Methinks you do not understand the term... musings on teaching

Quite frequently I notice that professors make references in lecture to concepts or people that the majority of the students either don't understand or have never heard of. In European history classes it tends to revolve around terms from Marxism that are never explained or contextualized, Cold War history in general, and a whole slew of 19th and 20th century Intellectual history. They are all elements that were either part of the professor's personal experiences (Cold War), or an integral part of the way they were trained as grads and undergrads before the social/cultural turn- when history was still the realm of great men thinking and doing great things.

In this class it means I get research papers like this one "D'Annuzio and Mussolini: the search for the Superman". In which the author at one point concludes: "After a long life of adventures and being the ubermensch that he was, he died on March 1st 1938 by a heart attack, quite a non-Superman way to die I might add. This does in fact show he is human."

Hmmm perhaps kryptonite would have been more appropriate? All 12 glorious pages of this paper are based on comments that the professor made in lecture: that D'Annunzio was a classic example of the Nietzschean superman. If you know who Nietzsche was and what he meant by the superman the comparison is apt, but the professor failed explanation as to why the comparison was important or even appropriate- which is why I have a research paper that states ad nauseum that D'Annunzio was a perfect example of the Superman but Mussolini wasn't (b/c his Superman image was purely propagandistic). Again, not incorrect, but it's clear from the writing that the student couldn't tell me what Nietzsche meant by the Superman if pushed even slightly. (I'm half waiting to read that D'Annunzio could leap tall buildings in a single bound...)

Of course, the student should have taken the 10 min on Wikipedia to look up what Nietzsche's conception of the Superman was, but this is also a lesson for me regarding the necessity to fully explain and contextualize the terms I chose to use, and not to make assumptions regarding what my students know. 

ok, enough procrastinating, back to grading.