Day 1 -- Paris: Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern

A Student-Led Tour of Early Paris

Today we will be considering our city in the two millennia before our story begins in 1850. The tour will be led by the three teams below. When we come to a place that is particularly relevant to understanding life in one of the three period, the team focused on that era will share some of what they know about life in Paris at the time. The map at the bottom of this page shows the route that we will be taking, and some of the spots where we will be stopping for groups to speak are marked with a letter. (Note that only certain locations will be relevant to your group.)

The sites that you will be considering will be spread across our path, and it would require too much walking to visit them all in chronological order. Therefore, we will be moving back and forth among the groups and forward and backward in time as we walk.

Preparing to Conduct the Tour

To successfully complete your sections of the tour, it will obviously be necessary to do some background reading on your period in general and on some of specific spots you will be covering. By following the link for your group below, you can gain access to historical secondary sources that should provide you with all the information that your team will need. This might involve learning something about specific events or a more general understanding of how Parisians were experiencing their city at that time.

Below you will find links to readings arranged by period, that will help your team prepare your part of the tour. You will have some time to work with your team members on the day of the tour, but you will need to gain an understanding of the period before you leave for Paris. Therefore, I would like you to complete the assignment below. It will provide 10% of your grade.

An Assignment to Email to Me By 5:00 PM May 7

(dpace@indiana.edu)

Complete the Following Steps:

• Read over the sources below and decide which four you would be most interested in exploring in depth before class begins.
• Come to the orientation meeting (March 27, 5:30-7:00) prepared to discuss with your team mates which sources each of you will be responsibile for. (In some cases more than one person may read the same source.) If you are out of town and unable to come to the orientation send me a list of the five sites you would most like to read from most to least desirable, and your list will be taken into consideration when the teams divide the readings.
• When you have determined which of four sources you are going to work on, read them carefully and write paragraphs on what information each provides that will be helpful for your team's presentations to the rest of the class. Remember that you are looking for general patterns that tell us what life was like at a particular period, as well as specific information about that spot. In some cases you may want to share general material that would be of use and of interest to the members of other groups at some point in the tour, even if you cannot tie it to a specific spot.
• Email your paragraphs to me by May 8.
• Feel free to share ideas with the other members of your team before you leave for Paris, if you feel so inclined.
• Email me if you have any questions about the process or if anything in the readings is not clear.
• Print out a copy of your paragraphs and bring them to Paris to share with your team in the final preparations for the tour.
• If you have time, read the remainder of the sources for your period.

Here are the teams and the links to sources:

Here is the route that we will be taking: