Hello, everyone. I had an idea I was mulling over, and wanted to get others' opinions on it.
Lots of pseudohistory is superficially convincing, and it takes experience and knowledge to figure out why most historians don't accept a given theory. (Some theories, of course, are more obviously strange than others -- JFK conspiracies or the theories presented in "1434" are still more plausible than ancient aliens, for example.)
I wondered whether it might be a useful exercise, as part of a historical methods / historiography class, to invite a speaker. The other speaker (a colleague / fellow professor -- not some random conspiracy theorist off the street) would play "devil's advocate", arguing for a fair summary of the pseudohistorical theory in a formal debate. This would be followed by a quick debriefing outlining the major problems with the theory in summary form.
The next class or two can be spent analyzing in greater depth where the errors are, why they were made, and how easy it is to go wrong unless you're careful.
I thought it might be useful to arrange something like this. Debates can be engaging, and they're one of the preferred venues for proponents of pseudohistorical theories to present their ideas. So it would be a good demonstration for why a theory can be a good 20-minute elevator pitch, but can't stand up to the more rigorous scrutiny of peer review.
Anyway, I'd appreciate any thoughts.
I just want to throw this out there: although your instinct to get actual experts debating is admirable, in my experience, students learn much, much, much more about history by conducting the actual research themselves -- over the course of which they become partisan. I would suggest challenging students to uncover why bad histories are incorrect, and then in discussion and in processing, collectively come up with a list of errors made, logical fallacies, evidence ignored, etc., and brainstorm how to spot similar errors even when the content is unfamiliar.
In my experience, while student pay more attention to people live-talking in the room than, say, to a film, they more often than not just zone out if their only role is as an observer.