World History as a Way of Knowing: Teaching Practical Cosmopolitanism

This presentation will consider pedagogical challenges and strategies in teaching World History to undergraduate students.  Practical Cosmopolitanism will be discussed as an educational goal and potential qualitative form of assessment in teaching World History.  Particular focus will be given to teaching World History as an orientation that can become as foundational to student’s introduction to the disciple as critical thinking skills ground in evidence and interpretation.  Historical engagement with the large-scale, long-term encounters and interactions of goods, peoples and ideas can do more than help expand and contextualize student’s understanding of histories centered upon nation-states.  On a more profound level, World History can help model and develop skills using geographical and chronological frameworks in complex, contingent and fluid ways to become conscious of and minimize distortions such as those introduced by anachronisms and ethnocentrisms.