Syllabus
Spring 2006
History
240: The Historians Craft
Section 2
MWF
William
Caraher Office:
Merrifield 209 a/b
Department
of History Office
Phone: 777-6379
william.caraher@und.nodak.edu Office Hours: MWF
and by appointment
Introduction:
Hello! Welcome back, and I hope you had a good holiday. The following syllabus outlines the philosophy,
procedures, and standards for this class.
Most of the course material will be posted on the class web site
including readings, assignments, and general news and notes that will keep you
up to date on the progress of the class.
The
class itself will be organized as a seminar where we will discuss common
readings and our progress toward the completion of a term paper. It is vital, then, that we all keep up on the
reading, engage it thoughtfully, and be open to a wide variety of
opinions. Weekly reading assignments in
addition to a research paper will make this a busy semester! In the end though,
you will have acquired a whole array of basic research skills and knowledge.
This course will reward in equal measure creativity
and discipline.
Course
Goals:
The
primary goal of this class is to teach you the basics of historical research. This is a broad task with many components
ranging from improving your library skills, to fine tuning your writing
ability, to developing a greater sense of self-awareness as a young scholar. At times these diverse goals will seem to run
counter to one another, but we will strive as a class to demonstrate how
historical research, writing, and study are fundamentally interrelated. To
summarize, then, the goals of the class:
Assignments
and Grading:
This class will have
two courses. One course will focus on
the intellectual and academic traditions of the field of history. In order to understand the ideas central to
the discipline of history it will be necessary for you to complete the weekly
readings and participate in classroom discussions. This course will culminate in a midterm exam
and produce a paper that demonstrates an awareness of history as a discipline
rather than simply events which have taken place the past.
The second course will focus
on the production of a piece of original research. This paper will require you to analyze and
interpret primary sources as well as
to demonstrate a familiarity with secondary
literature. The paper is expected to
be well-written and to be accompanied by a professional, oral presentation. Over
the course of your progress toward this goal, it will be necessary for you to
share your ideas, problems, and successes with your classmates.
20% Short Book Review
This
will be the first major assignment of the semester and will emphasize your
ability to critique the thesis of a published academic work. It will also introduce you to my grading
criteria for written work.
20% Midterm
The midterm will focus on the
readings in historiography over the first 8 weeks of the semester. It will emphasize your ability to think
carefully about the abstract concept of “history” both as a discipline and as a
field of human inquiry.
20% Short Assignments
These
assignments will generally build toward the final paper and will range from one
page “reaction” papers to bibliographic work and peer review exercises.
40% Final Paper (10% presentation/30% paper)
The
paper will be both written and presented.
The presentations will take place over the last two
weeks of the semester and be 10-12 minutes each. The paper cannot run over its allotted time
or it will be cut off. You should plan
to spend 3-5 minutes answering questions after your paper.
The text of the paper should be 10 pages in length
double spaced in Times New Roman 12 point font with 1.25 inch margins left and
right and 1 inch margins on top and bottom.
In addition to the 10 pages of text, your paper should include a title
page, an abstract, a proper bibliography, and proper footnotes. The paper is due the last day of class:
Monday, May 1st. I cannot
accept late papers.
Weekly
The readings in this class will be challenging! I do not expect you to understand every word
of every reading. (Sometimes I
won’t!) I do, however, expect you to
read each assignment carefully and do your best to extract meaning from each
assignment. To do this, it is important
that you do not “give up”. The only way
to improve your reading skills is to read challenging books and understand them
the best you can.
This class requires three books:
J. L. Gaddis, The
Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Oxford 2002.
K. Turabian, A
Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 6th ed.
W. Strunk et al., Elements
of Style. 4th ed. New York 2000.
In addition to these books, there will be regular
online readings. In general, I will post
these readings on the Blackboard page as Adobe PDF files. You can then either read them on your
computer screen or print them out and take them to class. I would generally recommend that you take
notes on all the readings and bring them to class for discussion.
Week
1
11 January – Introduction
13 January – Introduction (Herodotus and Thucydides
available on Blackboard)
Week
2
16 January – No
Classes
18 January –
Mommsen,
“Rectoral Address” (delivered at the
http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/why/blackeyintro.htm
http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/WhyStudyHistory.htm
20 January – Discussion
Assignment: What is
history? Why study history? (500 words)
Week
3
23 January
–
Barzun
and Graf, The Modern Researcher. 4 ed.
K.
L. Turabian, A
Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 6th ed.
25 January
– Archives?
27 January
– Archives?
Assignment:
Starter Bibliography: 3 Monographs and 3 Articles.
Week
4: From Topic to Thesis
30 January
–
W.
V. Harris, “On War and Greed in the 2nd C. BC,” American Historical Review 76 (1971), 1371-1385.
R.
MacMullen, “Social Mobility and the Theodosian Code,” Journal of Roman Studies 54 (1964), 49-53.
1 February – Discussion
3 February – Electronic Resources
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.4/denbeste.html
From:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/
K.
Schrum, “Surfing for the Past: How to
Separate the Good from the Bad”
Roy Rosenzweig, "Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a
Digital Era"
David A. Bell,
"The Bookless Future: What the
Internet is Doing to Scholarship"
Assignment: Short
book review (3-5 pages)
Week 5: The Study of History as a Method
6 February –
R.
G. Collingwood, “The Subject Matter of History” from The Idea of History,
E.H.
Carr, What is History?
8 February –
J.
L. Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How
Historians Map the Past. Oxford
2002.
10 February – Discussion
Assignment: Annotated
Bibliography
Week
6: The Scale and Scope of History
13 February
– Book Review Critique
15 February –
C. Ginzburg,
The Cheese and the
P.
Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting
Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History.
Oxford 2000. 26-49.
G.
Kornblith, “Making sense of quantitative evidence”
17 February – Discussion
Week
7: History using Material Sources
20 February
–
J.
B. Jackson, “The Westward Moving House,” Landscape
2 (1953), 10-42.
E.
F. Athanassopoulos, “Historical Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes,” from Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes:
Current Issues. Ed. by E.
Athanassopoulos and L. Wandsnider. Philadelphia 2004. 81-98.
W.
R. Caraher, “A Second Fortification on
22 February
– Discussion
24 February
– Interim Reports on Papers
Assignment: Thesis
and Outline
Week
8: Contested Histories: Whose History is it?
27 February
–
E.
Said, Orientalism.
Y.
Papadakis, Echos from the Dead Zone.
London 2005. 1-44.
T.
Mathews, The Clash of Gods. rev. ed.
1 March
– Discussion
3 March
– Outline Critique
Week
9: The Profession of History
6 March
–
http://www.historians.org/governance/pd/Curriculum/plagiarism_intro.htm
Arthur
S. Link, “The American Historical
Association, 1884-1984: Retrospect and Prospect,” American Historical Review 90
(1985), 1-17.
P.
Novick, That Noble Dream: the "objectivity question" and the
American historical profession.
8 March – Midterm
Exam
10 March
–
Spring Break
13 –
Spring Break
15 –
Spring Break
17 –
Spring Break
Week
10: History as a Discipline
20 March
– Writing the First Draft
W.
Strunk et al., Elements of Style. 4th
ed. New York 2000.
22 March
– Excerpts from Various Author
24 March
– First Draft Due
Week
11:
27 March
– First Draft Critique
29 March
–
Various authors, “What We
See and Can't See in the Past,” Journal
of American History 83 (1997), 1217-1281.
31 March
– Discussion
Week 12 Teaching and Public History
3 April
–
A.
Hood, “The Practice of [American] History: A Canadian Curator’s Perspective,” Journal of American History 81 (1994),
1011-1019.
J.
Fleming, “
T.
Cripps, “Historical Truth: An Interview with Ken Burns,” American Historical Review 100 (1995), 741-764.
Read
2 articles from: The History Teacher:
http://www.historycooperative.org/htindex.html
[R.
Starn, “A Historians Brief Guide to New Museum Studies,” American Historical Review 110 (2005), 68-98.]
5 April
– Discussion
7 April
– Discussion
Week
13 Second Drafts
10 April
– Second Draft Due
12 April
– Peer Review
14 April
– No Class
Week
14
17 April
– No Class
19 April
– Abstracts, Outlines, Formatting
21 April
– Presentations
Week
15
24 April
– Presentations
26 April – Presentations
28 April – Presentations
Week 16
1 May – Presentations