HIST 377 - Rumors in History

Why and how are rumors formed? What kinds of media prolong their life? What gives rumors staying power even when they are publicly disproven? This course explores some precedents for fake news, revisiting earlier occasions in world history when fiction overshadowed reality to dramatic effect. Case studies covered in class may include upheaval due to rumors of children disappearing in the city of Paris in the 1700s; North American frontier myths that (still) wont die, including one about the distribution of germ-ridden blankets to Native Americans; Orson Welles infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast; and more recent twenty-first-century theories of thought contagion (ideas spreading like infections) and factfulness (conscientiously counteracting distortions in our perception). In the last part of this 300-level course, students will choose a rumor from a time period or region of their own interest and write and present a brief research paper about it. For the History major, this counts towards the “Global/Comparative” and “Public History” fields. Alternate years. (4 Credits)