Writing and Interpreting History: Silences of the
Past
History 202, Fall 2001
Office Hours: TT 9:00-9:30; 2:00-3:00 and by appointment
Syllabus
Weekly Assignments
Topic I: What is History and the role of the Historian?
Week 1: What is "history"? How does it differ from the past?
What is the role of the historian in retreiving and interpreting the past?
These questions will provide focus for discussion on the nature of history.
August 27: Introduction: What is History?
Begin watching The Body
August 29: The Body, continued
Read Chapters 1 and 2 in Wilson
Guidelines for Essay on "What is History?"
Week 2: Can history change? What developments can cause our view or knowledge of the past to change? The readings and discussion for this week will address these issues.
September
3 The Role of the Historian and Challenges
of History
Prologue, "The Strange Death of Silas Deane" in After the Fact, The
Art of
Historical Detection, by James West
Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, on Electronic Reserve; Chapter 2 in
A Short Guide to Writing about History, by Richard Marius, on
Reserve in the library .
Questions
for Discussion
Topic II: How do we know about the past?
September
5 Primary Sources
Read “Declaring Independence” and “The Mirror with a Memory” from
After
the Fact, on Reserve in the Library
Week 3: What sources can historians use to learn about the past? What sorts of questions should historians ask about their sources? How does past scholarship shape the questions we ask about the past? Class will focus on the sources of the past and how historians (should?) use them.
September
10: The Brave New World of History: The Internet and Academic Honest
Assignment
September
12: The History of History
Review Wilson; Read Wilson, Chapters 3 and 4
Questions for Discussion and Assignment
Week 4: How has the study of history changed in the twentieth century? What new "isms" and "ologies" have come to inform historical study? Class will focus on these questions, as well as coming to understand the concept of historiography.
September 17: History in the Twentieth Century: The Isms that Inform
Wilson, Chapters 5, 6 and 7
September
19: What is Historiography?
Assignment
Week 5: Historiography is an essential element for understanding how historians have interpreted the past. We will be doing an in-class project trying to define historiography, as well as having a lecture modeling the recent historiography of the family.
September 24:
Historiography Modeled: Family and Non-Elites
Hanawalt, pp. 3-15; Ozment, pp. 11-14; Ginzburg, pp.
xi-xxvi: Chapter 3 in Marius, A Short Guide to Writing about History,
on
Reserve.
Questions for Discussion:
September
26: Forum on Schools of Historical Approach
Forum Guidelines
Topic III: How do historians “do” History?
Week 6: How do historians try to fill the silences of the past? Several members of the history department will come to class this week and talk about their quest to fill a silence of the past. We will also being discussion of how Barbara Hanawalt has tried to fill in the silence of peasant lives.
October 1
Primary Sources and Peasant Families
Hanawalt, Chapters 1 and 2; Primary source Packet handed out in class
Guidelines for discussion
October 3
Discussion of The Ties that Bound
Hanawalt, Chapters 3-8
Guidelines for discussion
Week 7: Our discussion of how Barbara Hanawalt has tried to uncover the lives of medieval peasants will continue and we will begin consideration of Magdalena and Balthasar.
October 8
Discussion of The Ties that Bound
Hanawalt, Chapters 9-14
Guidelines for discussion
October 10
Primary Sources and Private Life
Ozment, Chapter 1; source packet and questions handed out in class.
Questions for Discussion
Week 8: We will begin our discussion of Magdalena and Balthasar by Steven Ozment. Central to our discussion will be considering how his conclusions about private life in the pre-modern world compare with those of Barbara Hanawalt. Consideration of their differing methodologies and approaches will also be a topic for discussion.
October 15 Discussion
of Magdalena and Balthasar
Ozment, Chapters II-IV
Questions for Discussion
October 17
Filling a Silence: The Wittenberg Historians
Assignment
Week 9: Discussion of Ozment's study of family life in the Reformation will continue. We will explore the significance of this book to historiography and evaluate the book as a whole.
October 22 Fall Break
October 24
Discussion of Magdalena and Balthasar
Ozment, Chapters V-Epilogue
Questions for Discussion
Week 10: Our focus will move from family life in the sixteenth century to examining the intellectual life of a sixteenth-century miller. Central to our discussion will be the sources upon which Ginzburg bases his study of Mennochio.
October 29 The
Cheese and the Worms and Primary Sources
Ginzburg, pp. 1-18
Assignment with link to source
reading
October 31
Ginzburg’s Approach to the Past
Ginzburg, pp. 18-65
Questions for Discussion
Guidelines for Source Analysis Essay
Week 11: Consideration of Mennochio and his intellectual development will continue.
November 5
Mennochio as representative of the 16th Century
Ginzburg, pp. 65-128
Questions for Discussion
November 7
Filling in the Silence: The Wittenberg Historians
Assignment
Topic IV: Can Historians be Objective?
Week 12: We will begin our final topic of the semester: historical objectivity. Discussion this week will center on The Return of Martin Guerre. Some time this week we will watch the film The Return of Martin Guerre as a class. Pizza will be provided!!
November 12
Discussion of The Return of Martin Guerre
Davis, Chapters 1-6
Questions for Discussion
November 14
Discussion of The Return of Martin Guerre
Davis, Chapters 6-12, Epilogue
Questions for Discussion
Week 13: Was Natalize Zemon Davis objective in her rendering of The Return of Martin Guerre? What have other scholars criticized about her approach? How does she respond to these criticisms?
November 19 Challenges
to Davis' Objectivity
Robert Finlay, "The Refashioning of Martin Guerre, " in The American
Historical Review
(AHR), 93 (June 1988), pp. 553-571, available through JSTOR
at http://www.jstor.org/
Please note: This link to JSTOR is only available through computers on
campus (i.e. those in
the library or writing labs).
Questions for Discussion
November 21 Davis Responds
Natalie Zemon Davis, "On the Lame" AHR, 93 (June 1988), pp.
472-603, available through
JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/
Please note: This link to JSTOR is only available through computers on
campus (i.e. those in
the library or writing labs).
Questions for Discussion
Week 14: Thanksgiving Break!! No class on Tuesday or Thursday
Week 15: Our discussion of historical objectivity continues. This week we will examine the Black Athena contraversy. Was Bernal objective in his discussion of the origins of Greece? How do the criticisms made of Bernal's work compare with those aimed at Zemon Davis?
December 3 Black Athena
Martin Bernal, "Black Athena: The African and Levantine Roots
of Greece" on electronic reserve.
The access code is liv202
Questions for Discussion
December 5 Response to Bernal's Black
Athena
Read, Introduction, pp. 3-26 in Black Athena Revisited,
ed. by Mary Lefkowitz and Guy
MacLean Rogers on Electronic Researve (access code liv202), “The
Use and Abuse of Black
Athena,”by Molly Myerowitz Levine; “Black Athena II: History
without Rules,” by Robert L.
Pounder, pp. 440-465 in AHR available through JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/
Please note: This
link to JSTOR is only available through computers on campus
(i.e. those in the library or writing
labs).
Questions for Discussion
Week 16: We will conclude the course by examing what we have learned this semester about the study of the past. What are the implications of the Black Athena controversy? What are some of the lessons to be learned from the criticisms of Bernal and Natalie Zemon Davis? What are the "rules" of history? Should there be "rules" to history?
December 10 Debate: Objectivity and Subjectivity
or are there rules for history?
Guidelines for Debate
Philosophies of History
December 12 Closure: The Rules of History
Questions for Discussion
December 13, 4:00 p..m. Essay
of Synthesis due
Turn in
disk containing all essays clearly labeled with your name, the course name
and the term