Comments on: Classes started today

By: Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A. — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:36:55 +0000

Perhaps you and your colleagues can assist me and my generation of elders to understand what behavior changes might be required of us so that a good enough future can be granted to our children by responding to the following questions.

Please take a moment to explain what you expect will occur that results in the stabilization of population numbers of the human species on Earth in the year 2050, given the fully anticipated young age distribution of a global population of 9+/- billion people at that time? What do you suppose billions of fertile young people, who are expected to be capable of reproducing in mid-century, will be doing with their sexual instincts and drives other than what human beings have been doing during the past several thousand years?

Thanks,

Steve

By: Frog in a Well - The Japan History Group Blog

Frog in a Well - The Japan History Group Blog — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 08:46:00 +0000

[...] It’s syllabus time here at FrogInAWell. I’ve got a bit of an overload this semester, and I’m trying to be really good-humored about it, but I suspect that the mid-semester crunch is going to strain my acting abilities. I got dragooned into teaching a course in our graduate program, our US-China Masters degree (no, they haven’t built the dorms yet, either), but the History department really can’t give me a release to go do something in another course, so I’m teaching it as an overload. Then my seminar on Meiji Japan came in under the limit for enrollment, so it was decided to drop it and have me teach a second section of World History; more grading, but it means one less course prep, so I said OK. It would have ended there — three preps, four sections — but a few of the students who had registered for the Meiji course actually need it (or something like it) to graduate, so I agreed to tutor them through the course as a directed study. So I’m up to the functional equivalent of five sections of four preparations. [...]

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 07:43:23 +0000

We’re two weeks in, and I’m about to post mine, so you’re not doing too badly.

I like the way you refer to a 10+ page paper as “short”: they’d ride me out of town on a rail if I pulled a line like that.

I’d love to hear later how using Schneewind went: it’s on my shelf as a possible supplement in my Early China course next time I offer it. I used Gernet’s Daily Life in China and Huang’s 1587 last time, but wasn’t entirely happy with it.