COURSE SYLLABUS

Course Description:This course is a graduate level survey of changes and trends in the research and writing of history as practiced by professional historians. Examining the way that historians from a multitude of ideological perspectives have captured the past will lead students to a better understanding of the history of history as a discipline. This course will focus on various definitions of historical thinking. We will examine how historians use sources to argue from evidence and the way that interpretive frameworks guide the writing of history.

Required Reading:Joseph Moreau, Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks
from the Civil War to the Present
Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History
Beth Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat
Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima
Course Reader

GRADE BREAKDOWN:Zoom: 15%
Modern Media: 10%
Historiographic ARP Essay: 60%
Participation: 10%
Sources of the Past: 5%

Project #1: ZoomFirst, read the following essay: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2952905?seq=2
Second, go to this site and look through the fascinating children’s book, Zoom, by Istvan Banyai: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPeFJJF73k
Third, brainstorm your opening image. This may be from a myriad sources: family history, a story told by your family throughout the years, an acquaintance from childhood, or an antique book you found in a used book store. You do not need the object, so if your Great Aunt Frida can email you a picture of some long lost family heirloom, use it!
Fourth, deeply describe the opening image. This will become the text of your first page. Do any necessary research to help you with this level.
Fifth, begin to place the image/document/story into historical context by taking one zoom out. Do any necessary research to help you with this level. Find an image appropriate to this level of zoom and include it on the next page of your project.
Sixth, zoom out again, a bit broader to see the wider historical context. Find an image appropriate to this level of zoom and include it on the next page of your project.
Seventh, and finally, create a stunning title for your project. The title will go in the center of the top of the first page

(sample Zoom project in class)

Project #2: Modern Media ReviewAs part of this course we are going to learn to apply historical thinking and critical evaluation to film interpretations of the past. We will watch various film clips and read several articles on film as history. For your modern media essay you will be watching and judging the film treatment of a theme. For instance, you might choose mining and watch films like “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Harlan County USA,” and “Matewan.” You should choose at least three films to write about. The theme may be based on an era, like WWII (“Saving Private Ryan,” “The Longest Day,” etc.), or it may be based on a broad theme, like portrayals of military training (“Officer and a Gentleman,” “Top Gun,” “Full Metal Jacket”) You are going to apply historiographical thinking to the movies you watch.
The final project will be a “youtube” essay. Yes, it’s as odd as it sounds. We’ll go over this in class, and you’ll see an example of how to construct your project.

Project #3: Historiographic/ARP EssayYou have the opportunity to write a 7 to 10 page paper (typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font, cited in Chicago Manual of Style). Your essay will be based on the topic you have chosen for your Advanced Research Project. You must discuss the topic from at least five historical interpretations. Plan on reading at least five historical monographs of your topic. This essay will form a major component of your overall ARP and will include an annotated bibliography.
You should approve an historical topic with me, but in general your topic may cover any aspect of history(world, American, Latin American, labor, economic, military, etc.). Your choice of topic is important; the decision should be based on a combination of personal interest, historical value, and historiographic availability.
You should have a basic idea of a topic by the second week of class. As we read the historiography, you can be building your essay. For example, when we read Marxism, try to find a Marxist interpretation of your topic.
Here are some historical themes you might want to consider:
(do I need to say that this is not an exhaustive list?)

Genocide in World History
Prostitution in the U.S.

Jeffersonian America
The Economics of Slavery
WWI Weapons Manufacturing
Lowell Factory System
FARC and Sendero Luminoso (Colombia and Peru)
The Remaking of Rome: From Early Christians to Mussolini
Resistance to Genocide (Holocaust? Darfur?)
Origins of the Great Depression
Leadership in Japan during WWII
Woman Suffrage
Immigration into the U.S.
Revolutions in South America
U.S. Entrance into WWI
Politics of the 1920s
Radicalism in the 1960s
War in Vietnam
Photography and War
Jacksonian America
The Birth of the Bomb
Lincoln and Emancipation
Workers in Hitler’s Empire
Anti-Vietnam War Movement
Disease in the 20th Century
The Gendering of War
Literary Representations of the U.S.
Women in the French Revolution


Project #4: Sources of the Past
This is non-graded writing. I want your most contemplative, experimental, far-fetched writing on this one. All you are doing is keeping a journal throughout the quarter. What will you be writing about? Sources. Each week, jot down a few notes regarding the sources that the authors are using. What types of sources produce what type of history? How do sources lead toward certain types of answers? Do sources define truth? What types of sources would you need to find to be able to access the histories of those groups whose stories normally go unrecorded(children, non-writing cultures, pets, animals, etc.)?

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Week One: Introduction (June 24)Novick, That Noble Dream: Intro, “Nailing Jelly to the Wall” Marwick, The Nature of History Ch. 4: “The Place of Theory”
Foucault on: Power, Moral Values, and the Intellectual:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/michaelbess/Foucault%20Interview

Week Two: Gender (July 1)THEORY: Linda Gordon in Visions of History
Joan Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis”
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE: Nancy Cott Grounding of Modern
Feminism, “Birth of Feminism” Chapter
DOING THE HISTORY:
Sears and Roebuck Catalogue from 1902.
Posters and advertisements from Suffrage, the 1920s, and WWII.

HISTORIOGRAPHIC ESSAY TOPIC DUE:
TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT HISTORY Part One Due:
(we’ll be breaking this reading into three parts)
1. 2. 3.

Week Three: Marxism (July 8)THEORY: E.P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and
Industrial Capitalism,” in Past and Present, no. 38 (Dec.,1967), pp. 56-97.
--and--
Eric Hobsbawm, Interview in Visions of History
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE: Eugene Genovese, The World the
Slaveholders Made Part Two, Chapter Three, “The Critique of Capitalism.”
DOING THE HISTORY:
Documents from the Haymarket Riot

PROJECT #1 DUE TODAY: Zoom
TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT HISTORY Part Two Due:
1. 2. 3.

Week Four: Labor history (July 15)THEORY: Chapter One of Work Engendered , by Ava Baron
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE:
Jeffrey S. Adler, “Shoot to Kill: The Use of Deadly Force by the
Chicago Police, 1875-1920,”Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2007)
DOING THE HISTORY:
Photos and text from the Triangle Fire.

TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT HISTORY Part Three Due:
1. 2.

Week Five: Environmental history (July 22[makeup date?])THEORY: Roderick Nash, “The Potential of Environmental History,”
American Environmentalism (1991)
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE:
Donald Worster, “A river running west: reflections on John Wesley Powell.” Journal of Cultural Geography; Jun2009, Vol. 26 Issue 2, p113-126, 14p

DOING THE HISTORY:
Newspaper accounts and photos of the “Congress created Dust
Bowl” in the Great Central Valley

JULY 29 IS A READING WEEK

Week Six: Bio-history (August 5)THEORY: William McNeil, Preface and Introduction
to Plagues and Peoples
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE:
Alfred Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics
as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 1976, 33 (2): 289-299
Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism, (1986) “Weeds”
DOING THE HISTORY:
Images, graphs, and text from Spanish Influenza

PROJECT #2 DUE TODAY: Modern Media
Week Seven: Oral history (August 12)We meet this week at the Kern County Museum to browse the archives and see the “living history” available at Pioneer Village. Sarah Woodman, the Public Program Manager at the museum, will be our guide. As you prepare for this week, consider the way that oral history might be incorporated into museum space.

THEORY: Donald Ritchie, “An Oral History of Our Time,” Doing Oral
History (2003)
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE: Studs Terkel, The Good War, (1984)
“Neighborhood Boys,” and “Rosie”
DOING THE HISTORY:
Creating historical texts from local communities: having students conduct interviews.

Week Eight: Post-History (post modern, structural, colonial) (Aug 19)THEORY: Fredric Jameson (1991) “Postmodernism or, The
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” (excerpts)
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE:
Michel Foucault, “Panopticism” chapter from Discipline
and Punish
DOING THE HISTORY:

Joseph Moreau, Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks
from the Civil War to the Present

Week Nine: Putting it all into Practice: (August 26)

THEORY: “Truth and Authenticity in Contemporary Historical
Culture: An introduction to historical representation and historical truth,” Christoph Classen and Wulf Kansteiner History and Theory, Theme Issue 47 (May 2009), 1-4
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE: The novel must be read by today. We
are going to tear apart the novel using the various historiographical lenses that we’ve studied. Groups will interpret the novel from gendered, Marxist, post-modern, bio-historical, environmental, labor, or oral historical perspectives. Directions will be given in class.

Week Ten: Breaking borders between categories (Sept. 2)
THEORY: “Unconventional History,” Brian Fay, History and Theory 41,
Theme Issue 41 (December 2002), 72-89
THE THEORY IN PRACTICE: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Introduction
and “Exceedingly Dangerously Ill,” Chapter from Midwife’s Tale

Front Porch to Back Seat Due

Final Paper Due (September 15)
PROJECT #3 DUE TODAY: (Historiographic Essay)
PROJECT #4 ALSO SHOULD BE DONE BY TODAY