History 5840-01, Proseminar in History: Interpreting Identities in Ancient History

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID: HIST 5840-01
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This ALS grant replaces a traditional textbook in History 5840: Proseminar in History: Interpreting Identities in Ancient History with curated scholarly articles and book chapters focused on identity in Ancient Egypt. Students engage directly with professional historical publications, analyzing primary sources, historiography, and interdisciplinary theory. Readings are provided as PDFs via Canvas and Perusall, and are contextualized through mini-lectures and discussion, saving students at least $80 while enhancing advanced research and interpretive skills.

Course Title and Number - History 5840-01, Proseminar in History: Interpreting Identities in Ancient History
 
Brief Description of course highlights:  This course teaches students how historians research, write, debate, and contextualize topics related to understand and interpret identity in Ancient History (especially related to Ancient Egypt) through intensive reading and discussion of primary sources, historiography, and interdisciplinary theory. Students will examine key issues of history related to the complexity of identity in the past.  These include understanding how primary sources of texts, archaeology, and art relate to issues of ethnicity, race, gender, age, status, multiculturalism, acculturation, power, politics, etc.  Students will also examine how modern historians, biases, or even racism, often cloud our understandings and interpretations of ancient concepts of identity.  Students will read and learn to apply interdisciplinary theory from history, anthropology, and sociology to how we write the social histories of the past.  https://catalog.csusb.edu/coursesaz/hist    

Student population: Upper Division, Graduating History Majors.   Capstone class done in their second to last semester.

Learning or student outcomes: 
Knowledge
1.1 Students will acquire knowledge of relevant historical facts and contextualize the history and culture of Ancient Egypt.
1.2 Students will gain the ability to frame historical questions regarding ancient history.
1.3 Students will demonstrate an awareness of historical interpretative differences especially in regards to how secondary sources interpret, skew, or misinterpret primary data.
Research
2.1 Students will demonstrate the ability to use a broad range of historical sources. Textual, artistic, and archaeological sources will all be part of our analyses.
2.2 Students will demonstrate the ability to evaluate and analyze primary historical sources.
2.3 Students will demonstrate the ability to develop an historical interpretation based on evidence.
Communication
3.1 Students will demonstrate the ability to write clearly through short papers and daily assignments.
3.2 Students will demonstrate the ability to speak clearly through discussion and debate.

Syllabus and/or Sample assignment from the course or the adoption: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gizzljgfkxkxm1lae58qx/2026-Spring-5840-syllabus.pdf?rlkey=c390obw9fkrwoak7wq87m99cl&dl=0

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title:  History 5840-01 readings

Brief Description: I personally located, scanned, and downloaded each assigned article and book chapter, creating high-quality, OCRed PDFs for student use. I uploaded these readings to Canvas and Perusall, organizing them by topic and week so students could easily access and annotate the materials. This ensured equitable, no-cost access for everyone in class

These readings were written by the scholar on a specific topic. I provided the pdfs for all the readings. As articles or sections of books, they can be shared with others without breaking copyright. The specific content is then discussed in class with mini-lectures and large discussion sections to tie all of the material together.

Readings for Hist 5840.docx

Student access:  Canvas and Perusall

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  At least $80. Many other sections of this course will have the students purchase multiple books

License*: Because the course materials consist of limited excerpts from scholarly articles and book chapters shared exclusively with enrolled students for nonprofit educational purposes, their use qualifies under fair use copyright guidelines.

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Please provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost. For example: saving students money, improving the learning materials, or customizing materials for special needs, etc.  Both saving the students money while also improving learning by having them read professional works.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course?  For example: consulted librarians, other faculty, browsed OER sites, read peer reviews, evaluated resources, other?   I researched each topic and read the articles / book chapters myself.

Sharing Best Practices: The sustainability of open education relies on sharing with others. Please give suggestions for faculty who are just getting started with OER or Low-Cost options.  List anything you wish that you had known earlier.  I recommend having the students read professional publications instead of textbooks. As a teacher, I can always synthesize the material and provide context. But using professional readings that I read a scholar increased the learning outcomes of the students and gives them practice becoming a professional.

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned. For example: incomplete OER/Low-Cost materials, lack of printing facilities, bookstore confusion, academic senate support, missing ancillary materials, articulation, other?  All has been great.   The only challenge is that reading different author’s provides and uneven understanding of the content for the students.  So I need to be able to quickly explain things and fill in the gaps.

Instructor Name - Kate Liszka
I am a History Professor at California State University San Bernardino.Please provide a link to your university page.
https://www.csusb.edu/profile/kate.liszka

Please describe the courses/course numbers that you teach.  I teach classes on Ancient Egypt at CSUSB
Ancient Egyptian History I, II, and III
Ancient Egyptian Archaeology
Ancient Egyptian Culture and Society
Ancient Egyptian Art
Egyptian Mining Expeditions, Their Buildings, and their Slaves
Proseminar in History

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  I have nearly 30 years of experience teaching a variety of courses on Ancient Egypt to various sizes of classes, to students on a variety of levels, and both in person and online settings.  My courses are designed pedagogically for students to learn both the primary data/content of the course and why scholars argued for their specific versions of history.  I pursue these goals using a variety of exercises.  In advanced classes, students are taught to make their own arguments and create their own versions of history from the primary data.   Students are graded, less on the reiteration of historical content, but rather on their use of primary data and the quality and logic of their arguments about the past.  For example, when I teach the History of the Egyptian New Kingdom, students spend a week reading five different versions of the decade of history after the death of Akhenaten.  This was a tumultuous time, and most scholars disagree with each other even on the basic facts of what happened.  In class, we then debate what primary evidence is significant for establishing these basics, and we analyze the use of the primary evidence in the scholars’ arguments.  Students then write their own versions of that decade of history specifically paying attention to why they support their particular version.