Originally published on March 14, 2024
Introduction
Today’s guest in our series of conversations on intellectual humility and historical thinking is Mark Carnes, Professor of History at Barnard College.
His academic specialty is modern American history and pedagogy. Among his many books are Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (Yale University Press, 1989), and the edited volume Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (University of Chicago Press, 1992). His interest in how history appears in forms other than history books led him to edit Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies and Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America’s Past (and Each Other).
In 1995, Carnes pioneered a role-playing pedagogy—now known as Reacting to the Past (RTP)—which places students at the center of the classroom experience by immersing them in historical situations. He has written several of the games in the RTP series as well as Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College (Harvard, 2018), which he and I discussed long, long ago. (I explored the philosophy of educational games with Kellian Adams and revisited RTP with historian Nick Proctor.)
For Further Investigation
Mark Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (Yale, 1989)
—, Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College (Harvard, 2018)
—, ed., Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (Chicago, 1992)
—, ed., Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies (Henry Holt, 1995)
—, ed., Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America’s Past (and Each Other) (Simon and Schuster, 2001)
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💬 Listen & Discuss
Does role-playing help students practice humility as they step into the minds of people from the past? What do you think is gained—or maybe lost—when students live inside historical arguments instead of just reading about them? Share your thoughts in the comments, and pass this along to a teacher, student, or gamer who’d love to dive in.
