“Rush out and beat the heretics up”

Natalie Zemon Davis on crowd violence. And we let loose on Ross Douthat, discussing what he gets wrong about Catholicism.

What we’re teaching this week

William Hogarth's engraving "Hudibras Encounters the Skimmington," 1822.

Albert

We’ve just finished our second week of teaching, and my overwhelming feeling—besides already feeling overwhelmed—is one of admiration for our students, who have adapted to the constraints of remote learning with diligence and grace. Attendance has sometimes been an issue at our university, but since last semester it’s been excellent, and the students are engaging the material with a drive and vigor that I didn’t expect.

Since going remote, I’ve been using the collaborative annotation tool Perusall, which lets students annotate a document together online. I particularly like being able to glimpse how they’re grappling with the texts in real time: asking questions, underlining concepts, looking up historical references or confusing terms. You also get a sense for different styles of approaching the material. Some students take their time and digest the text before uploading their p…