HISTORY 600 QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION (please print out and bring
to class)
Think about how you would answer these questions,
and then speculate on what historical influences led you to
answer the question this way (or if you don’t know, just say "je ne
sais pas"). Then, think about how one of the historians you have
read so far in K, or read about in B, would answer the question
(where relevant).
What is the purpose of studying history? (translation: Who am
I? Why Am I Here?).
What is Historiography, and why do I have to study it? How
come every other entering graduate student in history all over the
country from Harvard to UCLA is doing the same thing this year?
Does History have a purpose? In other words, is history
teleological? If so, what is that purpose, and can humans possibly
hope to understand it?
Are there "lessons" of history? If so, does it matter – i.e., can
we actually hope to apply the "lessons of history," if there are
any?
To what extent do we/should we study history to
inform/influence/affect the present?
Some people read history for sheer entertainment value. Is that
ok?
What is "presentism," and should I avoid it?
To what extent can I trust accounts of historical events from
those who were not eyewitnesses?
Is historically basically a collection of stories that we have
all agreed are true? Or does history have some higher truth value?
Is history linear or cyclical? Or, does history move in any
direction in particular? Can we know the "direction of history"?
Where should the history department be in the university: in the
social sciences, or in the humanities?
When we set out on our courses of study, is it more important for
historians to concentrate on "the elites," those relatively few in
power in a given society, or on the masses of people who actually
made the history? So, for example, acknowledging that both are
important, who should we study first, that is, who should receive
priority attention: Caesar Augustus or the citizens of the Roman
Empire? The feudal land owner, or the serfs? American slaveowners,
or American slaves?
HISTORY 600:
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Fall 2007
Professor Paul Harvey: COB 2055. Ext. 4078. Email: pharvey AT uccs DOT
edu
weblog:
http://usreligion.blogspot.com
This course is
intended to introduce M.A. students to the professional study of
history. We will learn about the history of the discipline of history,
and analyze some critiques of the assumptions of the discipline. We
will also investigate the patterns of
historiographical controversy using a variety of examples,
including for example recent scholarship on the Holocaust, on early
American history, on Late Antiquity, and from the perspective of
comparative world history. Finally, we will survey historians’
writings from the ancient world through the Enlightenment, and survey
the practice of history writing more generally from the ancient world
to the present. The intent through the semester is to have "theory"
and "practice" talk to each other.
PAPER AND CLASSROOM ASSIGNMENTS
-
Short discussions and papers:
a) Research/Reference Tool
Exercise: due Aug. 29 and Sept. 5
b) Short (2-3 pp.) document analysis of any historian in K, 1-370:
due Sept 19
c) short (2-3 pp.) report on history blog
or listserv that you have followed through the semester: due anytime
after Thanksgiving -- start with blogroll
at
http://hnn.us, click on "Cliopatria"
and search history blogs from there. Or
start looking at listservs at
http://h-net.msu.edu, click on "discussion networks" (or go
directly to
http://www.h-net.org/lists/).
-
Two short (2 pp.) "brief summary and
critique" papers:
due at various times, divided up alphabetically (see syllabus weekly
schedule).
-
Class Discussion Leadership:
Each student (in tandem with a partner) will be responsible for
"leading off" and guiding the class through one week of discussion,
by reading a short summary and critique, along with providing
discussion questions, for the article or book in question, and then
leading class together with your partner.
-
Big Questions of History “State of the Art Paper:
due Oct. 31, see further instructions below
-
Critical Essay:
A comparison/contrast of at least three of the works of
"macro" and "micro" history that we have read from Sept. 26 to Nov.
14. Due anytime from Oct. 31 to Nov. 14, but not later than
Nov. 14.
-
Final Projects: Two
options:
A) Paper on An Historian or School of History, including any
HISTORIAN(S) and/or SCHOOLS OF HISTORY that we have read or
read about in Kelley and Breisach.
B) a major essay synthesizing some theme
or topic that we have covered during the semester (such as
nationalism, the Holocaust, or gender and history).
8–10 pp.; topics to be negotiated individually with each student
GRADING:
Class Participation and Discussion
Leadership, Informal Discussion and Short Critique
= 25%
Big Questions Paper: 15%
Critical Essay = 30%
Final Project = 30%
REQUIRED BOOKS
Donald Kelley, VERSIONS OF HISTORY FROM
ANTIQUITY TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT
(K)
Ernst Breisach, HISTORIOGRAPHY:
ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, MODERN (B)
Peter Brown, THE WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY (LA)
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A MIDWIVE’S TALE (U)
David Brion Davis, INHUMAN BONDAGE:
RISE AND FALL OF SLAVERY IN THE NEW WORLD (D)
Reza Aslan, NO GOD BUT GOD: THE
ORIGINS, EVOLUTION, AND FUTURE OF ISLAM (A)
Christopher Browning, ORDINARY MEN (OM)
|Benedict Anderson, IMAGINED COMMUNITIES (IM)
Daniel Richter, FACING EAST FROM INDIAN COUNTRY (R)
ARTICLES ON RESERVE
– as noted on syllabus
COURSE SCHEDULE
PART
ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE DISCIPLINE AND THE HISTORY OF
HISTORY
Aug. 22:
Introduction
Read: Louis Menand, “To the Finland
Station,” on reserve
Aug. 29
The Discipline and Practice of History: An
Introduction and Practical Guide
Reports on Research and Reference Tools Exercise
Read: K, 1-69; B, pp. 1-40
Sept 5 Discipline and Practice of History: Practical Guide, Continued
Historiography: The History of History
Reports on Research and Reference Tools Exercise
Read: K, pp. 69-167; B, pp. 40-121
Sept. 12
Historiography: The History of History,
Continued
Read: K, 167-311. ; B, pp. 121-171
Reports on pre-Enlightenment Historians
Sept. 19
Historiography: The History of History; They Keep Going and Going . .
.
Read: K, 311-439; B, pp. 171-199
Reports on pre-Enlightenment Historians
PART II:
NATIONALISMS, SLAVERIES, RELIGIONS, ECONOMIES:
MACRO HISTORY, WORLD HISTORY, AND “THE BIG PICTURE”
Sept 26
Late Antiquity: Lightening Up the Dark Ages
Read: LA, all
Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization,
chapter 1
Online discussions of Late Antiquity discussions
K, 439-474; B, pp. 199-215
Oct 3
Islam: Past, Present, Future
Read: A, all
Oct 10
Can The SubAltern Speak? Native American
Encounters
Read: R, all
Oct 17
Slavery: Here, There, and Everywhere
Read: D, all
Oct 24
Nationalisms, Imagined Communities, and Manufactured Patriotisms
J, all
B, 215-268
Oct 31
World Economic Dominance and World History
Read: articles on world history by Kenneth
Pomeranz, et al, from
American Historical Review, on reserve
Assigned Macro Question Reports (see more information below)
PART III:
MICRO-HISTORIES
Nov 7
Women’s Worlds, and Gender in History
Read: U, all;
Joan Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” on
reserve
Nov 14
Police Battalion 101 and the Holocaust
OM, all (except afterword)
Nov 28
Police Battalion 101 and the Holocaust, Part II
OM, afterword;
Goldhagen, selections
from Hitler’s Willing Executioners, on reserve
Goldhagen, “The Evil of
Banality,” on reserve
CONCLUSION: HISTORY AS ART?
SCIENCE? BOTH?
NEITHER?
Dec 5
Schools of History
Reading: B, 268-end
Dec 12
Final Projects: The End of History?
Research and
Reference Tools Exercise:
LIBRARY RESEARCH EXERCISE: Prepare a short oral presentation
(and write it up in paper form, 1–2 single–spaced pages, to turn in to
me) for class Aug 29 and Sept 5, in which you do the following:
***describe this
particular library resource to us,
***give us an idea
of why you would want to consult this particular resource
***give us a “show and tell” on how to
use this resource, and
***give us a “show and tell” on how you
have used this resource to find one particular item of interest. Or,
imagine a topic for which this resource would be useful, and then show
us how you would use this resource (use your imagination!)
Note: for printed sources, please Xerox
a relevant page or two and make a few extra copies to pass around to
class to do your show and tell. For web sources, just be ready to give
us a computer demonstration. I will give you an example in class of
how to use “Prospector,” the Colorado online library catalog, to
acquire quickly materials held in libraries all over the state.
October
31: “Big Question” Night
Each student will be assigned one
of the following five questions. Your task will be to prepare a
short (about 5-6 pp.) “state of the art”
analysis of the relevant sources, historiography, and arguments on the
question by the major historians in the field. Your report should also
include a survey of how you went about doing your research – what
resources you used, what proved to be useful (or not), and how well
you think this question has been answered in the literature. You may
NOT use “Wikipedia.” Your research should
focus on major books and articles in the field; the internet may be
used to LEAD you to those books and articles (such as through the
library catalogs, relevant blogs, J-STOR,
or other databases), but your research should not be based on
information coming from websites. You should list at least one major
primary source in your bibliography as well as a selective list of the
best secondary sources.
1)
How do we understand the
Indian Mutiny of 1857 from the perspective of Indians, particularly of
those who led or participated in the revolt? Is that even possible?
Can the subaltern speak?
2)
Did racism lead to the
slavery of Africans, or did the enslavement of Africans create racism?
In other words, which came first: slavery or racism?
3)
What was the relationship, if
any of Protestantism to the rise of capitalism?
4)
Why did Europe, instead of
Asia, rise to world economic dominance in the 18th and 19th
centuries?
5)
"Why is that you white people
developed much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people
had little cargo of our own?” (hint: quote from Jared Diamond)
6)
Was there a Renaissance for
women?
7)
How and why did a 1st
century “cult of Jesus” become “Christianity”?