Students in Assistant Professor of History Meghan Roberts’ first-year seminar, Reacting to the Past, spent September immersed in a fraught period, during early modern Europe, when science was rising up to challenge the church’s ultimate authority.
Slipping into the roles of Catholic cardinals, the students reenacted the Roman inquisition of Galileo. In intense discussions, they debated the appropriate punishment for a man who had been accused of heresy for his notions that the earth revolved around the sun. After wrapping up their month-long inquisition, the students have turned their attention to King Henry VIII and his Reformation parliament.
Roberts’ course Reacting to the Past is one of more than 35 seminars designed specially for first-year students. Read more.