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Contemporary (1950 CE - Present)

Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Modern Racism in the U.S. and South Africa

This module has students examine the roots of “modern” racism and make connections between the status of Black individuals in the United States and in South Africa. This approach is designed to foster a discussion on American “exceptionalism,” in particular that U.S.

Source

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" on April 16, 1963 as a response to a letter titled "A Call for Unity" which was written 4 days prior. "A Call for Unity" was signed by eight white clergymen who led churches in Birmingham, Alabama.

Detail of the Gifts of Speech homepage logo reading "Gifts of Speech"
Review

Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World

This site offers an archive of speeches by “influential, contemporary women.” Almost all of the speeches in the collection come directly from the authors themselves or from the organizations representing them and have not been published elsewhere.
The image is titled on the site as "Children contend with a too-big bicycle, Pre Umbel" taken in 1991.  It is a black and white photograph showing too girls holding up a bicycle, unable to climb onto it.
Review

Beauty and Darkness: Cambodia

In order to comprehend these overwhelming atrocities on a personal level, I strongly recommend the chilling oral histories...The accounts would make excellent supplementary reading for a class discussion on the Khmer Rogue and provide a hauntingly human face to the statistics.
Source

Voltaire’s Understanding of Inequality

This passage from François–Marie Arouet, pen–named Voltaire, who was perhaps the best–known writer of the eighteenth century, illustrates the spirit of investigation of the Enlightenment.

Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Humor as Resistance

In order to help students think about the dynamics of power in different kinds of societies, this case study attempts to challenge the black-and-white thinking to which students are inclined when thinking about Communism.

Image of text from the website reading The Cambodian Genocide Program
Review

Cambodian Genocide Program

These materials are more appropriate for teaching older students because they provide a grim and poignant reminder of the individual tragedies that underlie the staggering statistics associated with these crimes.
A nineteenth century Vietnamese banknote
Review

Viettouch

Some of the sections under the “Literature” and “History” categories are largely written in Vietnamese and may, therefore, be inaccessible to students. However, the vast majority of the site is in English and well worth a careful read.
Image of a Buddha statue in the lecture hall of Sitague Buddist Academy
Review

Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library

Users willing to delve deeply into the various sections are rewarded with a vast amount of primary materials in the form of texts, videos, images, and maps.
A Mohur-Akbar coil from the Mughal Empire
Review

RBI Monetary Museum Galleries

The wide selection of currencies and time periods make this useful for classroom instruction and for generating discussion.