My pedagogical tenets prioritize student-driven, participatory, hands-on, multimodal learning. As an instructor, I seek to instill passions, questions, and enthusiasm in my students, providing them with the tools to conduct their own rigorous research and reach their own conclusions.
Undergraduate Instruction
Post-1945 United States Memory and Human Rights:
This course explores historical happenings and their interpretations after 1945 with a heightened focus on if/how the United States has maintained, strengthened, and perpetuated its image of global excellence. We will call into question the strategies in which the United States has represented itself by examining various human rights and social justice movements and mobilizations that have arguably defined the post-World War II period. The curriculum will provide students with a breadth and depth of historical coverage, both domestically and internationally, to help us arrive at understandings of history, memory, and human rights, as well as the complexities that surround these terms.
*This course was awarded the Selby Teaching Fellowship for Excellence by William & Mary*
The Historian’s Craft: World War II:
This course offers students the opportunity to learn about historical writing and research, and to write a substantial research paper on a topic that intrigues and excites them. While we will focus broadly on how history has developed as a discipline, students will learn skills and approaches that are useful in other history classes, in civic life, and in future professional endeavors. With World War II as our thematic focus, we will explore what historians do and examine the myriad approaches they take to making sense of the past.
Global History since 1492, Teaching Assistant:
This course focuses on events and developments that have had a global impact between 1500 and the present, as well as changing interactions among the world’s various regions as they came into closer contact with one another, a process now called globalization.
Special Collections
My role as an Instruction and Research Associate at the Special Collections Research Center has influenced me to encourage students to engage with primary sources to spark their own meaningful reflections about the historical discipline. I challenge students to think critically about not only what a primary source tells us, but also what silences or gaps in the source exist, and how absent components can provide further insight into our analysis of a source and its context. I also supply students with different types of primary sources, including written texts, artifacts, songs, movies, rare books, manuscripts, and more, to inform a more dynamic study of the relationship between the past and present.
I have curated and instructed courses in a number of disciplines and temporalities, including, but not limited to, the following:
- United History to 1877
- German Memoirs of World War II
- Gilded Age and Progressive Era
- William & Mary History and Memory
- American Borders, American Walls
- Social History of American Public Health
- Race and Racism in the Americas
- Civil War Era
- Transatlantic Slave Trade
- Washington, D.C.: History and Culture
- Space, Time, and Spacetime
- Art and the Politics of Memory
- Introduction to Archaeology
- Afro-Indigenous Identities
Student Voices
“Professor Goldberger is an asset to any classroom or program that he is a part of. Over the course of the semester, he has helped me become a better writer and a better class participant. The lessons that he creates and leads are creative and interesting to everyone in the class. As a junior, I have taken a lot of classes and I have never seen a classroom where people are so eager to participate, even the shy kids.”
“Professor Goldberger is very friendly and approachable and tailors discussions to be very inviting and thought-provoking. He is very encouraging when someone chooses to speak.”
“Professor Goldberger is an enthusiastic instructor that uses regular lecture style and cooperative group work to teach lessons and allow for more class participation. He kept the class engaged and focused and I enjoyed his lessons and thought they were instrumental to the success of the class. He is an influential and inspiring instructor, whose energy for our subject matter is contagious and he encourages his students to evaluate and analyze materials in new and creative ways.”
“Professor Goldberger was amazing. He stimulated discussion, gave great feedback that developed my papers, and overall cared about the students for whom he led discussion.”
“Professor Goldberger truly wants his students to succeed and is more than happy to meet people where they are with their research as well as the stage of their careers. As to his teaching, he chooses a wide variety of primary and secondary sources that allow for multiple points of view on a certain topic or event. His enthusiasm for history and his positivity are contagious, both in and out of the classroom. Professor Goldberger’s classes have always challenged my peers and I’s beliefs on everything from small historical details to large questions in a non-intimidating environment, open to any individual who wishes to participate. His lectures incorporate a good deal of individual discussion as well as small-group analyses that contribute to our discussion of the subject matter. Ultimately, he makes the study of history accessible to all, engaging, and incredibly relevant to our world today, as he has encouraged me to push my limits as a scholar and changed my worldview one discussion question at a time, and no doubt will continue to do so in the years to come.”
