Historical Methods and Philosophies of History

Transcription

1 History 498 University of Calgary Dr. David B. Marshall Fall Term 2009 Office: SS 638 Tel: Web Page: Historical Methods and Philosophies of History The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to the traditions and practices of the craft of history. In this seminar, there will be three parts or sections. Part I: This section will focus on the foundations of historiography. It will cover some of the major philosophic or intellectual influences in western historiography, specifically the classics, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the role of philosophy and the Enlightenment, and the rise of science. Part II: This section will focus on the main current of western historiography over the last century. The emphasis will be on modernism and its focus on national history. We will also explore the post-modernist challenge to the main features of modernist history, especially its reliance on the meta-narrative to explain national experience. These seminars will concentrate on both the perspective and methodology. Part III: This section will explore public history or how history is remembered and understood in the public sphere. Emphasis will be on how the public commemorates, celebrates and uses the past. Methods to convey the past to a wide or popular audience will also be explored. Assignments A)Term Paper Weight 50% Length: 15 pp. double-spaced including notes and bibliography. Essays MUST conform to the Department of history essay Guide available on line at: Due: Last Week of Classes, Wed. Dec. 9th. N.B.There is no seminar that day as classes end Dec. 8 th.

2 Students are to develop their own historiographical topic in consultation with the instructor, and perhaps their Honour s advisor. Historiographical papers often focus on how historians have interpreted a certain topic or how a major event has been interpreted by historians over the generations. Other approaches include studying a school of historical thought or practice or analyzing the work of an influential historian and its influence. Any topic covered in the seminars can also be expanded into a term paper. B) Seminar Participation Weight 30% Students MUST come to every seminar prepared to discuss the readings. The quality of the seminar is determined by the willingness of the students to discuss the readings and debate with each other. Mere attendance at seminars without lively and informed participation does not meet the standard of excellence expected of Honour s students. C) Seminar Presentation Weight 20% Students will be responsible for one seminar presentation. They will select a book or series of articles from any of the seminars in Parts II or III and deliver a book report to the class. These reports should stress the historiographical contribution of the work under review. They are not to be summaries of the contents. Student should design their reports so that historiographical issues are explicitly defined for class discussion. Schedule of Seminar Topics and Recommended Readings Part 1: Roots All the readings for this section will be from: -Burrow, John, A History of Histories: Epics Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century (available in the textbook store) -Tosh, John, The Pursuit of History Sept. 16: Seminar # 1 Classical Roots Sept. 23: Seminar #2 Judeo-Christian Roots Sept. 30: Seminar #3 Philosophical (Enlightenment) Roots Oct.7: Seminar #4 Scientific Roots

3 Part II: Approaches, Methods, Sources Oct. 14: Seminar #5 The Modernist Approach (National History) Case Study: The Frontier Thesis and the American National Character -Turner, Frederic Jackson, The Significance of the Frontier in American History -Benson, Lee, The Historical Background of Turner s Frontier Essay Agricultural History Vol.25, No.2, April Cronon, William, Revisiting the Vanishing Frontier: The Legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.18, No.2, Apr Ridge, Martin, Frederick Jackson Turner, Ray Allen Billington and American Frontier History, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.19, No.1, Jan Nash, Gerald B., Creating the American West: Historical Interpretations -Hofstadter, Richard, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington Part II Chapters 2-4 on Turner Oct. 21: Seminar #6 Post-Modernism Challenging Turner -Limerick, Patricia, Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West -Limerick, Patricia, et al., eds., Trails: Toward a History of the New West -Limerick, Patricia, Turnerians All: the Dream of a Helpful History in an Intelligent World, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.100, No.2, June The Legacy of Conquest by Patricia Limerick: A Panel of Appraisal, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.20, No.3, Aug Fragher, John Mack, Review Article: The Frontier trail: Rethinking Turner and Reimagining the American West, American Historical Review, Vol.98, No.1, Feb Worster, Donald, New West, True West: Interpreting the Region s History, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.18, No.2, Apr Malone, Michael, Beyond the Last Frontier: Toward a New Approach to Western American History, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.20, No.4, Nov Emmons, David, Constructed Province: History and the Making of the Last American West, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.25, No.4, Winter Bogue, Alan, The Significance of the History of the American West: Postscript and Prospects, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.24, No.1, Feb Johnson, Susan Lee, A Memory So Sweet to Soldiers: The Significance of Gender in the History of the American West, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol.24, No.4, Nov Oct. 28: Seminar #7 The Post-Modern Approach (Micro-History)

4 -Davis, Natalie Zemon, The Return of Martin Guerre -Ginzberg, Carlo, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller -Corbain, Alan, Village of Cannibals?: Rage and Murder in France, Demos, John, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America -Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, A Midwives Tale: the Life of Martha Ballard Based on her Diary, Colley, Linda, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History -Cooper, Afua, The Hanging of Angelique: the Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal -Brewer, John, A Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century Nov. 4: Seminar #8 New Sources: Material History and Photographs -Burke, Peter, Eyewitnessing History: the Uses of Images as Historical Evidence -McDannell, Colleen, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America -McDannell, Colleeen, Picturing Faith: Photography and the Great Depression -Sandweiss, Martha, Print the Legend: Photography and the American West -Williams, Carol, Framing the West: Race, Gender and the Photographic Frontier in the Pacific Northwest -Ames, Kenneth, Meaning in Artifacts: Hall Furnishings in Victorian America, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol.9, No.1, Ames, Kenneth, Death in the Dining Room and Other Tales of Victorian Culture -Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth Part III Memory, Myth and Public History Nov. 18: Seminar #9 Remembering and Commemorating the Past -Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: the Great War in European Cultural History -Winter, Jay, Remembering the War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century -Gregory, Adrian, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day -Vance, Jonathan, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War -Duffy, Dennis, Complexity and Contradiction in Canadian Public Sculpture: the Case of Walter Allward American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol.38, No.2, Summer Maroney, Paul, Lest We Forget: War and Meaning in English Canada, , Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol.32, No.4, Winter Thomson, Denise, National Sorrow, National Pride: Commemoration of War in Canada, , Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol.30, No.4, Winter

5 -Gordon, David & Brian Osborne, Constructing National Identity in Canada s Capital, : Confederation Square and the Canadian War Memorial, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 30, No.4, Oct Nov. 25: Seminar #10 Myth and the Creation of a Usable Past -Reid, Jennifer, Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada: Mythic Discourse and the Post- Colonial State -Owram, Doug, The Myth of Louis Riel Canadian Historical Review, Vol. LXIII, No.3, 1982 Celebrations and History in the Public Square -Gordon, Alan, Heritage and Authenticity: The Case of Ontario s Sainte Marie Among the Hurons, Canadian Historical Review, Vol.85, No.3, Sept Gordon, Alan, Heroes, History and Two Nationalisms: Jacques Cartier, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, Vol.10, Gordon, Alan, Making Public Pasts: The Contested terrain of Montreal s Public Memories, Rudin, Ronald, Marching and Memory in Early Twentieth Century Quebec: La Fete Dieu, la Saint Jean Baptiste, and le Monument Laval, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, Vol.10, Rudin, Ronald, Founding Fathers: The Celebration of Champlain and Laval in the Streets of Quebec -Cupido, Robert, Appropriating the Past: Pageants, Politics and the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, Vol.9, Coates, Colin & Cecilia Morgan, Heroines & History: Representations of Madelaine Vercheres and Laura Secord -Nelles, H.V. The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec s Tercentenary -Osborne, Brian, Constructing Landscapes of Power: The George Etienne Cartier Monument, Montreal, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol.24, No.4, 1998 Dec. 2: Seminar #12 History and Film Canada: A People s History -Dyck, Lyle, A New History for the New Millennium: Canada A People s History, Canadian Historical Review, Vol.85, No.1, March Friesen, Joe, Canada: A People s History as Journalists History History Workshop Journal, Issue 56, Allan, Gene, The Professionals and the Public: Responses to Canada: A People s History, Histoire Sociale/Social History, Vol.68, Nov Abel, Kerry & Jane Errington, Visual History Reviews Canadian Historical Review, Vol.82, No.4, Dec. 2001

6 The Valour and the Horror, Part 1, Savage Christmas, Hong Kong, 1941 Part II, Death By Moonlight: Bomber Command Part III, In Desperate Battle, Normandy Bercuson, David & Sid Wise, eds., The Valour and the Horror Revisited Passchendaele produced by Paul Gross Monographs on History & Film -Highes-Warrington, Marnie, History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film -Toplin, Robert, Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood -Rollins, Peter, Hollywood as Historian: American Film in Cultural Context Emergency Evacuation Assembly Points have been identified across campus in case of an emergency evacuation. Should an emergency occur, our class would assemble at the Social Sciences Food Court. See the following link for a complete list of assembly points: