by For my final project, I wanted to drift away from my prior topic of the Normans and their adventures throughout the lands along the Mediterranean Sea. However, I also wanted to maintain some semblance of cross-cultural and multicultural history. I first looked at exploring the Mongols, Vikings, and Khazars for one of my focal points, but I began to look at other topics that I wanted to explore further. Eventually, I looked over some old Crash Course videos that I used to watch throughout high school and my undergraduate years. After going over their World History and World History 2 playlists, I ended up deciding on my topic for my final project.
My final project will revolve around the history of the world, but with a twist. Instead of talking about world history through people, places, and nations, I wanted to instead focus on the ideological and technological concepts throughout history. My goal is for both my primary and secondary audiences to study and explore world history in a different light. My historical concepts will revolve around 3 types: ideological (democracy, nationalism, etc.), developmental (water, etc.), and technological (railroads, paper, etc.). Each of these concepts will provide topics that will tell the story of the history of the world while also highlighting its cross-cultural and multicultural aspects.
The primary sources I will need will be vast, but hopefully shouldn’t be too big an issue with the access to resources at my disposal. As for secondary sources, they will be much easier to come by. My audiences will be a combination of current and prospective historians (primary) and individuals who don’t care too much about history or want to explore it from a different perspective (secondary). Both audiences might find this twist on history to be intriguing, which is what I aim to do with the project. Both the sources and target audiences will be one of my biggest challenges yet when compared to past projects.
Lastly, I want to talk about how I want the project to come together digitally. As usual, finding the right program to use will always be the tough part. I want to tell the story of the world using interactive mapping and other digital tools. My project goals tend to revolve around the diversity of interactivity and this project is no exception. Some programs I tend to look at include ArcGIS StoryMaps, Scalar 2, Omeka, and other unnamed and unexplored platforms I will be exploring. More information will be provided throughout future blog posts.
