Teaching with H-Net
H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online is one of the longest-running open-access publishers and among the most widely used digital platforms for humanists and social sciences. A non-profit scholarly organization, H-Net is committed to principles of open, moderated discussion, the free circulation of information, and academic best practices. This document points teachers at all levels to various ways in which they can tap H-Net. H-Net does not generate revenue from the below content, and encourages the free use of it, with proper attribution to the original creators, wherever instructors find that beneficial to their courses.
Pedagogical Material from our Networks: The following projects from our topical networks focus on addressing facets of pedagogy and are intended to support instructors, typically but by no means exclusively at the collegiate level. Brief descriptions, where available, come from editors at the network where the content resides.
Syllabus Databases: Habsburg, H-Animal, H-Buddhism, H-Diplo, H-Education, H-Empire, H-German, H-LatAm, H-Nationalism, H-Slavery, H-Urban
Teaching Confederate Monuments, Historical Memory (H-Slavery). A catalog of teaching resources on Confederate monuments that formed part of a broader series (available here).
Teaching about Eugenics (H-Eugenics). A series of short posts addressing the challenges of incorporating the subject of eugenics into the classroom. The network also maintains a short catalog of teaching lessons and teaching articles.
Teachable Content from our Networks: The following projects and discussions from our topical networks have diverse origins, contours, and purposes, but all have some kind of instructional potential. They could be used as reading assignments, to inform lecture material, or otherwise incorporated into your classes, when relevant to course themes. Brief descriptions, where available, come from the editors at the network where the project resides.
From across H-Net:
- H-Bahai’s Resource Guide for the Scholarly Study of the Bahá'í Faith
- H-Black-Europe’s Black Europe Bibliography
- H-Buddhism’s Generations essays
- H-Celebration’s Parade Talk blog
- H-CivWar’s Author Interviews
- H-Environment’s National Park Service Timeline
- H-FedHists’s Timeline of U.S. Federal History
- H-Florida’s Florida Constitutions Podcasts
- H-Kentucky’s Kentucky Woman Suffrage Project (includes timeline, maps, bios)
- H-Labor’s Tomlin-Brody Debate on Law, Labor, and Ideology
- H-LatAm’s Research Corner blog on archival research
- H-South’s updates on Southern History and Civil Rights in the News
- and the WWI Crossroad’s World War I Timeline
With compliments to the editors for providing descriptions…
From H-Diplo:
- Teaching Roundtables: An occasional series on the question of how to teach a particular subject in Diplomatic History and/or International Relations.
- Syllabus Archive: A repository of user-submitted syllabi.
- Online Teaching Resources: A repository of user-submitted resources conducive to online teaching.
- State of the Field Essays: An occasional series on the state of academic inquiry into relevant topics.
- Learning the Scholar’s Craft Essays: Autobiographical, reflective essays from senior scholars on their scholarly journeys.
From H-Education, especially its Resources Page:
- Syllabus Database, focusing on the history of education
- Pages compiling the following resources in the history of education: grad programs; archival resources; journals in the field; library guides; podcasts; and bibliographic info for recent publications
From H-Nationalism:
- The Left and Nationalism Monthly Series: A brief series of seven short commissioned essays looking at the nexus of nationalism and the political left in different contexts, especially during the 20th century.
- Minorities in Contemporary and Historical Perspectives Monthly Series: A series of ten short commissioned essays looking at minority-majority political divides in the 20th century, focusing mostly on Europe.
- Secessionism and Separatism Monthly Series: A brief series of nine short essays addressing secessionism and separatist politics in different parts of the globe.
- Weekend Reading: A regular series of posts digesting news and opinion about nationalism from the global public sphere.
- World War I Centenary: A series tracking public discussion of the hundredth anniversary of World War I for the period from 2014-2017 (1914-1917).
From H-Slavery:
- Defining Slavery: An open-ended, scholarly discussion from 2005 about how to define slavery, with contributions come from several academics with diverse specializations.
- The Slave Trade in the Central Middle Ages: A map, timeline, and data from Youval Rotman.
- Interviews, including with Selena Sandefer on her course on comparative slavery, Kali Holloway about the Make It Right project and Confederate monuments, Alex Borucki on the Slave Voyages website, Silke Hackenesch about teaching subjects like Reconstruction and Black Lives Matter in Germany; and with Jill Stauss and Dionne Ford on Slavery’s Descendants and the Coming to the Table discussions.
- Topical Guides: A series of short essays reviewing specific issues and topics in the study of the history of slavery. Topics addressed include manumission in the Atlantic world, capitalism and slavery in the U.S., and others.
Other Ways to Use H-Net in Teaching
Book Reviews: H-Net offers one of the largest collections of freely available scholarly book reviews on the planet, with over 45,000 available for browsing and searching. Playing with the search feature on our main reviews page can yield excellent starting points for graduate and undergraduate research papers, as well as leads for books that help flesh out lectures or course reading lists. A search for a broad term like “Civil Rights Movement” might render so many hits as to be overwhelming, but there are plenty of ways to refine and narrow a search.
Queries: Teachers at all levels are welcomed to use our networks to post queries about specific sources, teaching techniques, and more. Doing so requires an H-Net user profile and a subscription to the network that you want to post the query to--both are free and easy to set up (see here and here). Highly technical and general questions are both welcomed. Some examples of past teaching queries to individual networks are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Book Channel Essays: H-Net offers the following collection of short bibliographic essays tracing emerging scholarly trends. Feel welcomed to consult or assign them.
Job Seeking: H-Net’s Job Guide is among the most widely used resources for hirers seeking academics and scholars seeking employment. Fees to post job notices are modest by industry standard and all job notices are free to browse and search in full for job seekers, ensuring a broad audience. We have a strong record of hosting job notices for positions as museums, universities, private high schools, NGOs and more.
H-Net Networks Devoted to Pedagogy, Instructional Life, and Related Topics
We have several networks specifically devoted to issues that shape teaching and learning. Please note, our networks rely on volunteers for their operations and tend to thrive off of subscriber engagement. If you want to be more involved, it is easy to set up a free user profile, subscribe to individual networks, and even put yourself forward as a potential editor. See our “Spread the Word” page for more on ways to get involved.
H-Adjunct: “H-Adjunct is an open, inter-disciplinary forum for issues involving adjunct, part-time and temporary faculty at universities, colleges and community colleges. All faculty members, no matter their status, and all interested persons are encouraged to join and contribute.”
H-AfrTeach: “a network whose mission is to provide a stimulating forum for considering the possibilities and problems involved in teaching about Africa. It is intended for a wide audience, encompassing educators, students and others with an interest in teaching about Africa at all educational levels.”
H-BiblHist: “an international network of librarians, archivists, curators, and scholars interested in the practice and study of bibliographic and library services to support the study and teaching of history.”
H-Education: “H-Education seeks to link participants with shared interests in the history of education, broadly defined as a recognized field covering both formal and informal institutions and processes regarding teaching and learning. We anticipate that our audience will consist of university professors, independent scholars, educators, and graduate students, from diverse fields of study.”
H-High-S: “The primary purpose of H-High-S is to facilitate an ongoing discussion of curriculum, instructional strategies, and educational resources involved in teaching history, social studies, and related subjects in American secondary schools.”
H-Scholar: “H-Scholar is sponsored by the National Coalition of Independent Scholars. Its purposes are: assisting independent scholars to share their work and research interests with the larger community, enhancing their productivity by promoting the sharing of information and resources, facilitating communication between independent and academically affiliated scholars with shared interests and concerns, providing information about issues of general interest to all working scholars regardless of their discipline or situation and creating a forum for discussion of specific scholarly issues across disciplinary boundaries.”
H-Teach: “a network for intellectual exchange on history teaching methods at all levels--high school, university, and graduate--in diverse settings. Special attention is paid to use of new technologies in and outside of the classroom, as well as specific teaching tools including texts, videos, exams, and assignments.”