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Introduction
How
have -- and do -- historians think about history? Taking Richard T. Ely's words as inspiration, I have designed
this course to give the history major, regardless of field, a broad overview
of the ways in which historians in the Western nations have approached their
task from antiquity to the present (but with the emphasis on the twentieth
century). Reading a mixture of
historiographic and primary writings, we will explore the shifting variety of
theoretical frameworks that historians have brought to bear on their work. During the last weeks of the semester, the
students will extend this survey to the present-day by reading recent works in
the newest fields of history and by interviewing historians at UW-Madison about
their "theories of history." You will not become an expert in any field of history by taking this
seminar; but you will certainly put yourself, in Ely's words, "in a
position to learn something." In
particular, this course will give you an excellent foundation for work on a
senior thesis.
Along
the way, you will have ample opportunity to improve your powers of critical
analysis. Over the course of the
semester, students will learn to read closely, to think incisively, and to
express their thoughts with economy, clarity, and precision. It will be an intensive and challenging
experience that will demand a lot of your energy, but it should ultimately
prove rewarding.
Organization
of the Course
Format. The class will meet seminar-style, that is,
once a week for two hours of intensive discussion. After the first class meeting in Fred Hall, the seminar will meet
in one of the History Department's seminar rooms (5245, 5255, 5257
Humanities). Be sure to check the sign-up
sheet at the receptionist's desk in the History Department office (3211 Humanities)
each week before heading up to the seminar rooms.
Attendance. When a small group meets weekly for a
two-hour discussion of assigned readings or current research, as we will be
doing, faithful attendance is absolutely critical; so is regular and thoughtful
participation in the discussions. Before you sign on, therefore, think carefully about the commitment that
this seminar entails. You will need to
set aside adequate time each week not only to do the reading and to write a
brief analysis of it (during the first part of the semester--details below) but
also to think concretely about the issues that you would like to discuss in
each seminar and to prepare discussion questions when your turn comes (see
below). Although our routine changes in
the second part of the semester, it will be no less demanding. If an illness or other emergency forces you
to miss class, let me know as soon as possible.
Readings. For details, see the Schedule of
Readings below. Copies of the articles
or chapters that marked with a single asterisk will be available for borrowing
in the "out" box on my office door (4103 Humanities). Please return them promptly! If books are available in paperback, I've
ordered them at the University Bookstore (except for those marked tentative). Reserve copies of all the books may be found
at College Library or at the Historical Society library (in some cases, at both
-- check MadCat). I will
periodically distribute bibliographies of recommended readings, some of which
will be placed on reserve as well.
In
addition to the works included on the Schedule of Readings below, participation in the seminar requires that you have ready access to another
set of books, which I think of as the "Historian's Toolkit."
The works listed below are indispensable for
history majors -- indeed, with the exception of the last three, they are
critical for all students in the humanities and social sciences. If you are not yet familiar with them
already, now is the time! All have been
ordered at the University Bookstore and are also available on reserve.
William
Strunk, Jr., and E. G. White, The Elements of Style, 3d ed. (New
York: Macmillan, 1979).
Kate
L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations,
5th ed., revised and expanded by Bonnie Birtwistle Honigsblum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Jacques
Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, 5th ed. (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992).
M.
Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley, Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, 4th ed.
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
1994).
Richard
Marius, A Short Guide to Writing about History (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989).
David
Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).
Raymond
Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of
Culture and Society, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
For
inspirational reading, finally, I would recommend:
Marc
Bloch, The Historian's Craft (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1953).
Class
Discussion. Working in teams of two
or three, the students will take turns guiding discussion each week. The discussion teams will meet with me to
plot strategy a day or two before seminar, so be sure to factor that into your
schedule.
Written
Work. The pre-requisite for
fruitful discussion is a close and careful reading of the assigned works. Since nothing forces and enhances
understanding like the task of formulating and expressing one's thoughts on
paper, the students will write weekly analyses of the assigned readings for
roughly two-thirds of the semester.
These
weekly papers may be no longer than two pages (typed, double-spaced, 1"
margins) and should seek both to summarize the main points of the current
week's readings and, as the semester progresses, to relate them to our previous
readings. The papers will be due at the
beginning of each seminar and will receive a letter grade. For the first few weeks, you will receive
detailed editorial comments, which you should heed in subsequent writing (with
the aid of items in your Historian's Toolkit). Thereafter, the burden will be on you for self-improvement, although I
will continue to point out problems and you should, of course, feel free to
discuss any questions with me.
During
the last two weeks of the semester, the students will interview historians at
UW-Madison about their "theories of history." After you have selected a historian to
interview, you will read sample works by your chosen historian and draft
interview questions. In seminar we will
polish and finalize a core set of questions that will form the starting point
for the individual interview. These
interviews, on which the students will report in class, will, in turn, form the
basis for a short paper (max. 10 pages, due during exam week). Your goal in this paper will be to elucidate
the interviewed historian's perspective on theory and to situate it in the
historiographical context that we will have developed over the course of the
semester.
Grades: These will be based on the weekly papers (75
percent) and on the final paper (25 percent), with participation as the
critical factor if your results fall between official grades.
Electronic
Communication: For those who have
email accounts, I will set up an email class list for outside-the-classroom
discussion and communication.
SCHEDULE OF READINGS
September
7
Introduction,
mechanics of course, etc.
September
14
*
Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987),
Preface + chs. 1-3 (pp. ix-xi, 1-82);
*
Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), chs. 1-2 (pp. 27-80).
Browse
in Raymond Williams, Keywords.
September
21
Donald
R. Kelley, ed., Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment
(New Haven: Yale University Press,
1991), complete.
September
28
Fritz
Stern, ed., The Varieties of History:
From Voltaire to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1972/3), complete.
October
5
*
Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American
History," in The Frontier in American History, Foreword by Wilbur
R. Jacobs (Tucson: University of
Arizona Press ,1986), pp. ---;
*
[Frederick Jackson Turner], "The United States, History: From 1865 to 1910," Encyclopedia
Britannica, 14th ed., vol. 22, 1929/30, pp. 810-30;
*
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which
Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880
(orig. pub. 1935; Cleveland and New York:
The World Publishing Company, 1964), chs. 16-17 (pp. 670-737).
Browse
in Raymond Williams, Keywords.
October
12
Peter
Novick, That Noble Dream: The
"Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988).
*"AHR
Forum: Peter Novick's That Noble
Dream: The Objectivity Question and
the Future of the Historical Profession," American Historical Review
96 (June 1991): 675-708.
October 19 -- seminar rescheduled to Tuesday,
October 24 (the paper due on Oct. 12 will be returned by October 18)
October
24
No
reading assignment for this seminar meeting.
Instead, rewrite last week's paper (the one due Oct. 12), paying
particular attention to the task of integrating that week's reading with the
previously assigned materials. I will
hold extra, sign-up office hours on Wed., Oct. 18, and on Mon., Oct. 23, for
those who would like to meet with me to plan or finalize their revisions. This process should result in a finely
crafted, highly polished essay. Be sure
to make good use of your Historian's Toolkit!
The seminar will meet in abbreviated session on Oct. 24 so that we can do
a post-mortem on the rewriting experience.
October
26
Eric
Foner, ed., The New American History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).
November
2
Lynn
Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
November
9
William
Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin, eds., Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1992), complete.
November
16
Simon
Schama, Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (New York:
Knopf, 1991);
Multimedia
history (CD-ROM) on reserve at the College Library InfoLab (2nd floor of Helen
C. White).
November
23 - Thanksgiving break
November
30
James
Chandler, Arnold I. Davidson, and Harry Harootunian, eds., Questions of
Evidence: Proof, Practice, and
Persuasion Across the Disciplines
(Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1994), complete;
*[article
on interviewing techniques -- to be selected]
We
will spend the first hour to hour-and-a-half discussing Questions of
Evidence and the remaining time discussing preparations for your upcoming
interviews.
December
7
No
assigned reading this week. Use your
time between Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 to familiarize yourself with the work of the
faculty member whom you will interview and also to meet individually with me to
plan your interview strategy.
At
this seminar meeting, we will prepare a set of core questions for the
interviews. Please draft a set of
generic interview questions and bring them to the seminar.
Between
Dec. 7 and Dec. 14, the students will interview their chosen historians about
their theories of history and begin to write papers (max. 10 pp.) that situate
the historians' responses in the historiographical context that we have
developed over the last fourteen weeks.
December
14
Having
completed their interviews, the students will present brief, oral reports in
seminar and use the feedback to improve their final papers, which are due
during exam week.
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