January 8th, 2026

Today was my seminar introduction and also the premier of season 2 of The Pitt! Which some of you probably don’t care about but damn I am really attached to that show. So because it was the introduction not too much is going to be written about but I think you should stick around as our favourite guy is a subject here! I also went to office hours which was cool too.

I was actually around 1 to 2 minutes late to class because even though the bus left on time the roads in my city suck ass so the snow and traffic slowed us down. When I entered the seminar room, which is TINY, all the seats were taken up except the one right at the front where the screen is and where my professor is sitting too. I was so embarrassed and my professor said out loud, in a nice tone to be fair, that I unfortunately had to sit there at the front because we had a full class. Everyone chuckled as I humiliatingly uttered out a “cool.” I know they weren’t laughing maliciously, it was still shitty to be the centre of attention, even if it was for a little while. Before we get into the introductions, this seminar is about Migration during the Period of Revolution.

When we were told to introduce ourselves we also had to say what area of history we are interested in. She started with the person on her left and we went around the table (all the desks are attached to create a complete rectangle, so it’s a tight fit). Since I was sitting to her right I was last. I muttered out my name and stated that my interests in history were too complex to explain, which is true. Because technically I am interested in revolutionary history, but not just the fighting and what they wanted to overthrow/build, I am interested in the society before, during, and after revolution (specifically socialist). What were the changes made at all aspects of society, what innovations emerged? Just everything. My interests are too broad. Yes, I focus on queer history too but that is woven into Marxism, just intrinsically. Am I making sense? Anyway, my professor knows me very well so she was fine not asking for clarification.

We went over the syllabus and I noticed that one of the readings for this seminar is all about Karl Marx and his stint in Paris. She actually mentioned him while introducing the course topic when she was talking about how Europe’s most dangerous thinkers end up in Paris, coincidentally (is it a coincidence?). People left their countries for many reasons, to escape revolution/terror, economic reasons, escaping conscription, etcetera. The time period that this seminar covers in the Age of Revolutions.

She then asked us if we knew the difference between a lecture and a seminar class. It’s the difference between passive and active learning, participation is key to doing well in seminar courses. A tip she gave us was to schedule in time for reading the pieces since we will be required to read a lot of pages every week (around 100, sometimes more). As we read we must always look for what is relevant to our research topic for our paper. Do not push off the research topic either, read widely and wildly.

One of the guest speakers for our seminar is my professor who taught me the Genocide course, if anyone remembers that. It’s was a doozy. The reason why he is speaking to us is because of one of his specialties: concentration camps. Migrant camps are important to know about for our seminar, we are going to be reading one chapter from his book. I have mentioned it before, I have a physical copy of it too. One day I will give a review of it for you all. Anyway, she talked about how our current association with the term “concentration camp” is with WWII and also the atrocities in the gulag. It took so much strength to not obviously cringe and roll my eyes as I was sitting in a VERY visible spot, at best I sucked my lips in and my eye twitched. I tried to tame it, but I have never been good at schooling my features.

Before class we were told to read two pieces, they were unrelated to the course content but I think you will find one of them very interesting. One of them was about strategies to get through readings fast but efficiently, since grad students have to read a lot but cannot dedicate time to reading every single page of every source. This makes me sad. I feel like we should be able to read everything but how school is set up here makes it impossible. The second piece was ten my Niall Furgeson. The second I opened up the article and read a few lines I knew I was in for a doozy. I am going to share the link to the article for you all because it is that bad. It is also short too:

https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-without-books-we-will-be-barbarians

I hated reading this, so much so that I looked up Niall Ferguson’s name on lemmygrad and saw comrades dogging on him, so he is known for being garbage. My dislike was confirmed by my professor when she stated that he is a champion for the British empire and imperialism. He is very right ring but she wanted us to read what he had to say here since reading people we dislike or disagree with is important. I agree, but we also have to be carful with the phrasing since people seem to think that it means legitimizing what these people think/say. Let’s keep going. Students piped up and gave thoughts on what the points of this reading were:

People are reading less, this changes how people fundamentally think.

Literacy is falling due to audiobooks and podcasts.

Baby boomers read significantly more than 13 year olds.

Students were very critical of this article and rightfully so. Ferguson seems to completely forget about how helpful audiobooks are, especially for students with disabilities (dyslexia, ADHD, etc.). He also has an air of superiority around him, putting down so-called “primitive” and “uncivilized” cultures. It was actually wild to read. There is a baby boomer in my class and he talked about how he himself does not peruse social media as it is all opinions, no facts. He also tried to look up a chart of 13 year old reading habits in other countries. I made a note to myself when I was reading the article that Ferguson is incredibly western centric but seems to apply to literacy problem to everyone. He is a very unfortunate man.

At one point during the discussion, decorum came up and my professor dismayed over the fact that it seems politicians nowadays just swear so much at the podium, like what happened in Minneapolis. I thought this was a bad example because I think the mayor can say “get the Fuck out” regarding the American gestapo.

Hand upon hands were raised, students were constantly talking one after the other (never over each other). It was hard to get the will to put my own hand up as I sat next to my professor, I lacked the courage. Was what I had to share really valuable since everyone else is talking? They clearly have better things to say.

The seminar ended with these points:

When reading, do not read just for the information, read to learn writing techniques.

Reading is the best way to generate language models in your own brain, you’re adding layers to learn new vocabulary.

When the class was dispersing I asked my professor if she was teaching another class after and she said no, picking up what I was putting down she told me to go to her office and she’d be there soon. When we sat to meet I first asked her when the google doc for signing up for presenting the assigned sources was going to happen since I wanted to be first in line to get the one I wanted. She asked me which one and I said “the Marx one” and she was so happy because she actually put that source on the syllabus for ME specifically! She told me that when she was creating the doc she would put my name on there for me so I am not sitting on my computer constantly refreshing.

I then asked if the participation today was going to apply to our grade but she said no since it’s still within the drop-class-with-refund period. She then asked what I had to say so I gave her all my thoughts that I was too scared to share.

How Niall (not gonna bother with his last name anymore) is incredibly western-centric in his application of illiteracy and does not bring up the systemic problems in the west that are contributing to the problem, people have to work to survive and seldom have to time or brain power to sit and read, short dopamine bursts are preferable and economic. He is very individualistic which does not make a good argument. She agreed and talked about his other issues as he is a fancy British guy that people seem to take seriously due to his accent. I mentioned at one point that he is the type of person that I would fight in a parking lot. She found that funny, which I am glad but I know my tone came off weird. I need to work on that.

She talked about the podcast issue and the one that Niall reference in the article is apparently this “Martyrs” pod? The host of it, who is not a historian, appeared on tucker Carlson and stated that Hitler was not the bad guy of WWII, Churchill was, Hitler was just too good at invading the East and didn’t know what to do with all the extra people. He received no push back from the host and apparently his podcast contributes to the literacy issue, it’s like the number one history pod. I told her that I listen to actually well sourced podcasts for history like Blowback. She then typed it up on her computer and I told her about the seasons. Maybe she’ll check it out!

She asked me how my semester was going and I told her I had to dropped 2 out of the original 5 courses that I was taking because I could not realistically keep up with the work load currently. This led to me telling her how I was going to be here in the fall 2026 semester to finish off my degree, two for university credit and two upgrading courses. I then detailed that I wanted to get my math and physics since schools in Cuba look at those grades quite closely.

This led to me admitting that I was still going for my masters next year, but I would need to spend my time learning a second language in the mean time since it is required. When done with the masters I want to go to Cuba (maybe, depends on several factors, I do not want to screw them over by being there) for either med school (which is fucking insane, I know) or my PhD, who knows. She told me it wasn’t insane to consider medical school and then mentioned The Motorcycle Diaries movie. I told her I had no idea about the movie but I knew the book existed. I know I need to read it and I think it’s going to go at the top of my list.

Che was younger than me when he was a med student, I’ll practically be 30 when I compete my masters… I am still conflicted about this. I would never judge someone for their age as I believe school is or everyone. But for some reason I am so hard on myself.

Anyway, we talked a bunch about how to go about my masters and how during hers she didn’t need to know French beforehand, she learned while doing it. I do not know if that will work for me but I will contact the university I have chosen to see if that also applies. Theres no harm in getting a head start though!

Before we parted ways I did ask for specification on the research paper, what time frame would our topic have to be within. The cut off date is 1848. She told me that most of the socialist migrants would be found in the 1840s. I asked about queer migrants but she said they are hard to find (as usual) but would probably appear in the later period. One of our guest speakers is an expert of Italian fascism and queer history so he might be able to help with that. I do not know if I want to suffer through that again. Researching queer people during the frontier period of Canada was hard enough, I do not know if I can do it again.

Anyway, that was my first seminar of the semester, let me know what you think. My paper will probably be about socialist/socialist-adjacent migrations. We will see.