Courses | Teaching Philosophy | Information for Students
E-mail: adapalmer@tamu.edu
Dr. Palmer’s office is Glasscock 415.
Her Spring 2010 office hours are TR 2:30-4, though she often stays later.
Because Dr. Palmer is an intellectual and cultural historian, her teaching is less about names and dates than about chronology and ideas. How was the experience of living in these alien times and cultures different from our experiences today? What is it like living and thinking without the ideas our society takes for granted: the scientific method, the right to pursue happiness, toleration, progress? Her courses frequently require students to grapple with uncomfortable ideas, and in debates and writing to argue for the side opposite the student’s own beliefs in order to better understand the opposing view.
Dr. Palmer’s courses focus on writing skills, and she generally requires two papers per course, more for a seminar. She usually requires at least one formal analytic paper, but also gives more creative assignments, such as writing an imagined letter from one major historical figure to another. She also assigns a lot of primary source reading, having students read the original works (and frequently personal letters) of authors like Plato, Machiavelli and Voltaire instead of modern summaries. Some students find primary source readings very difficult, especially those by earlier authors, but they are the most authentic way to experience past modes of thought. Her survey courses also have final and sometimes midterm exams, for which there are always review sessions and a formal review sheet, but since Dr. Palmer often works with no textbook, if you skip class too often it is extremely difficult to catch up on content you missed.
Dr. Palmer’s own research focuses on rare books and manuscripts, and she frequently brings samples into the classroom, giving students an experience of the real historical artifacts current scholars work with. Once per semester, she invites her students on a trip to the Cushing Library for an introduction to rare books. Students get to examine medieval manuscripts, books produced around the dawn of printing, and original books from the Renaissance, the American Revolution and other important periods. Graduate and undergraduate students who are not in her classes but are still interested in coming along to see the rare books should contact her.
Hist 332, Renaissance and Reformation
This course focuses on Renaissance Italy, and the cultural and intellectual transformations of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries which enabled the Reformation and the later Scientific Revolution. Rather than attempting a comprehensive overview of the European situation, the course focuses on Florence, reconstructing the experience of living in this important but vulnerable city-state in the age of its greatest crisis and creativity. Covering Renaissance Italy’s most famous artists (Giotto, Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo), political figures (Boniface VIII, Lorenzo de Medici, Cesare Borgia), authors (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch), scholars and philosophers (Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo Valla, Machiavelli), heretics and radicals (Savonarola, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Martin Luther). A strong concentration on religious developments, and the impact on Christianity of the newly-rediscovered classical theologies of Plato, Pythagoras, Epicurus and others. Syllabus for Hist 332 as taught in Spring '10 (TR version) and Fall ‘09 (MWF version) (PDF)
Hist 481, Capstone: Intellectual History
Dr. Palmer’s 481 capstone writing class for history seniors focuses on intellectual history. The four units of the course, focusing in turn on Machiavelli, Plato, the Declaration of Independence and Freud, are designed to introduce students to the key intellectual questions of different periods of European development, providing practice analyzing ideas in context and a gradual overview of the evolution of Western thought. Students in the class may choose to write either four 5-7 page papers or one 5-7 page paper and one 15-page paper. The former option is recommended primarily for students interested in improving writing and critical skills, the latter for those who need a longer writing sample for graduate school applications. In either case, the last paper is a primary source original research paper on an intellectual history topic of the student’s choice, and may examine any period or region including non-Western topics. Syllabus for Hist 481 (Intellectual History) as taught in Spring '10 (TR version) and Fall ‘09 (MWF version) (PDF)
Hist 418 & 419: Western Intellectual History
Dr. Palmer has designed two new courses which she will introduce to the A&M curriculum in the fall of 2010. They are intellectual history survey courses, designed to give students an overview of the great thinkers and foundational ideas which have shaped European history, including the history of science and the history of Christianity, rival theologies, skepticism and atheism. Unlike philosophy courses, which usually examine ideas by themselves, intellectual history examines ideas in context, reconstructing the specific historical circumstances and developments which gave birth to the key concepts in Western history. These courses will have difficult readings and a heavy writing component, but students will come away with an understanding, not just of what we believe is true, but how we came to believe it.
Provisional syllabus for Hist 418 (Ancient-Medieval) (PDF)
Western thought from the foundation of formal philosophy in Pre-Socratic Greece through the Sixth Century. The course focuses on the five major schools of ancient thought (Platonists, Aristotelians, Epicureans, Stoics and Skeptics) and the unique character of the ancient philosophical lifestyle, which combined elements of religion, mysticism and magic as well as philosophy. The final weeks stress the influence of the ancient Greek schools on the formation of early Christianity. Readings in Plato, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus, Seneca, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, St. Augustine and Boethius.
Provisional syllabus for Hist 419 (Medieval-17thC) new course for Fall 2010 (PDF)
Western thought from the founding of universities to the emergence of 17th-century rationalism. The course rethinks the origins of modern philosophy, normally seen as the work of a group of magisterial 17th century thinkers, as an evolutionary process emerging over the course of six centuries, radicalized by the religious and cultural revolutions of the 16th century. Readings in Aneslm, Abelard/Heloise, Maimonides, Aquinas, Ockham, Machiavelli, Thomas More, Luther, Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza and Pierre Bayle.