberg |
| HIS/GEO320K History and the Human Environment |
Amy Poppinga |
| HIS/POS324G Human Rights in International History | Andy Bramsen (POS) |
| HIS/POS329 African Politics | Andy Bramsen (POS) |
| HIS350 Modern America | AnneMarie Kooistra |
| HIS499 Senior Seminar | AnneMarie Kooistra |
| GES130 Christianity and Western Culture | Sam Mulberry, Amy Poppinga, Charlie Goldberg, Chris Gehrz |
| GES463P Masculinity: Past and Present | Charlie Goldberg |
Happy Trails? Welcome Back?
“So the Midwest nourishes us … and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters …. And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for us: that we stay, that we stay and find a place among its familiar possibilities.”
-Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
Many of you know that I grew up in a tightly-knit, largely Dutch, Calvinist community in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I did feel nourished by that community, the people did seem completed and certain, and my mother probably saw my leaving as almost a kind of betrayal. My immediate family remains in Grand Rapids, and sometimes when I think of “home,” it’s Grand Rapids rather than Northeast Minneapolis that springs to mind. I remain grateful for that place, the people, and the identity that community helped me to create.
I hope Bethel has nourished you, but I guess I think it’s okay if our community doesn’t always seem completed and certain. And, while I miss you, I’m glad to see you leave. It would be selfish to keep all of you, with your attendant gifts, to ourselves.
Still . . . I really like it when you come back, and I hope that sometimes you inadvertently think of Bethel, too, as a kind of home.
Homecoming at Bethel this year is scheduled for October 1. We hope to see many of you on campus. In light of our tremendous losses over the past academic year, we are planning what I like to call “the Memory Project.” Come to campus, share your favorite memories of Professors G. W. Carlson and Stacey Hunter Hecht, and then join us afterward for a walk to the Royal Gardens where will dedicate a pair of apple trees to their memory. None of this will bring them back, but it does help remind us that they are an integral part of the cloud of witnesses we share.
Watch the CWC at 30 Birthday Celebration
This morning, our own Profs. Sam Mulberry and Chris Gehrz hosted a special presentation in the Bethel Library in honor of the 30th anniversary of GES130 Christianity and Western Culture (CWC). If you missed it, you can find video of the event on the Library’s YouTube channel:
Mostly, the event consisted of Chris interviewing CWC faculty from different eras: Mike Holmes (BTS), one of the course’s four founders; late 80s/early 90s faculty Dan Ritchie (English) and Paul Reasoner (Philosophy), who went on to teach in the Western Humanities program; and current faculty members Sara Shady (Philosophy) and Amy Poppinga (History). Live on tape, we also heard from former history prof Neil Lettinga and his wife Virginia (long the coordinators of the course), plus philosopher David Williams. There was also a brief tribute to Stacey Hunter Hecht, who taught CWC during most of her career at Bethel and passed away last December.
The presentation concluded with Chris performing a rare live, unplugged version of his updated version of the “Augustine Rap,” originated by Dan Ritchie and then-CWC instructor Greg Boyd back in the first decade of the course. (Of course, there’s also a music video version of that rap — Chris said he found it less embarrassing to rap live than to show that video, but there’s nothing stopping you from clicking here now.)
If you want to dive deeper into the history of this foundational course, Sam has worked with digital library manager Kent Gerber to create a significant, growing collection of media and digitized artifacts from CWC. In addition, earlier this year Sam conducted an oral history project among some of the course’s many former teaching assistants, including five former History majors and minors. It’s available via a digital timeline. (click on the image to see the full timeline)
