How is history recorded? Who decides which stories find their way into our collective understanding of the past, and which stories become forgotten by the ages? How are our perceptions of events of the past shaped by the media through which we are exposed to them? Does technology help or hinder our window into the past?

These are just some of the many questions posed by our rapidly changing world of technology and our attempts to interface with it. The central issue in these questions, however, is timeless: based on the materials of expression left behind by humans, how can we learn about the past? How do we as a people, not just artists or diarists, communicate ideas, sentiment, or memory from our perspective to others? Simply put, based on the material record of the past historians ask: how do we know what we know?

This FIG begins with these critical questions but narrows the scope of analysis to that of the academic community of the University of Oregon. Hidden History is dedicated to recording, sharing and examining what it means to be a Freshman Duck and how your generation documents its experience of navigating American society in the 21st century. While we explore the history of student life at Oregon and how it has evolved, we will pause along the way to turn a critical eye towards theories of agency and subjectivity, and the role which these and other theories play in determining history as we know it.

During our journey we will encounter many material windows into the past. We will start by comparing student life at the UO today as an incoming Freshman to that of Lucile Saunders in 1915 through the lens of her fall term journal and correspondence with family. We will explore the University Archives to discover student voices spoken through yearbooks, scrapbooks, letters, photographs, artifacts and blogs. We will reconstruct the 1937 “Invasion of Eugene” by the rival Aggies using newspaper and photographic evidence, along with screening the first entirely student‐made feature‐length film in the world shot here on campus, Ed’s Coed.

We will listen for voices from the past – and not just from old textbooks but from real student work, real people, and real lives. Perhaps most importantly, this FIG strives to empower Freshmen to become active producers of history rather than passive consumers. Each student will produce a series of materials over their first term, which will document their experience as first‐year students at the UO. Our class will conclude with a formal donation ceremony at the University Archives where students will archive their creations in an ever‐growing collection of stories, art and memories of FIG students from previous years. We hope that our studies in Hidden History will provide not only a better understanding of the subjectivity of historical events, but also more refined skills in acting ourselves as the creators of history.

Find out more about the class in the full syllabus (forthcoming).