HIST UN3180

I learned a lot of history (from the time of the New Testament through today) about conversion. I also learned about how historians understand and present conversion. I learned how to analyze different models of conversions and how to evaluate primary sources on conversion.

On the heavier side, a hundred plus pages of reading a night, three essays, one final essay, a midterm, and a final

I learned about the history of religious conversion in many different religions and centuries across Europe.

Hands down, my favorite course of the semester. Professor Wennerlind knows exactly what he's talking about, and it is truly enjoyable to listen to him lecture. I'd come in even when I was sick, purely because I wouldn't want to miss out. He gave me a lot of insight into Trans-Atlantic relations and I really came away feeling like I had learned something and that it would stick with me. The first half of the semester was an overview of the time period and the set-up for each of the different groups, the merchants, the pirates, and the slaves. It gave context to all the countries involved, from political to economic to religious reasons. The second half of the semester focused on these different groups of people. The most time was spent on the merchants, than a bit less on the slaves, then the least on the pirates. Professor Wennerlind tended to repeat himself a lot, but I think that was merely for emphasis rather than filling up time. There was a heavy workload, with perhaps a hundred pages due per class, but it was a lecture style class, so while doing the readings enriched the lecture, they weren't necessary for your survival in class. There was very little class participation, though Professor Wennerlind would encourage it sometimes, and was very good at answering questions to the best of his ability. There were also three short essays, and one final essay, along with an in-…

Around 100 pages or so of reading a week, but not checked very often if you read. Certain texts he will focus on for in class discussions like Equiano or Captain Singleton, but he will tell you in advance to make sure to read a certain text, so you better do so. Three movie/reading responses that I believe factor into your participation grade, since very few people would rise to the occasion to speak during class. You watch 3 different movies (1 on merchants, pirates and slaves individually) and write a reflection and connect to your reading. Don't be afraid to discuss more esoteric subjects on these and have fun. if it's interesting to you, it will be interesting for him as well. Not going to I wrote an essay on a text from 1882 I found 1882 while looking for "cheese pirates" (if you watch the pirate movie Treasure Island with Eddie Izard and Elijah Wood you'll understand why I pursued this topic; for the record I got a check plus plus on that response, despite him telling us that the "grades" were check minus, check, and check plus. Think outside the box). There is one midterm and one final, and he gives the essays you will write for this a week in advance (or more). He gives you like five essays, says he will put three on the exam, and you write two (something like that). You write a total of 5 essays on the midterm and another 5 on the final, with more essay prompts on the…

I learned about themes in methods and experiences of religious conversion throughout history.

I was looking for a course that could either fulfill the History or Cultures in Comparison requirements of Barnard's 9 Ways. Admittedly, the title of this class is what first intrigued me, and I'm no history major type person (far from it- I'm a physics major). Also that review where it states that they took this class for two reasons, the latter being to learn cool things about pirates (which you do). I stayed in this course purely because of Professor Wennerlind. He is an amazing lecturer. I will say that it is difficult to write everything he says, so I recorded all of his lectures for this course after the first class. This helps a lot when you are reviewing for the midterms and finals, because he sometimes answers the essay prompts verbatim during his lecture, and points to authors that answer the question as well. Very useful for when you vaguely remember an essay topic and wrote less than perfect notes on a certain day (please date all your notes if you are recording his class, it makes finding information so much easier) and suddenly you have a professor given summary of the topics you should hit from a lecture a month ago you don't remember too well. He is very engaging, and knows little details about this course that is frankly stunning. He gives a lot of reading per week, but he very rarely asks about it in class. He will stop to ask people about ideas and topics du…

I learned a lot about religious approaches to conversion during the middle ages. We also studied micro-histories to evaluate the religious and emotional underpinnings of conversipn narratives.

Absurd amount of reading which you can skim. A midterm and final, for which he gives you a list of potential questions a few weeks in advance (a subset of the questions on the list actually appear on the test, and you get to choose which of those you answer). A 5-8 page completely open-ended final paper. Three short film reviews which I think figure into the "participation grade." Grading is not too tough, and because you get exam questions ahead of time and get to meet with him about the paper there are no surprises.

I learned about different trends in religious conversion throughout the history of (mainly) early modern Europe.