HIST 5339: Historical Theory & Methodology

Instructors:  Adam, Morris, Reinhardt

 

Course Description This course is an introduction to the discipline of history and is required for all History M.A. And Ph.D. Students. No prior knowledge of historiographical issues is expected or required. The course will be accessible to students regardless of their particular field of interest or concentration. The course will immerse students in the ongoing debates among historians over what it is they do and how they can choose to do it.

We will begin by considering broad philosophical problems, surveying the social theories underlying (explicitly or implicitly) much of modern historical thought, and then reviewing recent trends in the discipline. We will examine in greater detail some of the innovative work being done in comparative history, social history, gender history, and the new intellectual and cultural history.

Goals and Objectives The goal of the course is to familiarize students embarking on the graduate-level study of history with the epistemological problems inherent in the discipline, the basic methodologies of historical research, the kinds of source materials available, and (more generally) the range of options open to historians.

 

Examples of Readings

The Theory of History

                    Emergence of the Social Sciences/Modern Social Theory

• Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt & Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York, 1994)

• Anthony Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim, and Max Weber (Cambridge, 1971)

• Peter Tosh, The Pursuit of History, revised 3rd., (London, 2002)

Practical Applications

             Politics, Ideas, & Language

• Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (Berkeley, 1989)

• Hans Kellner, "The Deepest Respect for Reality," in Language and Historical Representation: Getting the Story Crooked (Madison, 1989), 3-25

• Peter Novik, That Noble Dream. The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988)

                    Economy, Society, and Mentality

• Robert Darnton, "Workers Revolt," in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984), 74-104

• Lawrence Stone, "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History," The Past and the Present Revisited (London, 1987), 74-96

Anthropological Approaches

• Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1969), 3-30

• Clifford Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cock Fight," The Interpretation of Cultures, 412-53

• Alan McFarlane, Reconstructing Historical Communities (Cambridge, 1977)

Conflicting Interpretations

• Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Mass., 1983)

• Natalie Zemon Davis, "On The Lame," The American Historical Review, 93 (1988), 572-603

• Robert Finlay, "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre," The American Historical Review, 93 (1988) 553-571

Women’s History/Gender History

• Sandra Lipsitz Bem, " Introduction" and "Construction of Gender Identity" in The Lenses of Gender. Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New Haven, 1993), 1-5, 133-75

• Roy Porter, "History of the Body," in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (University Park, Penn., 1991), 206-32

• Joan Wallach Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," in Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988), 28-50

Microhistory: Community Study Approach

• Kenneth Lockridge, A New England Town. The First Hundred Years: Dedham, Massachusetts, 1630-1736 (New York, 1985)

• Christopher Morris, Becoming Southern: The Evolution of a Way of Life, Warren County and Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1770-1860 (New York, 1995)

Macrohistory: Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons

• Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism. The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge, 1986)

• Eric Wolf, Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley, 1982)

Conclusion

• Gertrude Himmelfarb, "Some Reflections on the New History," American Historical Review, 94 (June 1989), 661-70

• Keith Jenkins, Re-thinking History (London, 1991)

• Joan Wallach Scott, "History in Crisis?: The Others’ Side of the Story," American Historical Review, 94 (June 1989), 680-92