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Syllabus Spring 2007 History 240: The Historians Craft TR |
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William Caraher Department of
History |
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Office:
Merrifield 209 a/b Office Phone:
777-6379 Office Hours: TR
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Introduction:
Hello! Welcome back, and I
hope you had a good holiday break. 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 on Blackboard 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 be assessed through a series
of in-class discussions and writing assignments. The final evaluation, however, will come in a
final 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% Prospectus and Thesis
This
will be the second major assignment of the semester and will involve a short
summary of the thesis statement, historiography, and primary source evidence
for your final paper.
20% Short Assignments
These
assignments will generally build toward the final paper and will range from one
page “reaction” papers to in-class writing 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 15 minutes each. The paper cannot run over its allotted time
or it will be cut off. You should plan
to spend 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 in this order: a title page, an abstract, an outline, a
proper bibliography, and proper footnotes.
The paper is due Friday, December 8th, by
Each
of these assignments are expected to be clean, neat,
grammatically correct, and well-organized.
These assignments will have a cumulative effect. Over the course of the semester, I will
expect you to learn from the assignments and develop a more refined mode of expression
and avoid mistakes identified in earlier work.
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 five books and recommends one:
J. Tosh with S. Land, The
Pursuit of History. 4th edition. (
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.
One of the
following:
J. L. Gaddis, The Landscape of
History: How Historians Map the Past.
(Oxford 2002).
E. H. Carr, What is History? (
Recommended:
Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research
for History Students. Oxford 2006.
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: Introduction to
History
Tuesday, January 9th
Introduction
Thursday, January 11th
Herodotus and Thucydides – available on
Blackboard.
Tosh, Pursuit, Chapter 1
Week 2: Getting Started in
Research
Tuesday, January 16th
Tosh, Pursuit, Chapter 2
Thursday, January 18th
Barzun and Graff, The Modern Researcher. 4. ed.
K. L Turabian, A
Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 6th
ed.
Assignment: What is History? Why Study History (500 words)
Week 3: Basic Research
Tuesday, January 23rd
Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research
for History Students. Oxford 2006.
Thursday January 25th
Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to
Research for History Students.
(Oxford 2006), 136-159.
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: Starter Bibliography: 3 Monographs and 3 Articles.
Week 4: Primary Sources
Tuesday, January 30th
Meet at Archives
Tosh, Pursuit, Chapter 3.
Thursday, February 1st
Meet at Archives
Tosh, Pursuit, Chapter 4.
Week 5: The Historical
Method
Tuesday, February 6th
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.
Thursday, February 8th
W. Strunk et al., Elements
of Style. 4th ed. New York 2000.
Assignment: Short Book Review (3-5 Pages)
Week 6 The
Historical Method
Tuesday, February 13th
Tosh, Pursuit, Chapter 5 and 7.
Thursday, February 15th
Historiography
Monograph Review
J. L. Gaddis, The Landscape of History. Oxford 2002.
E. H. Carr, What is History? (
B. Southgate, History: What and Why? (London 2004)
Assignment: Annotated Bibliography
Week 7 The
Style of History
Tuesday, February 20th
Tosh, Pursuit, Chapter 6
Thursday, February 22nd
Midterm Report on Papers
Assignment: Prospectus and Thesis (3-5 pages)
Week 8 Scale and Scope of
History
Tuesday, February 27th
Tosh, Pursuits, Chapter 8
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class.
Thursday, March 1st
C. Ginzburg, The Cheese and the
P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford 2000. 26-49.
Assignment: Outline
Week 9 Contested Histories
Tuesday, March 6th
E. Said, Orientalism.
T. Mathews, The Clash of Gods. rev.
ed.
Thursday, March 8th
Writing the First Draft
March 12th-16th
Spring Break
Week 10 Material Culture and
History
Tuesday, March 20th
K. Verdery, “The restless bones of Bishop Inochentie
Micu” in The
Political Lives of Dead Bodies.
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.
Thursday, March 22nd
Video: Survey on
Assignment: First Draft Due
Week 11 The
Profession of History
Tuesday, March 27th
Read from http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/pres_index.htm:
Andrew Dickson
White, “On Studies of General History and the History of Civilization” (1884)
Charles K. Adams,
“Recent Historical Work in the Colleges and Universities of
Arthur S. Link, “The American Historical Association, 1884-1984:
Retrospect and Prospect” (1984)
William E. Leuchtenburg, “The Historian and the
Public Realm” (1991)
Thursday, March 29th
P. Novick, That Noble Dream:
the "objectivity question" and the American historical profession.
Week 12 History in the
Public Eye
Tuesday, April 3rd
Teaching History
Various Authors,
“Textbooks and Teaching” JAH 78
(1992), 1337-1400.
G. Kornblith and C. Lasser,
“Teaching the American History Survey at the Opening of the Twenty-First
Century: A Round Table Discussion” JAH
87 (2001), 1409-1440.
Thursday, April 5th
Public History
E. Foner, “Ken Burns and the Romance of
T. Cripps, “Historical Truth: An Interview with Ken
Burns,” American Historical Review 100
(1995), 741-764.
Week 13 Peer Review Week
Tuesday, April 10th
Various authors, “What We See and Can't See
in the Past,” Journal of American History 83 (1997), 1217-1281.
Thursday, April 12th
Peer Reviews
Assignment: Second Drafts due on Tuesday; Peer reviews due on
Thursday.
Week 14
Tuesday, April 17th
Writing Day
Thursday April 18th
Open
Week 15
Tuesday, April 24th
Presentations
Thursday April 26th
Presentations
Week 16
Tuesday, May 1st
Presentations
Thursday, May 3rd
Presentations