http://www.web.pdx.edu/~ott/hst300/index.html

John S. Ott
Portland State University
Summer 2008

HST 300: The Historic Imagination

(M-TH, 8:00-11:00, CH 494)

Course description

HST 300: The Historic Imagination is designed to introduce History majors and minors to the basic issues of historical source interpretation, methodologies, historiography, and pedagogy that historians must face in their professional discipline, and whose mastery is essential to any understanding of History’s central role in human affairs. This course therefore explores, primarily through lecture, discussion, and in-class exercises, the historian’s craft: tools, methods, and language. Among the topics considered: the history of historical understanding; the elusive nature of the “fact”; objectivity and subjectivity; source interpretation and its problems; twentieth- and early twenty-first-century schools and methods of historiography; and history in the modern pedagogical canon. We will also hone research skills and familiarize ourselves with some of the tools central to historical research, with an eye toward preparing students to succeed in the department’s upper-division research seminars (HST 407).

Course objectives

To explore the history and philosophy of History as a field of human inquiry, exploration, and action;

To acquire a basic comprehension of different schools of historical thought and their methods and theories;

To gain basic mastery of the resources available for historical research at and through Millar Library;

To develop our own nascent philosophy of History and historical processes;

To develop awareness of the past’s complexity, its uses, and its manipulations in both the past and the present.

Course materials

All texts below are required and available for purchase at the PSU Bookstore.

E. H. Carr, What is History? (Vintage Books, 1961)

Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, trans. John and Anne Tedeschi (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)

Walter Prevenier and Martha C. Howell, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (Cornell University Press, 2001)

Norman J. Wilson, History in Crisis? Recent Directions in Historiography, 2d ed. (Prentice Hall, 2005)

A course packet (CP), available for purchase at Clean Copy (on SW Broadway across from Cramer Hall). One copy of the packet is also on 2-hour reserve at Millar Library.

Suggested texts (not at the PSU Bookstore, but available through booksellers like Powells.com) for students seeking help with research and writing:

Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students (Oxford University Press, c2007)

William Kelleher Storey, Writing History: A Guide for Students, 2d ed. (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. (University of Chicago, many reprints), a widely available text that condenses the Chicago Manual of Style, now in its 15th edition (Chicago University Press, 2003)

Criteria for evaluation

Students will be evaluated according to their completion of the criteria below. Failure to complete any single assignment will be grounds for a “no pass” in the course. Assignment guidelines will be posted here well in advance of deadlines.

- Attendance, preparation of readings, and active participation in class discussion. I consider this a critical component of every class I teach. Attendance will be taken daily; it is the student's responsibility to sign the attendance sheet. Excellent attendance without oral participation will usually be assessed a grade of “C.” Weak attendance with little or no participation will be assessed a grade of “C-” or lower - 25%

- Library research “mission” to acquaint yourselves with Millar’s resources for historical research, due in class Monday, August 25 - 20%
| Assignment Guidelines |

- Short written essay (ca. 4-5 pp.), due in class Tuesday, September 2 - 20% | Assignment Guidelines |

- Annotated course syllabus project, due in class Thursday, September 4 - 35% | Guidelines for syllabus project |

Plagiarism policy

Plagiarism, intentional or unintentional, is an intolerable infraction in any setting where ideas are exchanged and discussed. I routinely uncover plagiarized papers each year. Detecting plagiarism is extremely easy. Papers that can be shown to have been plagiarized will automatically receive an “F” grade. Students will be required to resubmit their papers, and will be deducted in their grade an amount appropriate to the late paper policy given in the assignment guidelines. Repeated or particularly egregious offenses may give cause for additional action. Remember, ignorance is no excuse. If you are unsure what constitutes plagiarism, you may test yourself at this web site maintained by Indiana University: http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/plagiarism_test.html. I consider as plagiarism work submitted for other courses and turned into me as original, and will ask students to submit new, original work.

Students with disabilities

Students with disabilities who need additional consideration for the timely completion of any of the course requirements should speak to the instructor at the beginning of the term, and must be registered with PSU's Disability Resource Center (drc@pdx.edu).

E-mail policy

E-mail can be a superb tool by which students communicate with the course instructor with questions about the course material, content, and assignments. It is especially useful for providing feedback to student ideas and for commenting on student theses or paper topics. But please bear in mind the following:

- I consider 48-72 hours to be a reasonable period in which to respond to inquiries. I am usually much faster than this, but not always.

- I will not, in general, respond to student e-mails received after 5:00 p.m. until the following day(s), nor will I generally respond to student e-mail sent after 5:00 on Friday until Monday morning. Please plan accordingly.

- Please remember to identify yourself and state your query as clearly as possible.

- I will not fill in students who miss class on the details of a particular lecture or discussion. Please seek that information from your fellow students.

Course Syllabus

M (8/18) Introduction to course themes and requirements

What is History? What is the value in studying the past?
Lecture1: Historiography in the Ancient World: Greece and Rome

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I. History, Historians, and Historical Writing, seen Historically

T (8/19) The History of Historical Writing I: the Ancient Paradigm

Readings:

E. H. Carr, What is History? chaps. 1-2;

Norman Wilson, History in Crisis? pp. 1-13;

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnensian War, Book I, Chapter I (to "The Causes of War") (On-line at: http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.1.first.html)

Lecture2: Historiography in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

W (8/20) The History of Historical Writing before the Modern Age: Medieval and Renaissance Historiography; Voltaire and the Enlightenment

Readings:

"The Chronicle of Bourbourg" (handout);

Niccolo Machiavelli, History of Florence, Book III, Chapter I (On-line at: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/m/machiavelli/niccolo/m149h/chapter17.html);

Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV, trans. M. P. Pollack (New York, 1969), pp. 1-5, 320-338, 452-60 (CP)

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II. Methodologies: Getting After the Elusive ‘Fact’

TH (8/21) What is a fact? What is a source? Yeah, sez who? How do you find them? Then what?

Readings:
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Walter Prevenier and Martha Howell, From Reliable Sources, chs. 1-3 (pp. 17-87) and pp. 119-143;

Carr, What is History? chap. 3 (pp. 70-112) and chap. 4 (pp. 113-143);

Wilson, History in Crisis? ch. 2 (pp. 17-27)
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In-class exercise and handout : reading ‘facts’

MEET IN MILLAR LIBRARY, ROOM 160, AT 8:00 FOR PRESENTATION BY HUMANITIES REFERENCE LIBRARIAN GRAHAM HOWARD
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III. The advent of 'modern' History

M (8/25) Leopold Von Ranke and Karl Marx: positivism and its critics

Reading:

Leopold Von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teuton Nations, pp. 1-19 (On-line: http://www.archive.org/details/historyoflatinte00rankuoft);
Karl Marx, A Critique of the German Ideology, parts A and B (“Idealism and Materialism” and “The Illusion of the Epoch”) (On-line: http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01.htm);
Wilson, History in Crisis? pp. 14-16, 53-59

Lecture4: Von Ranke and Positivism: the birth of ‘modern’ history writing
Lecture5: Karl, Marx, Historian

LIBRARY RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT DUE, IN CLASS

T (8/26) Presentism/Historicism

Readings:

Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History, (On-line at: http://www.eliohs.unifi.it/testi/900/butterfield/introduction.html); Chap. 2, “The Underlying Assumption” (On-line at: http://www.eliohs.unifi.it/testi/900/butterfield/chap_2.html); and Chap. 3, “The Historical Process” (On-line at: http://www.eliohs.unifi.it/testi/900/butterfield/chap_3.html);

R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford, 1946), pp. 282-315 (CP);

Wilson, History in Crisis? chap. 3 (pp. 28-46)

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IV. Case studies and new frames of analysis: Clio and the other muses

W (8/27) The Annales School, Social History, and Microhistory

Readings:

Wilson, History in Crisis? pp. 70-86;

Prevenier and Howell, From Reliable Sources, pp. 109-112;

Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms (read all)

Lecture6: The Annales School of historiography
Lecture7: Everyday life and Microhistory

TH (8/28) Psychohistory and the Foundation of Gender Studies

Readings:

Prevenier and Howell, From Reliable Sources, pp. 88-109;

“The Madness of John Brown: The Uses of Psychohistory,” in James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, 5th ed. (McGraw-Hill, 2004) (CP);

Joan Kelly, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Women, History, and Theory (Chicago, 1984), pp. 19-50 (CP);

Wilson, History in Crisis? pp. 94-99, 114-119

M (9/1) NO CLASS, LABOR DAY

Readings: Wilson, History in Crisis? pp. 114-119; ;

T (9/2) Gender, Foucault and Postmodernism

Readings:

Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (NY: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 76-100 (http://www.thefoucauldian.co.uk/ngh.pdf);

Joan Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” The American Historical Review 91:5 (December 1986): 1053-1075 (J-Stor);

Wilson, History in Crisis? pp. 119-125 and chap. 7;

SHORT ANALYTICAL ESSAY DUE, IN CLASS

W (9/3) Postcolonialism and non-western historiographies

Readings:

Edward Said, Orientalism (NY: Vintage Books, 1979), ‘Introduction,’ pp. 1-28 (CP);

YouTube: Interview with Edward Said on Orientalism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw)

Joseph C. Miller, “History and Africa/Africa and History,” The American Historical Review 104:1 (February 1999), 1-32 (J-Stor);

Wilson, History in Crisis? chap. 8

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IV. Reflections on the historian’s craft, subjectivity, and pedagogy

TH (9/4) History in Crisis? The Future of the Past inside the classroom and out

Readings:

Gilbert Allardyce, “The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course,” American Historical Review 87:3 (Fall 1982), pp. 695-725 (J-Stor);

E. H. Carr, What is History? chaps. 5-6;

Norman J. Wilson, History in Crisis? chap. 9;

Prevenier and Howell, From Reliable Sources, pp. 143-150;

Joyce Appleby, “The Power of History,” in The American Historical Review 103:1 (February 1998), 1-14 (J-Stor)

***SYLLABUS PROJECT DUE IN CLASS TODAY***