2026-06-25 –, Room 105 (Seats 84)
The H/21 Project (History for the Twenty-First Century) is a collaborative project of the World History Association, which seeks to rethink world history curricula by designing inquiry-based and student-centered lessons on critical topics in world history. The goal of this project is to support college and university faculty by offering open-access instructional materials, which include curated lessons with primary sources, instructor guides, and classroom activities. On this panel, three H/21 authors will discuss their new modules: Eric Nelson’s presentation explores a “Big History” module that aims to provide students with a mental map of four critical eras in our shared human history, while also strengthening skills in synthesis and historical empathy. Jodie Marshall will present a module in which students explore the early modern Indian Ocean as a space, connected through imperial ambition, trade, and human movement. Brenna Miller’s presentation will address teaching the history of shifting identities in Southeastern Europe, from imperial collapse, the rise of nationalism, war, and the Cold War. All of these papers offer a discussion of interactive, student-centered pedagogical strategies.
Your Place in the World
Abstract for Additional Participant 1:This paper introduces a new H21 Module that explores the broad sweep of cosmic and human history and provides a mental map or grid of the past on which students can situate everything else that they study in a world history course. The paper will introduce the module’s four lessons, each focused on a key development in our shared history—the emergence of our species and its foraging origins, the farming revolution, the long history of fragmentation and the more recent era of fusion that created our culturally diverse but globalized world, and the fossil fuels revolution. It will also examine how module activities develop student skills in synthesis and historical empathy and how each lesson is designed to help students make connections between our shared past and their lived experiences.
Title for Additional Participant 2:Traveling the Early Modern Indian Ocean
Abstract for Additional Participant 2:This paper introduces a new H21 Module that invites students to explore the Indian Ocean as it was on the brink of Portuguese exploration and conquest. Structured as a journey through several of the key nodes of the Indian Ocean trade network, students learn about the long history of connections, trade, imperial ambitions, and human movement in the region. Upon entering as a traveler, students encounter an ocean that is already meaningfully “globalized” long before European colonization, in that there are longstanding connections between places that students are accustomed to thinking of as separate continents. Ultimately, the point of this module is for students to learn a counternarrative to that of the “age of exploration:” although they themselves are entering this region knowing little about it, the histories and points of view that they will encounter are those of the Indian Ocean World itself.
Title for Additional Participant 3:Identity from Empire, to Nation, and Beyond in Southeastern Europe
Abstract for Additional Participant 3:This presentation introduces an H/21 module that examines a sequence of transformative events in world history – the collapse of empires, world wars, and the Cold War – through the lens of southeastern Europe. By focusing on one location and the everyday people living there from roughly 1870-1970, students are encouraged to consider how individuals understand, make sense of, and experience periods of global upheaval. The module aims to highlight in particular the ways that those events served to continually reshape and realign identities, affiliations, and people’s understandings of themselves. In addition, this presentation will also discuss how this approach can support students’ sense of historical consciousness by tracing generations across time, and historical empathy through close engagement with primary sources, that emphasize the first-hand accounts and interpretations by individual historical actors.
Brenna Miller is the Associate Director of History for the 21st century and a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Roots of Contemporary Issues program at Washington State University. She received her PhD from Ohio State University in 2018 with a focus on Eastern European History, and has taught introductory, upper-division, and honors university courses in Modern European, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and World Histories. She is particularly interested in history teaching and pedagogy, as well as collaborative ways to support students and instructors alike.
forthcoming