Place-based United States History
“I am thrilled and overwhelmed with the depth and breadth of your offering. I look forward to revisiting the places I have discovered and continuing to explore new territory for many months and years to come. A more general goal was just to see if I could develop an appreciation for history by engaging with a different way of learning. I would say that this is a big," Yes"... All of your communications felt warm and inviting. It really felt as if you were gathering your family together for a special time of connection and storytelling and we were all part of that family.” (Kerry R.)
An experiential an online course offered in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021
Studying Place-based US History, we will discover how to become lifelong creators of historical understanding. We live at a time when location is tracked by GPS satellites and phone data and time is standardized and objectified in digital archives beyond our control. Living in a globalized, capitalist economy, most of us have understood ourselves to be consumers of history, the big-box version of which was packaged in textbooks for mass distribution. In this course, we will re-cultivate approaches to tending history that are local, intuitive, handmade. We will approach US history through the simple question:
How do we know where we are and when we are?
These are historical questions and their responses come through our ability to engage in direct perception. The only sense of history that we can ever have comes through our ability to perceive what is around us right now—experiences, geographies, documents, environments, interactions. Our ability to sense our place and our moment is our ability to know history.
In this course, we will understand how all of the land currently claimed by the United States is occupied by a settler state. Our focus will be on processes of settlement rooted in white supremacy since early colonization, including ways in which colonization and colonial genocide, enslavement, and environmental violence continue to take place. Every instance of this history can be perceived through direct experience right now, wherever we are on this land.
The learning of this course is rooted in sensory and embodied experience of locality. The course includes five investigations— different approaches to developing life-long practices of attuning to US history. These begin with the most intimately and readily sensed, and we journey together towards perceiving more elusive sensations of history.
The Fall 2020 course included learners from 11 different states over a span of 5,000 miles, ages 13-94! The course generated $1,500 to redistribute to three organizations stewarding a sense of place and non-dominant historical narratives.
Student Testimonials
“Nora is kind, culturally humble, thoughtful in her planning of course content, and takes a learner stance with the students. She comes with a wealth of knowledge and facilitates learning through discovery. She cares about making this course relevant to each individual learner. I love the content and she embodies respect for marginalized groups throughout history, with the central theme of the course honoring their version of history. Highly recommend. I really like the communal feel Nora helped build among us.” (Santana R.)
“It was very meaningful for me to think not only about US history, but how to think about US history. It felt important to not only be learning about Indigenous peoples in different regions I was traveling through, but also to think about how was conceptualizing and learning. How was/am I perpetuating a settler-colonial mindset in my thinking and my understanding? How can I learn about Indigenous people in a way that was not harmful nor passive, but active and intentional? I think that the course laid out life-long history practices in a really engaging and helpful way. The design of the course made all the concepts applicable to any part of my day, and easy to integrate into my thinking/perception of what is in front of me. The practices were taught in a way that felt woven and interconnected smoothly into my life to keep learning regardless of if I was reading, walking, or talking with others.” (Hannah E.)
“My path on this expedition has been far from straight and steady-forward movement. Early on, I found myself drawn to explore the depth and width of every reading, recording, reflection and reference. I started imagining a trail along a mesa top with countless opportunities for dropping down into a side canyon and discovering the unique flora and fauna of that particular crevice in the land, while, paradoxically, expanding my wider view of the landscape. While meandering the side trails (following links to new resources), I was torn between delving deeper and returning to the main trail. My curiosity about what my fellow travelers were finding, brought me to the fascinating discussions. Towards the section of the trail when you talked about things getting messy; I really felt that. Going from a mind set of learning and research into a place of "unlearning", where the only thing I know for sure is that I don't know anything for sure, is disorienting…Thank you for making "history" thought provoking and applicable to the daily challenges and opportunities of life. Such a radical change from my past experience!” (Kerry R.)