NEW YORK – Kathleen Casey, an assistant professor of history at Virginia Wesleyan College, thought teaching a course on the history of American leisure time – what she called a “history of fun” – would be a good way to reach non-majors and other students who weren’t particularly enthusiastic about history.
Her colleagues warned her that billing a course as the history of fun might attract students who didn’t just dislike history classes, but who disliked classes in general. Casey considered their concerns but largely ignored them. After all, she said, this wasn’t her first general education history course, and the risk was worth the reward: converting a group of students who thought history was limited to “epic battles between great white men.”
Full Article Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/05/historians-discuss-pleasures-and-pitfalls-teaching-popular-history