Hi! I'm Ivy, I'm a 20 year old university student and live in Germany. I'm tutoring kids as a part-time job, in English and German usually, Maths too for the younger ones. At Uni I'm doing American Studies and Gender Studies with an emphasis on Pop Culture (and Fandom Culture, occasionally). In my free time I cosplay, knit, RP and binge watch TV-series and movies. I am the kind of weird nerd your friends warned you about. I LARP lots and passionately. Once a month I play a vampire, twice a year a cannibalitic pirate faery. This character line up will grow once I can wrestle my finances into allowing it. I thrift shop, I horde make-up, I love sparkly jewelry. You might call me connoisseur of weird fashion, it would be entirely accurate. Questions totally welcome. I'm sorry I may sound a bit clipped rn I am doing this in between two tasks, haha.
I should add my tumblr is found at ivoryandwines.tumblr.com just because. I like having a cohesive online presence and stuff
i'm curious to know as an american (specifically U.S) what american studies entail? do you study both americas? just north? is canada included? especially with an emphasis on pop culture. what does america look like from an outside looking in point of view? i don't have very many friends or aquaintances from out of state, much less out of country.
My university is doing it pretty US centric but there is a few classes about canadian lit every once in a while and I think some times Mexico and Mexican/Latin@ diaspora is a definite topic. But I know the other University in my Hometown that does a similar-ish subject has it with a SUPER different emphasis and I think they do both Americas. Humboldt's American Studies programme is pretty much Literature and Culture Studies of the U.S. We read about every important author of American literary history (or should have. I am good at skipping assignments oh well) and then do a lot of contemporary stuff like pop culture, and media, cultural theory and so on. Especially from one of the more socially secure countries of Europe speaking (shut up Norse and Scandinavian countries you always win) the USA looks like a pretty bleak place to live. Also your public schools pretty much suck I am so sorry. Also I will really never understand the war thing but *shrugs* It's kind of interesting coming from a country that constantly apologizes for its past that there are countries like the U.S. which are so. Unapologetic. About. Everything. American Exceptionalism is so bizarre to me. You have really good TV series and books and contribute tons to international pop culture tho. I love analyzing y'all's stuff. Also a lot of interesting race and class theories. Probably by necessity though, ngl.
i'm definitely not gonna disagree there haha h a. i recently saw this music video and related to everything the guy said. if he raps to fast or you can't video, the lyrics are in the description
wow that's... very powerful. I mean we learn a lot of the same stuff but we have mandatory second language, mandatory 4 years of a third if we want to have basically what you get after high-school? And we have mandatory polit.sci. where we learn about our own elections and stuff (Not about the EU parliament I don't think, but then that thing is like super new fangled in education terms) Just wondering do US history/so.sci/polit.sci classes cover UNO and NATO? European history apart from the world wars? Because German history kinda focuses on Europe a lot but then it focuses on EUROPE, not Germany which is enough of a clusterfuck during the middle ages and the early modern times.
well it varies from state to state but in texas the only histories required are (usually) world history in 8th grade, and US History in 9th. i say usually because homeschoolers will sometimes do it in a different order. then there's government, but most government classes are a joke, and qualified as an elective. oh course texas is ranked near the bottom of the states for education (on the bottom of a list when the list itself is already low on another list equals bad times). knowing a second language is also required, but unless your first language isn't english 'knowing' a second language means you can ask where the bathroom is and say hi my name is and thats it, even after the required two years. the extent of our coverage of NATO was learning it stood for something and when it was founded. basically whats UNO. there is SO MUCH more focus on US history i want to cry. world history was almost exclusively focused on empires and how they took over oh my god why have i never noticed that. college teaches a lot more thoroughly but almost noone can afford it.
oh migosh basically what we (Berlin people in Germany) do in history: greeks, romans, (egyptians if they can somehow find time for it but usually you can't), early middle european medieval stuff. the wandering stuff caused by djengis khan. FEUDAL HISTORY! PEASANT WARS! The church revolution through Luther! America is accidentally stumbled upon by Columbus i suppose... French Baroque! LOUIS XIV! German Baroque! FRIEDRICH DER GROßE BEST/WORST EMPEROR EVER IN GERMANY! The French Revolution! The Napoleonian War! If you luck out you might learn about Austria's kingdom/empire too, but usually just a tiny bit. The first World War. The German revolution and stuff. Democracy running all over Europe. You might end up learning about Russia's revolution if you can manage it but usually it will be dropped in favor of MOAR WEIMARER REPUBLIK. Then Nazis. Lots and Lots of Nazis. World War II. The splitting of Germany. DDR. Vietnam, Korea, that too if the teacher can manage it. Then EU, UNO and NATO. We left out a lot of important aristocratic houses which had a lot of drama happening. No Medicis, no British aristocracy. We very much did kind of focus on German kings and Emperors but fuck me if I can remember anyone but old Fritz.
Late, but as a recent college grad, my experience was that even college isn't very thorough. There's mandatory general education credits, which usually amount to 'a little math + a little humanities + maybe a little foreign language', but most folks who aren't majoring in the subject take basic courses that basically just rehash high school. Complexity is usually only in upper level courses that require a bunch of basic stuff as a prerequisite so only majors have the time/money to take them, and nobody wants to major in history because you can't make money with a history degree. =_=
we had to take world history, american history, government and economics. It's been a few years but I remember learning about the French revolution and Napoleonic empire (which is kind of important in the US because they helped out in the american revolution and then there was the Louisiana purchase and then everyone was too broke after Napoleons wars to help out with the civil war), the Russian revolution (which is important because COLD WAR. NUKES. COMMUNISM BAD.), the industrial revolution starting in europe (you know, just to knock american exceptionalism down a peg maybe??), and for more... historic stuff there was the whole house drama thing in england (that I clearly don't remember very well because I thought it was super boring) and the holy roman empire (there was a guy? Something about three reichs? I dunno I though anything that wasn't either modern history or ancient history pretty boring. Medieval history up to the 1900's was like the middle child). Oh and omg the ~dark ages~ were terrible everyone was dying and technology was set back from the roman empire! etc etc. and so if an american athiest ever tells you religion makes people stupid and references the middle ages that's where they got the idea from. Cause everyone was christian and everything sucked was basically all they got out of their education on that time period. You know, there was probably more than that but again, it's been awhile so I don't remember much.
the three reichs thing I kinda remember being like those three time periods where almost the entirety of europe was ruled by a single empire? which was 1. Roman Empire (like the ancient ancient one), 2. Napoleon (tiny annoying french guy who made his people freeze to death on their way to Russia. I think this was the first instances where the polish people lit their own capital on fire because goddamn the polish are hardcore and did not take being europe's punching ball well at all), and 3. Hitler (Humongous asshole, clearly didn't learn anything from Napoleon's 'let's try to conquer Russia in the middle of winter' thing since he tried the exact same thing and had about the same amount of success) The HOLY Roman Empire is pretty different. I think you mean the 'Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation'? That was when he had an official German Emperor. Like Germany used to be a lot of tinyearl-doms and lord-doms and what the fuck it's called. And they were all like 'NYEH NO I DON'T LIKE WORKING WITH THIS ASSHOLE' and there was a lot of intra-German wars and feuding and bullshit. And because that is no way to govern a place there were at first Kings who ruled over parts of the place. Namely Karl the great but he died in 814. There was more splitting and fighting, then in 843 via a contract, Ludwig the German, Lothar the First and Karl the Bald (that must be the rudest nickname in history). Karl is not very interesting here because he ruled over now-french-territory. Those people where Karl the Great's grandchildren. They still fought a lot and then the whole place fell apart and had their own higher ups for a while. At some point the last of that line of kings died. But they appointed a new guy fought over Lothringen some more. I always lose track where Lothringen belongs at any given point. it's not that important. Bluh bluh huge fighting, honestly the only important part is there is at some point the Ostfränkisches Reich and the Westfränkisches Reich. The Ostfranken at some point appointed a guy, Otto the First, to king, he was the first to do the whole church thingy too. Then he won over some hungarian army in 955 and the pope was so impressed he made Otto an emperor. Since then we had Emperors who were given divine ruling rights via the pope in Rome. The Emperor ruled over all kings and earls and lords in Germany. And technically the vatikan or something idk. (Thank god for wikipedia. I learned all of this at some point but i forgot ALL OF IT)
*waves* Hello fellow Humboldt Student. There seem to be several of us I wonder if it´s worth making a thread or meeting up irl.
ikr? @whimsicalobservant and I know eachother irl (best friendsies :D) idk i mean currently there is holidays and stuff so I'm not gonna set a foot near campus if i dont need to pffff
true. I'm kind of an antisocial pumpkin a lot though, right now. I'm holing up and hiding from the world technically. And baking stuff for my continued hermit life. And because i like baking lmao.
Same. And don´t worry I am not someone who´s offended by "i can´t people right now." Just thought it might be an idea sometime.
Okay I remember now, from something something holy roman empire something germany something a dude named clover and yeah, that was totally taught as a reich (I think it went something like roman empire -> holy roman empire -> hitler because.... idk germany bad?) as you can probably tell, up until college it's kind of a crapshoot here based on the teacher's beliefs too (I am pretty sure I didn't get an unbiased education from the guy who had reagan and bush posters all over the walls of his classroom.) I mean my friend went on to be a history major and told me basically everything we learned in school was kinda bull crap. Really I think one of the only things I took out of my world history classes in high school was "never invade russia during the winter it never works WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP TRYING THIS STOP IT" also we didn't really cover anywhere but europe (unless you count ancient civilizations) until we got into imperialism, the only things I really remember about that was the world powers dividing up Africa, the boxer rebellion in china, and that Matthew Perry guy going to Japan. and this is why the US sucks at ... a lot of stuff. But history of other countries is probably up there. What terrifies me are the interviews they take with college students who don't even know their own history. They have a video somewhere interviewing college students in texas who didn't know we had a civil war, or knew that there was one but didn't know who actually won it and/or thought the confederates won. o_O
That is... so wrong... about the reichs. ugh. tbh feudal europe is pretty boring because a lot of it can be easily summed up by 'people in crowns had baby slapfights, democracy didn't exist, christianity basically said no to everything smart ever and then made you pay to not get stuck in purgatory. Also everyone was pretty miserable and there was tons of weird, super painful stuff they could do to you if they caught you breaking the law.' There were a few key regions that were warred over pretty much constantly, some people really just didn't like eachother (oh the number of times france and england tried to find reasons to wage war against eachother), mostly incest+drama+showing-off in all major courts. TO BE FAIR! we didn't cover anywhere but europe outside of imperialism either. to be double fair i would not know where to put it, curriculum wise, with like one hour of history classes a week? and already so much other bullshit in there that I wouldn't get time off another class or something? But then europe is pretty local and relevant to us.
So I was in the International Baccalaureate program, which meant history was pretty much all the AP (Advanced Placement) histories. AP World --> AP Euro --> AP US ---> ?? (I didn't get this far) Because I moved around a lot, and different places do it differently, I some how always missed out on World history (so with a focus of not Europe at first, but still pretty much Europe.), and when I finally did take it, it was my senior year, the teacher was terrible, and my anxiety and depression were in full swing so I don't remember anything (it also wasn't AP). AP European History covered a lot of stuff! I don't remember all of it... But, we went through things based on art eras, kinda? Like my teacher would put up art from a time period and then talk about things, and we were expected to be able to tell different time periods apart based on the art. (Like medieval stuff is flat and weird because what is perspective. Also lots of religion (Christianity) hi). I think that was just her teaching style and how the topics were split up, but I do remember thinking I had learned a lot from that class. I specifically remember HRE things, Austria-Prusia things, and FRENCH MUCH FRENCH (fuck me I can't pronounce any of it. VERSAILS HAS MORE LETTERS THAN THAT DAMMIT.). And of course the world wars, but finally from not a completely US perspective (but still kind of US because it's still being taught here). At one point I could name almost all the countries on a map, so that was a thing. And AP US was pretty much the same as it always was: a focus on stuff before the Civil War, Manifest Destiny, the World Wars, and the really quickly fit everything after that, but no one pays attention because by now there's only a month of school left and everyone is SO DONE. AP was better than all the times we had to do it in 1st-8th grades, but still. Also my teacher for this class, AP US Government was his baby, and he was very invested in that. So at least this time around, we got to learn about the specific Supreme Court cases that happened during certain time periods. Also, specific stuff about the government is set up and things. And then I actually took Gov with him, so like I forget which parts went with which class. :P Also, my history education is lacking, because like I said, I got some things doubled up and others not at all because of the way different schools/curriculum/states set up the order which things are taught in. The only history class I've taken in college is Early Christianity, which was super neat, but Idk, not the same. But yeah the only things I learned about not Europe and not the US were: The different countries in the Americas and how to name them on a map, Japan wrt WWII, and ancient civilizations. Uh, I think that's it? Like I'm pretty sure we literally skipped over some China stuff that we were supposed to learn??? Like I remember my classmates in Euro always talking about World and learning things, specifically China, but the class I took didn't do that. :( History is so cool tho. I wish I could just soak up the info without having to take tests on it and stuff. One thing I really liked about AP Euro was that I didn't have to memorize dates, I just needed to know general centuries/time periods that things happened in. There were like a few dates I had to know (fall of rome, for example), but the rest you could get by as long as you knew the things. With the AP classes you REALLY taught/studied to the tests so that you could pass...
If you're interested, I listen to lots of history podcasts that I am always excited to throw at people. :D Ahem. Podcast addiction. Seconding pretty much all of your feelings about AP history classes, though; I didn't take World, but everything else. God, our AP US textbook was so racist, too. I spent the entire class enraged.
