INSTRUCTOR'S OFFICE:
Social Science Center 117
Hours: W 2:30-4:00, M 10:30-Noon
Phone: 7692

This course has five more specific objectives:

1. Students will become more self-conscious about their role as historians in today's world. In other words, students will be able to articulate what it means to be a student of history, and why the study of history is valuable both for them as individuals and for the larger communities of which they are a part.

2. Students will become familiar with history as an academic discipline. This includes under-standing how the discipline, notions of interpretation, and views of the uses of history has developed over time. It also means recognizing that historians have methodologies, tools of the trade, and conventions of communication. Students will come to understand that history is not a given; facts don't arrange themselves on the page. Rather, history consists in acts of interpretation arrived at and continually revised through individual choices made by historians.

3. Students will be able to evaluate sources critically and use them to construct historical arguments.

4. Students will understand that historians employ a variety of approaches in writing history, such as social, political, intellectual/cultural, and economic. Some are also shaped by ideological or philosophical approaches to knowledge, such as Marxist, feminist, and postmodern. Students will be able to identify these different approaches and articulate similarities and differences among them.

5. Students will appreciate the importance of context in historical thinking. In particular, students will understand that differences in time, place, and social structure matter.

[Thanks to Professor Greg Kaster, from whom I borrowed some of the above language.]

Graded Requirements

As with much in life, the first thing you need to do is show up. Attendance is expected at all class meetings. (My attendance policy appears below.) But just showing up isn't enough! Informed participation in all class discussions is essential to the process of active learning. The reading on which discussions will be based is indicated in the calendar below. Your participation in class (its quality, not its frequency) will be worth one-third of your final grade. The main project, an annotated bibliography will be worth one-third of your final grade. The other short papers and exercises will collectively also be worth one-third of your final grade. Fair warning: Failure to submit all papers and/or a pattern of failure to complete reading assignments, attend class, and/or engage in informed participation may result in an F for the course. Please see me before a problem becomes a crisis!

Attendance Policy

Everyone is allowed one absence without any negative consequences. You do not have to explain the reason for that absence to me, though I do appreciate the courtesy of advance warning (even ten minutes before class by phone or e-mail) so that I don't wait for you before beginning the day's activities. To avoid a grade penalty for additional absences, you must document to my satisfaction that the absences are required by illness, personal or family emergency, or participation in a college-sponsored activity. (The supervising faculty member is required by college policy to provide you with a letter for your instructors spelling out the dates, times and details of necessary absences for such activities.) You should expect to have to do something to make up for missed classes regardless of the cause.

Additional Policies

• The college's expectations of academic honesty, particularly the Honor Code, are enforced in this class. Violations will result in my filing a report with the Dean's office and may result in a failing grade.
• If you have a diagnosed learning disability or any health situation that might have an impact on your ability to complete your assignments, it is your responsibility to let me know about it at the beginning of the semester. Contact Laurie Bickett for documentation. I will make every reasonable accommodation.
• Cell phones should be turned off during class. If you are expecting an urgent call, set the phone to alert you silently, let me know that you may have to leave during class to take the call, and sit by the door for an inconspicuous departure.
• If you borrow course materials from me or the library, you are expected to return them unmarked and undamaged. You will not receive a grade for HIS-200 until all borrowed materials have been returned, or until damaged materials have been replaced.
• Late arrival is sometimes unavoidable, and I would ordinarily prefer that you come late than not at all. However, late arrival is distracting and should be avoided. If it becomes a pattern, there will be unpleasant consequences--a grade reduction or being locked out of the class. If you do come late, please enter as quietly as possible and sit by the door.
  

The following are available in The Book Mark and should be purchased:

Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods

Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History

Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism

Peter Marshall, Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story

Richard J. Evans, Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial

Mary Lynn Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, 5th edition

Calendar of Class Meetings and Assignments

In addition to the books listed above, there are readings that are available on line. Those reading assignments marked (M) are on electronic reserve (Moodle). Those assignments listed as (J) are on JSTOR. Those marked (W) on the paper syllabus will be found below with direct links.

February 12

• Introduction to HIS-200
  
• Library resources for historians
  Our contact in the library is Michelle Twait. While any of the reference librarians will be happy to help you, Michelle is particularly familiar with the expectations and assignments for this course. Click here for the webpage of references that Michelle prepared for this class.

February 19

• The Uses of History
  John Tosh, excerpts from The Pursuit of History, 4th ed., 1-12, 32-51 (M)
  Leopold von Ranke, excerpts (click here)
  J.H. Plumb, "The Role of History," in The Death of the Past (Boston, 1970), 105-6, 136-45 (M)
  G.R. Elton, excerpt from The Practice of History (London, 1969), 15-19, 65-9 (M)
  Peter Laslett, "Understanding Ourselves in Time," from The World We Have Lost (New York, 1965), 228-40 (M)
  Michael Howard, The Lessons of History (New Haven, 1991), 12-20 (M)
  Howard Zinn, "What is Radical History?," from The Politics of History (Boston, 1970), 35-55 (M)
  Alan Bullock, "Has History Ceased to be Relevant?," The Historian 43 (1994), 16-19 (M)
  Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters (Oxford, 1997), 113-28, 199-211 (M)
  
• Personal Statement essay due

February 26

• "That Noble Dream": Objectivity, Historical Knowledge, and the Limits of Possibility
  Howell and Prevenier, 1-16
  Evans, In Defense of History, 1-63
  Carl Becker, "Everyman His Own Historian," American Historical Review [hereafter
  abbreviated AHR] vol. 37, no. 2 (January 1932), 221-36 (J)
  Charles A. Beard, "Written History as an Act of Faith," AHR vol. 39, no. 2 (January
  1934), 219-29 (J)
  Samuel Eliot Morison, "Faith of a Historian," AHR vol. 56, no. 2 (January 1951), 261-75 (J)
  William H. McNeill, "Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians," AHR vol. 91, no. 1 (January 1986), 1-10 (J)
  Eleanor Searle, "Possible History," Speculum vol. 61, no. 4 (October 1986), 779-86
  
• Academic journal prospectuses (click here)
• Annotated bibliography topic due for approval
  

March 4

• Sources
  Howell and Prevenier, 17-87
  Evans, In Defense of History, 65-110
  Rampolla, Pocket Guide, 6-24
  
• Analyzing primary sources exercise (in class)
  
• Using academic journals exercise due
  

March 11

• Approaches to History: Marxism, the New Cultural History, "Cliometrics"
  Howell and Prevenier, 88-118
  Christopher Hill, "Marxism and History," Modern Quarterly 3 (1948), 55-8, 60-4 (M)
  Eric Hobsbawm, "Marx and History," in On History (New York, 1997), 157-70 (M)
  Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural
  History (NY, 1984), 75-104, 257-63 (M)
  Robert William Fogel, "The Limits of Quantitative History," AHR vol. 80, no. 2 (April
  1975), 329-31, 336-46, 349-50 (J)
  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (NY, 2001), 3-8, 12-25, 174-207 (M)
• Writing and Researching History
  Rampolla, 25-33, 43-87
• Annotated bibliography: list of books in one topic division with process narrative due
  

March 18

• Causation/Gender
  Evans, In Defense of History, 111-63
  Howell and Prevenier, From Reliable Sources, 119-43
  Bennett, History Matters, 6-81
• Using scholarly book reviews exercise due
  

April 1

• Postmodernism, Multiculturalism, and Historical Knowledge
  Evans, In Defense of History, 165-92, 210-20
  Bennett, History Matters, 108-52
  Gertrude Himmelfarb, "Postmodernist History," and "Of Heroes, Villains, and Valets," from On Looking Into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society (New York, 1995), 27-49, 131-61 (M)
  Joan Wallach Scott, "History in Crisis? The Others' Side of the Story," AHR vol. 94, no. 3 (June 1989), 680-92 (J)
• Plagiarizing and Quoting
  Rampolla, 88-100
  
• Annotated bibliography: complete list of 6 books due by Thursday
  

April 8

• Marshall, Mother Leakey, vii-xiv, 1-157
  

April 15

• Marshall, Mother Leakey, 158-272
• Annotated bibliography: two completed entries due

April 22

April 29

May 6

• History in the Community
  Meet at the Treaty Site History Center (north of St. Peter) at 2:00; presentation by Director Ben Leonard
• Annotated bibliography due.
  

May 13

May 20

• Richard Evans, Lying About Hitler, chaps. 1-4, 6-7
  
• Thinking Historically: Evaluation and Reflection
  

Final exam week

• Critical analysis of monograph exercise due