This idea has been haunting me for literally years, so I decided to finally pull the trigger on it! Many years ago I read a vignette on this site with a really interesting structure: it was a fully conceptualized TL, conveyed entirely in one post in the form of a fictional academic syllabus. Absolutely fascinating. Read for yourself:
It occurred to me that this would be a really interesting concept for an AHC thread for the creation of concise one-and-done timelines and discussion of their implications, so I've thrown down the gauntlet! Since this is academic in tone, if you want to contribute a syllabus to the thread it should have the following format:
No current politics! Don't get me in trouble 😂 I put the thread here to give you all the maximum range to experiment, but post-1900 PODs are perfectly acceptable. Future history ones are iffy, they can easily get off the rails, so no PODs later than 1999 without asking first! If it gets into the 21st century find people who aren't currently involved in hot-button issues any more to attribute fake books to.
*As an aside, based the first comment I'm allowing theoretical finals/instructions for specific assignments and other collegiate-level academically structured materials, as long as they meet the basic challenge of alluding to a fully realized chain of alternate history events and are accomplished in one post.
Student: George Foles (Class 2019)
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Course Materials for Hist 511- Ecological Parties and Politics in America and Europe
Professor J. Stein
I. COURSE OUTLINE
The intention of this course is to study how Ecological politics have affected the landscape in the United States, Canada, and Europe. We will begin by studying the thinkers and theorists who came up with most important aspects of Ecological thought, namely the population theories of Malthus and Ehrlich and the "Harsh Climates, Strong Men" theories of Frank Herbert. We will continue by researching why the political Right ended up championing this cause, and how leftists and liberals responded to theories of Global Warming and Overpopulation. Finally, we will discuss how Ecological and Population theories shaped the domestic and foreign policies of the Reagan and Vander Jagt administrations, with a focus on the Birthrate Crisis of the 80's domestically and the Great East Africa Famines of 1983 and 1993, the Settler Wars in Southern Afrika, and the Subcontinental War.
II. Reading materials
An Essay on the Principle of Population- Thomas Malthus
Theodore Roosevelt and the Beginnings of Conservative Conservationism- John Byrnes
Silent Spring- Rachel Carson
Dune- Frank Herbert
The Population Bomb- Paul R. Ehrlich
Victory Over the Sun: How Tony Mazzocchi Fought for a Better Green Politics- Connor Kilpatrick
Nixonland: The Wild 4-Year Term of Richard Nixon- Rick Perlstein
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72- Hunter S. Thompson
Green Libertarianism- Barry Goldwater
WaPo Editorial: "Building a Clean Environment", by Ronald Reagan (1/13/1976)
My Wild Campaign Ride- Frank Herbert
Vanguard of Civilization: America's Role in Oranj Frei Staat, The Cape, Angola, Mozambique, Tswanalandt, and the Rhodesias- John Bolton
The Ecology Party Manifesto for the 1981 Election- Tony Whittaker and Edward Goldsmith
The OVP, The Greens, and the Battle for the Soul of Green Politics- Ralph Nader
Wanderer: David Icke, Ecology, the Liberals, and the UK's 8th Party System- Owen Jones
Famine- Charles Dolan
Wildman: The Two Careers of David Attenborough- Nick Hornby
Reason Magazine Special Issue: BIRTHRATE CRISIS (1985)
Approaches to Population Control- John H. Tanton
To The Children I Can Never Have- Ta-Neishi Coates
The Scorching of the Subcontinent- Pankaj Mishra
The Republican Party Platform 1992- Various
Malthus, Reagan, and Icke: The Greenwashing of Genocide- Michael Ignatieff
Open Air Prisons: Life in the "Reservations" of Southern Africa- Steven Pienaar
LIARS!: How the Right Uses Sham "Global Warming" Science to Attack the Working Man- Steve Bannon
III. Lecture Schedule
Lectures shall be from 10:00-12:00 AM Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9/25-1/15, with the exception of Thanksgiving Week and Winter Vacation. Office hours shall be the same days from 3:00-6:00 PM.
IV. Grading
Attendance- 10%
Quizzes- 25%
Essays- 25%
Final Exam- 40%
It occurred to me that this would be a really interesting concept for an AHC thread for the creation of concise one-and-done timelines and discussion of their implications, so I've thrown down the gauntlet! Since this is academic in tone, if you want to contribute a syllabus to the thread it should have the following format:
- No need to include a student name, but it should open with the college it's being taught at, a realistic course name and ideally also number, and a professor. Making up colleges/professors is fine, but it should add some commentary to your scenario in some way if that's the case.
- It should have at least a paragraph-long "I: Course Outline".
- Most of the heavy lifting should be done in "II: Reading Materials", relying exclusively on titles and authors. If one of those works directly revolves around the POD you can include one (1) footnote, otherwise you can comment on it in a separate post.
- "III: Lecture Schedule" and "IV: Grading" must be included like any proper syllabus, though boilerplate is perfectly fine and depending on POD using ahistorical day names/time systems would be perfectly acceptable.
No current politics! Don't get me in trouble 😂 I put the thread here to give you all the maximum range to experiment, but post-1900 PODs are perfectly acceptable. Future history ones are iffy, they can easily get off the rails, so no PODs later than 1999 without asking first! If it gets into the 21st century find people who aren't currently involved in hot-button issues any more to attribute fake books to.
*As an aside, based the first comment I'm allowing theoretical finals/instructions for specific assignments and other collegiate-level academically structured materials, as long as they meet the basic challenge of alluding to a fully realized chain of alternate history events and are accomplished in one post.
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