Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Pennsylvania/The University, the Museum, and the Middle East (Spring 2019)

This seminar explores how two kinds of institutions – the research university and the museum – developed in the United States as American scholars, philanthropists, and the U.S. government engaged with the wider world. We will take the involvement of the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum in the Middle East as a test case for this history, while focusing on the period from the late nineteenth century to the present.

We will approach questions in transnational intellectual, cultural, and political history through the lens of Penn’s Middle Eastern engagements. For example, how did the university and its museum contribute to the construction of the Middle East as a zone of U.S. diplomatic intervention? How have American scholarly traditions shaped academic fields of inquiry including “Semitics” (a term used a century ago to suggest the study of biblical languages and traditions), “Oriental Studies” (a now-passé and politically loaded term suggesting connections to American traditions of Orientalist thought), “Islamic Studies”, and “Egyptology”? How did Penn’s archaeological expeditions to celebrated sites like Ur in the late nineteenth century influence the late Ottoman Empire’s policies towards antiquities and museums? How did Penn’s broader expeditions in the twentieth century, to Egypt, Iran, and elsewhere, shape nationalist imaginations in the United States and in Middle Eastern countries, while also informing international antiquities policies? What role have philanthropists – private donors – played in the establishment, pursuit, and support of research here (in the United States and at Penn) and abroad? Finally, how have institutions like Penn and the Penn Museum responded to changing American popular attitudes and U.S. foreign policy concerns relative to the Middle East, during the Cold War and post-2001 (“post-9/11”) eras, and most recently, amid civil strife in Syria and Iraq?

This seminar offers students an opportunity to consult Penn’s phenomenal collections of Middle East-related materials as they pursue individual research. These collections include artifacts (museum objects), archival records (such as documents, drawings, and photographs), and rare books and manuscripts from the Penn Museum and Penn Libraries. At the same time, in this seminar we will work in teams to produce and edit content for Wikipedia relating to the themes of this course, while liaising with Wiki Education, a non-profit organization. In tandem with our efforts to write for Wikipedia, we will read about the politics of Wikipedia, while discussing issues of representation and under-representation. Who and what has tended to receive attention in studies of U.S. and Middle Eastern history or in works pertaining to the University of Pennsylvania, and how has a free, collaborative, online encyclopedia like Wikipedia reflected or contributed to these power dynamics?

Week 2
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia

Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Exercise
Evaluate an article

Thinking about sources and plagiarism

Week 4
Choose your topic / Find your sources

What's a content gap?

Art History

Biographies

History

Women's Studies

Exercise
Add a citation

Week 6
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 7
Guiding framework

Thinking about Wikipedia

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Week 8
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
 * Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.

Week 9
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the &quot;mainspace.&quot;

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

Nominating your article for Did You Know

Exercise
Add links to your article

Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

Week 11
Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Week 12
It's the final week to develop your article.


 * Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
 * Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!

Guiding questions

Write a paper going beyond your Wikipedia article to advance your own ideas, arguments, and original research about your topic.

Week 13
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.