Pseudo-history course: Myth Summary assignment

Here is the list of Canadian historical myths the students are going to analyse for the course.

“The point of this exercise is to examine the myths that are found everywhere, from high school textbooks to the internet. Anybody can ‘google’, but information on its own is of no value without critical understanding. This assignment aims to push students to think about how and what we access with a more critical eye, unpacking the myths. Choose one of the myths below (sign your name). All the phrases below are false as stated but all have some factual root. Explain the factual roots of the myth, then posit how this myth came to be in the first place and why it endures. Be careful not to explain a myth by using another myth! You need facts! Please also follow the guidelines found in the syllabus.

1. There were no Blacks in Canada before the Underground Railroad
2. Canada has always been a welcoming home for immigrants
3. John A. Macdonald got everyone drunk at the Quebec Conference
4. There was no slavery in Canada
5. Quebecers are French
6. The Loyalists were mostly British-born
7. Basketball is Canadian
8. Joe Mufferaw is fictional
9. Glooscap was in fact Prince Zichmni, aka Henry Sinclair
10. The North West Mounted Police protected Prairie Natives from Americans
11. The Acadian national costume is historical
12. The H in the Canadiens hockey logo stands for « Habitants »
13. Confederation in 1867 was inevitable
14. A Canadian invented the telephone
15. New France was a despotism
16. Canada was discovered by John Cabot
17. Canada won the War of 1812
18. Canada’s Aboriginal peoples do not pay taxes
19. Canada was a wilderness before First Contact
20. Quebecers are all part Native
21. Canadians are a northern people
22. White-coat seal cubs are still hunted”

Pseudo-History course is a go!!!

Because of a glorious kerfuffle that only my university can manage, I will not be teaching the online course I was asked to teach this September, but rather I will be teaching a seminar of my choice. Of course, then, my choice is going to be teaching the Pseudo-history course I have been playing with since last October.

As a result, I have been scraping and scrapping to finish the syllabus I had oulined, in order to get it all done in time. Things are going ok.

The problem with pseudo-history is that very few academic historians want to engage with it at all. There is a dearth of articles and serious books debunking pseudo-history out there, and there is so much of it! Conversely, academic archeologists have had to deal with fringe and bunk archeology, if only to ensure that their subjects of study don't get destroyed by wackos who start digging willy nilly or by grave robbers. So, using the ample sources that are out there debunking pseudo-archeology, some very serious and interesting websites, articles and mostly theses excerpts, as well as Ancient Aliens and similar shows, I am devising a course that aims to teach students how to identify and debunk those types of fallacies.

The rationale behind this course is simple and inspired by A. J. Guylas (@firkon)'s paper at the 2013 Mid-West Popular Culture Association entitled History, Pseudohistory and the Survey Classroom. He was stunned by the number of his students who buy into what are (to us) obvious pseudo-history myths and such, asking about it in class. Most students seem to buy into the idea that academic historians and academic archeologists lie and hide "the truth" from the greater public. They have been convinced by all the fringe researchers, the Von Danikens and the over-tanned commentators from Ancient Aliens. A number of history majors in A.J.'s classes, as well as in mine, will become teachers. If they can't escape the bunk themselves, how are they expected to respond to their students who buy, wholeheartedly, into the bunk?

Granted, this is going to be a senior seminar (4th-year), which means I'm only going to have 22 students at most. It's a start, especially for a trial run.

This is what the course looks like right now. It will certainly change, especially as I figure out what readings to assign.

HIST401*: Topics in History

History vs. Pseudo-history:
Ancient Vikings, Ancient Chinese and Ancient Aliens in Canada

Description:

In this 12-week senior seminar, students will explore the prevalence of pseudo-history and pseudo-archeology in Canadian popular media (books, television, web). The course aims to provide students with critical tools to identify and debunk these attractive and pervasive modern myths. Popular media, especially television, is filled with wild claims of secret origins, hidden discoveries and forgotten ancestors. From ancient aliens to destroyed civilizations, we are used to being told we have been either lied to by governments or that scientists wilfully blind themselves to the “truth”. Why does history and archeology so easily inspire endless theories about aliens, lost civilizations, dark conspiracies, apocalyptic predictions, and mysterious technologies? How do we tell the truth from the bunk?

Objectives:

One of the most useable definitions of pseudo-history comes from (yes) Wikipedia: “Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.” In this course, we will try to understand how this fallacy works.

Students will become familiar with the most common of these theories and unpack the real, evidence-based ones from the confabulations of pseudo-historians and pseudo-archeologists: the numerous purported Viking, Welsh and Irish landings on the Eastern sea-board, the claimed extra-terrestrial influence on First Nation cultures, the "secret" histories of various Canadian political entities, the supposed Chinese colonization of Cape Breton, among others.

Using critical, analytical tools commonly weld by historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and ethnologists, students will better understand the ways in which these ideas emerge and evolve in popular culture and public consciousness. More importantly, students will explore the many reasons why these hoaxes and pseudo-mysteries become and remain prevalent. More importantly, this course aims to explain why pseudo-science can so easily disguise itself as scholarly work in popular media.

Workflow:

To the extent possible, this course will operate in a seminar format, emphasizing discussion and minimizing lectures, though there will be short presentations during most sessions. Students will have three principal assignments in this class. First, each student will prepare a short paper presenting and analyzing a common pseudo-historical myth from a given list. Second, each student will prepare a short paper presenting a pseudo-historical myth of their own invention, explaining critically how their fallacy could become popularly known. Third, each student will be responsible for participating in the online weekly discussions on Moodle. As in all seminars, in-class participation will also be part of your final mark.

Assignments:
Myth Summary, 20%, Week 5
Create-a-Myth, 20%, Week 12
Online Discussion, 10x5%=50%, Week 3 to week 12
In-class Participation, 10%, All semester

Full assignment descriptions and guidelines will be posted on Moodle and explained in class.

Myth Summary (5th week): Pick one theory from set list and present its original inception and origins; provide hypotheses as to why it remains popular despite being debunked.
Create-a-Myth (12th week): Create a pseudo-historical theory and explain the process and details needed to make it fully believable in popular media.
Online discussion (from 3rd week to 12th week): Weekly questions. One entry per week minimum in the Moodle weekly forum.
In-class participation (every week): Diligence in reading and active in-class discussion.

Weekly themes:

1. Introduction to the course: concepts and caveats
2. A history of pseudo-histories I: National narratives
3. A history of pseudo-histories II: History before/beside professionalization
4. Ancient Explorers? St. Brennan and the like
5. Ancient Explorers? Vikings, the real and the fake
6. Ancient Explorers? The Chinese and The Island of Seven Cities
7. Secret History? Ancestors, Indian Princesses and Disgraced Nobles
8. Secret History? Secret Societies and Government
9. Secret History? Oak Island
10. Ancient Aliens? Influencing First Nations
11. Ancient Aliens? Mysterious Ruins, or not
12. Wrapping up. Why all the bunk?

When I have a bibliography to show for it, I'll put it up as well.

Read recently

• Suw Charman-Anderson, Queen of the May (Chocolate and Vodka). A well-known analyst and journalist, she is also an interesting blogger and a very good author. As with her previous novella Argleton (which is great, go read it), Queen of the May starts by taking you to what might seem like a familiar journey and then slips sideways. Argleton took a very prosaic trek to find the eponymous copyright-trap shadow-town inserted in Google Maps (for real) and tipped into science fiction. Queen of the May starts with a English-Indian botanist taking a walk in a neighbourhood park but then marches in to Fairyland. Ultimately, this novella is about female autonomy and feminism. Loved it.

• Darren Naish, Cryptozoologicon: Volume I (Irregular Books). I like cryptozoology. It's amusing to me. All these creatures that some people want so much to exist, all the legends of both supernatural and pseudo-natural animals that live in our collective imaginings and traditional lore! I just love them. I love to read about them. So when a blog I read suggested this book would "change the way we look at cryptozoology" (and because the Kindle edition was very cheap), I bought it. I was very dissapointed. Not by the creatures and the lore, but by the tone. Naish claims to aim at presenting what is actually known about cryptids based on what is purported about them, and to do so in good humour. Unfortunately, the text quickly becomes a laughing fest at the expense of all those who believe in cryptids. Even the sections where Naish tries to construct hypotheses to support the possibility of each animal fall into nasty snark. Naish could have very easily kept a neutral tone (cryptozoologists' beliefs are ridiculous all on their own) and the book would have been better for it.

• Philip Reeve. The Roots of Evil. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). This, this! This is what classic Doctor Who was about! The Fourth Doctor and Leela (whose dress we don't have to see, because there are no images!) land on a Heligan Structure, a type of tree that grows in a planet's atmosphere to terraform it. But this one is different, for one it is enormous. Together, they must battle the tree's inhabitants hell bent on enacting generational vengance on him but also the tree itself, that has suddenly come to life and seems willing to kill everyone. Reeve writes in a style that echoes the campiness of Tom Baker-era DW. The tone is perfect.

• Patrick Ness. Tip of the Tongue. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa arrive in a small Massachussetts twon in 1945 when a new gadget has become all the rage. Truth Tellers are a device one attaches to one's mouth that always tells inconveniant and untold truths. The town is falling appart because of it. The Doctor, Nyssa and two of the town's most marginalized kids discover the sinister (and extra-terrestrial) plot behind what all the cool kids are doing. An interesting read, but it need not have been a Doctor Who story to make sense.

• Richelle Mead. Something Borrowed. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Sixth Doctor and Peri (whose accent we cannot hear, thankfully) land on the resort planet Koturia and are immidiately attacked by tiny pterodactyls. As expected, the Rani is involved. There is a wedding, double-crossing, Las Vegas-size hotels and a lot of running up and down stairs. Cute.

• Malorie Blackman. The Ripple Effect. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The entire universe has been completely rewritten. Hundreds of races that used to exist no longer do and hundreds that were once destroyed exist again. Oh, and the Daleks are a gentle, benevolent, philosopher race. The Doctor and Ace go to Skaro to visit the Dalek Academy and try to figure out what happened. An interesting conceit, even if Ace does not get to blow anything up. Yes, of course, it's all the Doctor's fault.

• Alex Scarrow. Spore. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Eighth Doctor, in action mode, lands in Nevada tracking a bio-engineered spore, designed to convert organic-matter to geo-form planets. Can he save Earth before everyone is turned into black goo? Of course he can, but it's the adventure that counts.

• Charlie Higson. The Beast of Babylon. (Doctor Who Digital, Puffin). The Ninth Doctor, in action mode, physically fights mysterious dual creature, while a young girl called Ali watches on. She decides that the big-eared stranger is her key to outer-space adventure. I particularly like how Higson introduces the fact this is not taking place on Earth.

I only have one of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary novella to read yet. After, on to something in French I think.