Historiography (HST 300-9644, Spring 2006)

Historiography

HST 300-9644	Professor Catherine Lavender
Spring 2006	Email \| Office: 2N 203, 718-982-2869
Tuesdays 630-950	Office hours: Tuesdays 530-630 pm, Thursdays 1200-100 pm, and by appointment

About the Course:

This course is an introduction to key analytical concepts, schools of historiography, and great historians through the centuries, as well as major theories, methods, and historical interpretations. We will read historians from Herodotus to current practitioners in the field with an eye towards understanding historiography in its two guises: as the philosophy of history that governs how we look at past events, and as the chronicle of the profession of historical inquiry as it has developed over time.

Course Requirements:

All students are required to attend class meetings, take part in discussions, and submit all written work on time; late papers will not be accepted without prior arrangement with the professor. As per CSI-CUNY regulations, no student with more than two unexcused absences will receive credit for the course.

A Note About Academic Integrity: Integrity is fundamental to the academic enterprise. It is violated by acts such as borrowing or purchasing term papers, essays, reports, and other written assignments; using concealed notes or crib sheets during examinations; copying others' work and submitting it as one's own; and misappropriating the knowledge of others. The sources from which one derives one's ideas, statements, terms, and data must be fully and specifically acknowledged in the appropriate form; failure to do so, intentionally or unintentionally, constitutes plagiarism. Violations of academic integrity may result in failure in the course and in disciplinary actions with penalties such as suspension or dismissal from the College. For information about City University of New York policies on academic dishonesty, refer to the CUNY website at www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/2004/policies/image/policy.pdf

Assignments:

Assignments and Exercises (ongoing) (80% of course grade total)
Class Attendance/Participation (20% of course grade)

Required Texts:

Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (University of Chicago Press, 6th Revised edition, 1996 -- ISBN: 0226816273)

Packet of Essays (to be handed out in class).

Suzanne Desan, "What's After Political Culture? Recent French Revolutionary Historiography,"French Historical Studies 2000 23(1): 163-196. (Retrieve from Library web)

Course Schedule:

Tuesday 31 January What is Historiography?

Tuesday 7 February Historiographical Lecture – “Salem and Witchcraft” (Choose Historiographical Essay to be used in Historiographical Essay Assignment #1)
Readings:
–Suzanne Desan, “What's After Political Culture? Recent French Revolutionary Historiography,”French Historical Studies 2000 23(1): 163-196.

Histioriographical Assignment #1 Choose one of the historiographical essays and read it carefully. Then provide an outline of the historiographical development of that topic. This outline should be in the form of an annotated bibliography (see the example of the "Salem Witchcraft" outline). You will submit two copies of your outline of the essay, one for the professor, and the other for another student (your partner) to critique. – 10% of course grade, due Tuesday 28 February.

Tuesday 14 February Library Session, with Guest Lecturer Professor Edward Owusu-Ansa (class meets in Library Classroom, 1L-214).

Tuesday 21 February Classes follow Monday schedule; No class meeting.

Tuesday 28 February Classical Historiography – Historiographical Essay Assignment #1 Due.
Readings:
–Herodotus, The Persian Wars (selections)
–Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War (selections)
–Tacitus, The Annals (selections)

Histioriographical Assignment #2 Carefully read your partner’s provided outline and your partner’s assigned historiographical essay. Your assignment will be to provide a constructive critique of your partner’s outline. Are there key points which your partner’s outline missed or got wrong? Are there editing errors in the outline? You will submit two copies of your critique (one for the professor, one for your partner, the author of the original outline). – 10% of course grade, due Tuesday 7 March.

Tuesday 7 March Historiography in the Middle Ages and Renaissance – Historiographical Essay Assignment #2 Due.
Readings:
–Augustine, The City of God (selections)
–Niccolo Machiavelli, The History of Florence (selections)
–Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History (selections)

Histioriographical Assignment #3 Using your partner’s critique of your outline, undertake revisions. Submit your original and your revised outline to the professor. – 10% of course grade, due Tuesday 21 March.

Tuesday 14 March FILM: Yo, la peor de todas (part of the Women’s Studies Film Series – Class meets in the Green Dolphin Lounge, Campus Center)

Tuesday 21 March Historiography in the Enlightenment – Historiographical Essay Assignment #3 Due.
Readings:
–Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV (selections)
–Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (selections)
–Leopold von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany (selections)
–Giambattista Vico, "The New Science"
–Immanuel Kant, "Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View"
–Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, "The Progress of the Human Mind"

Histioriographical Assignment #4 Using J-STOR, Project MUSE, America: History and Life and/or Historical Abstracts, Academic Search Premiere, and Worldcat, review what has been written about your topic since the appearance of your original historiographical essay. What are the new historiographical twists and turns which appear in these newer works? As you did with the historiographical essay in assignment #1, write an outline of the newer developments in the field as an annotated bibliography. Submit one copy of this annotated bibliography to the professor. – 20% of course grade, due Tuesday 4 April.

Tuesday 28 March Romantic Historiography
Readings:
–Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "Philosophy of History"
–Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England (selections)
–Friedrich Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State (selections)
–Karl Marx, "The Materialist Conception of History" and "The Inevitable Victory of the Proletariat"

Tuesday 4 April Modern Historiography – Historiographical Essay Assignment #4 Due.
Readings:
–Georgi Plekhanov, "The Role of the Individual in History"
–Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (selections)
–Arnold Toynbee, "The Disintegration of Civilizations" and "My View of History"
–R. G. Collingwood, "History as Re-Enactment of Past Experience"

Histioriographical Assignment #5 Revise your two outlines of your topics historiography into a single outline. Submit a copy of this new outline to the professor, and make 35 copies to be circulated to the members of the class. – 10% of course grade, due Tuesday 25 April.

Tuesday 11 April The Point of Departure in Modern Historiography
Readings:
–T.J. Jackson Lears, "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities," American Historical Review 90 (June 1985): 567-93.
–Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936)," in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1985).
(Online at http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html)
–Antonio Gramsci (Unsigned), “Real Dialectics,”L'Ordine Nuovo, 3 March 1921.
(Online at http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/works/1921/03/real_dialectics.htm)

Tuesday 18 April Spring Break; No Class Meeting

Tuesday 25 April The Linguistic Turn in Historiography – Historiographical Essay #5 Due.
Readings:
–Bryan Palmer, "The Discovery/Deconstruction of the Word/Sign," from Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990): 3-47.
–Carlo Ginzburg, "Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm," from Clues, Myths and the Historical Method (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 96-125.

Histioriographical Assignment #6 Review the outlines of historiographies which have been provided by students in the course. Can you recognize any general historiographical trends from the ways that historians have worked on these various topics? Identify, describe, and document these trends. What do they indicate about the changing ways that historians have looked at history? Document your answer in a five-page formal essay. – 20% of course grade, due Tuesday 23 May.

Tuesday 2 May Postmodernism in Historiography
Readings:
–Michel Foucault, selections from The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982)
–Edward Said, "Introduction," to Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978), and selections from "Overlapping Territories, Intertwined Histories," from Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1993).
–Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," in The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books, 1973): 3-30.

Tuesday 9 May Renaming/Complicating the Subject: Race, Class, Gender
Readings:
–Sean Wilentz, "Artisan Republican Festivals and the Rise of Class Conflict in New York City, 1788-1837," in Working-Class America: Essays on Labor, Community, and American Society, ed. Michael H. Frisch and Daniel J. Walkowitz (University of Illinois Press, 1983): 37-77.
–Alexander Saxton, "Blackface Minstrelsy and Jacksonian Ideology," (1975), in Lucy Maddox, Locating American Studies: The Evolution of a Discipline (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): 114-142.
–Catherine Lavender, “Is She Not a Man?” from Scientists and Storytellers: Feminist Anthropologists and the Construction of the American Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006): 138-162.

Tuesday 16 May Historiography in the Current Moment – Class Discussion of Historiography Projects

Tuesday 23 May Historiographical Essay Assignment #6 Due (by 5:00 pm in the History Department Office, 2N-215)

Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender for History 300 (Historiography), The Department of History, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York. Send email to lavender@mail.csi.cuny.edu
Spring Semester 2006. Last modified: 5/19/2006.

Tuesday 7 February	Historiographical Lecture – “Salem and Witchcraft” (Choose Historiographical Essay to be used in Historiographical Essay Assignment #1)
	Readings: –Suzanne Desan, “What's After Political Culture? Recent French Revolutionary Historiography,”French Historical Studies 2000 23(1): 163-196.

Tuesday 28 February	Classical Historiography – Historiographical Essay Assignment #1 Due.
	Readings: –Herodotus, The Persian Wars (selections) –Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War (selections) –Tacitus, The Annals (selections)

Tuesday 7 March	Historiography in the Middle Ages and Renaissance – Historiographical Essay Assignment #2 Due.
	Readings: –Augustine, The City of God (selections) –Niccolo Machiavelli, The History of Florence (selections) –Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History (selections)

Tuesday 21 March	Historiography in the Enlightenment – Historiographical Essay Assignment #3 Due.
	Readings: –Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV (selections) –Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (selections) –Leopold von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany (selections) –Giambattista Vico, "The New Science" –Immanuel Kant, "Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" –Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, "The Progress of the Human Mind"

Tuesday 28 March	Romantic Historiography
	Readings: –Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "Philosophy of History" –Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England (selections) –Friedrich Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State (selections) –Karl Marx, "The Materialist Conception of History" and "The Inevitable Victory of the Proletariat"

Tuesday 4 April	Modern Historiography – Historiographical Essay Assignment #4 Due.
	Readings: –Georgi Plekhanov, "The Role of the Individual in History" –Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (selections) –Arnold Toynbee, "The Disintegration of Civilizations" and "My View of History" –R. G. Collingwood, "History as Re-Enactment of Past Experience"

Tuesday 11 April	The Point of Departure in Modern Historiography
	Readings: –T.J. Jackson Lears, "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities," American Historical Review 90 (June 1985): 567-93. –Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936)," in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1985). (Online at http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html) –Antonio Gramsci (Unsigned), “Real Dialectics,”L'Ordine Nuovo, 3 March 1921. (Online at http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/works/1921/03/real_dialectics.htm)

Tuesday 25 April	The Linguistic Turn in Historiography – Historiographical Essay #5 Due.
	Readings: –Bryan Palmer, "The Discovery/Deconstruction of the Word/Sign," from Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990): 3-47. –Carlo Ginzburg, "Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm," from Clues, Myths and the Historical Method (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 96-125.

Tuesday 2 May	Postmodernism in Historiography
	Readings: –Michel Foucault, selections from The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982) –Edward Said, "Introduction," to Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978), and selections from "Overlapping Territories, Intertwined Histories," from Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1993). –Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," in The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books, 1973): 3-30.

Tuesday 9 May	Renaming/Complicating the Subject: Race, Class, Gender
	Readings: –Sean Wilentz, "Artisan Republican Festivals and the Rise of Class Conflict in New York City, 1788-1837," in Working-Class America: Essays on Labor, Community, and American Society, ed. Michael H. Frisch and Daniel J. Walkowitz (University of Illinois Press, 1983): 37-77. –Alexander Saxton, "Blackface Minstrelsy and Jacksonian Ideology," (1975), in Lucy Maddox, Locating American Studies: The Evolution of a Discipline (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999): 114-142. –Catherine Lavender, “Is She Not a Man?” from Scientists and Storytellers: Feminist Anthropologists and the Construction of the American Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006): 138-162.