History 5880
Graduate Seminar: History and Theory
Semester: Fall 2010
Instructor: Associate Professor Marianne Kamp
Office: History 358
Phone: 766-5103
Email: [email protected]
Class meets: Thursday, 3:10-5:30 pm, Business 23
Office hours: Mon 10-11; Tues 1-3; Wed 11-12
Introduction:
The graduate seminar in history and theory is an introductory course for all students entering the
History MA program. The central purpose of this course is to introduce students to the theoretical
approaches that have informed and shaped the writing of history, with a heavy focus on twentieth
century directions in theory. We will read a broad spectrum of writings, including works that elucidate
theory, and works that put theory into practice. Students will build on this introduction to theory in a
substantial paper that explores the historiography of a topic of their own interest (related to their
proposed thesis), analyzing the uses of theory in that body of historiography.
Second, this course focuses on professionalization: students will expand research methods, learn about
professional organizations for historians, locate potential conferences and write sample conference
proposals, and find grants for research and write sample grant proposals.
Third, this course is set up to allow students to meet the faculty of the history department and to learn
something about the interests or areas of expertise of faculty members.
E-companion:
The REAL syllabus for this course is on e-companion. E-companion is an electronic course platform that
you are already enrolled in, by virtue of having enrolled for this course. To find and use the ecompanion
platform, go to http://ecampus.uwyo.edu and follow the login instructions. After logging on, click on the
‘Academics’ tab, then select this course, and you will find a navigable syllabus. You will need to use
ecompanion all the time in this course, because this instructor does not believe in paper. Download
readings in the pdf form to your own flashdrive, and then you will never be able to tell me that you
could not find or access the readings. You will submit papers via ecompanion, and I will grade them and
return them electronically.
Required Readings:
The required readings for this course include five books for purchase from the University Bookstore, and
a large selection of chapters and articles that will be found in .pdf form on the ecompanion for this
course. The books are listed below; the list of articles will be found in the bibliography on ecompanion.
Articles will be referred to by author last name in the weekly assignments below.
Burke, Peter. What is Cultural History? Second edition. (Cambridge: Polity Press 2008)
Carr, Edward Hallett. What is History? (New York: Vintage 1961)
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and other Episodes in French Cultural History. (New York:
Basic Book, 1984).
Said, Edward. Orientalism. (New York: Vintage 1979)
Writing History: Theory and Practice. Second Edition. Eds. Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner, Kevin Passmore.
(London: Bloomsbury Academic 2010).
I suggest that you purchase a copy of A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 7th
edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers…a book which is also casually known as Turabian.
This volume sets out the basic style that historians use for reference and citation.
Course Requirements:
You are required to prepare for every class session by doing the assigned reading, to be present for each
class session and to participate actively in discussions. You will write several small papers (3 to 5 pages,
meaning 750-1250 words) and one large final paper (15-20 pages, 3750-5000 words). You will take the
lead role in discussion of certain readings, and you will present your own work to the class. You will read
and comment on other students’ papers.
Papers will be submitted and returned electronically. You will be expected to follow “Chicago style”
footnote and bibliography citation format for this course. Chicago style is explained in A Manual for
Writers of Term Papers…, and in much more excruciating in the Chicago Manual of Style, which you can
find
in
the
reference
section
of
the
library.
The major assignment for this class is to write a 15-20-page (3500-5000 word) detailed, polished, and
comprehensive critical essay that analyzes the general historiography on a well-defined historical topic
of your choice, preferably one directly related to your MA thesis research project. The student will
define this topic in consultation with the instructor. The paper will start with early approaches and
conclude with a state-of-the-art analysis of contemporary research. It will clearly identify the theoretical
approaches and personal and societal biases that have influenced the conclusions reached by each new
generation of historians. Finally, the paper should suggest possible new sources, methods, and
theoretical approaches relevant to the topic, including those that the student hopes to apply to his/her
MA thesis research. Consider this an early opportunity to read and think about your topic from a “big
picture” perspective before plunging into the archives or more focused research. This exercise will help
you identify and narrow down your research topic, place it within a broader historiographical
framework, prepare a literature review-type introduction, and suggest novel approaches for your
research. An A-level paper will be comprehensive, well-written and well-argued, and original.
Grading Standards:
Scale: A= 100 – 91; B = 90 – 81; C= 80 – 71; D= 70 – 61; F= 60 or below. In a graduate program, any grade
less than a B is not acceptable. Substantively, A papers meet the specific requirements of the
assignment excellently and are written with correct grammar, good style, and the technical apparatus
that historians use. In some cases, you may be asked to rewrite and resubmit your work in order to
improve it. In discussion, A work is coming to class having done the readings, thought about them,
prepared to speak about them, and taking a leading role in at least some portion of each day’s
discussion. B work may be missing some element of that description; C work achieves only part of that
description, and a D is coming to class and warming a seat. C and D level work is not acceptable from
graduate students.
Attendance and Timeliness:
This is a seminar, not a lecture. Seminars depend on the active participation of all of the students and
instructors. Your presence is expected for every class session, and your absence will be noted. You are
expected to be in class on time, to stay for the full session, and to participate in the discussion. Any
absolutely necessary absence should be cleared with the instructor in advance, if possible. All written
work should be submitted by the deadline for the assignment via e-companion. I do not accept late
work.
Disability Statement:
If you have a physical, learning, or psychological disability and require accommodations, please let the
instructor know as soon as possible. You must register with, and provide documentation of your
disability to University Disability Support Services (UDSS) in room 330 Knight Hall. 766-6189
Academic Honesty:
The University of Wyoming is built upon a strong foundation of integrity, respect and trust. All members
of the university community have a responsibility to be honest and the right to expect honesty from
others. Any form of academic dishonesty is unacceptable to our community and will not be tolerated
[from the UW General Bulletin]. Teachers and students should report suspected violations of standards
of academic honesty to the instructor, department head, or dean. An explanation of what constitutes
Academic dishonesty and how it will be handled is found on the UW A-Z website under “Academic
Dishonesty.”
Week 1, August 26 Introduction to technical stuff, library, honesty; and the bigger question—history
and theory.
Discuss in class: Carr, What is History? Carr, Foundations of the Planned Economy. Carr, Hitler and Stalin.
Written work: Write a 3 page paper (750 words) that considers Carr’s approach to history, and your
own. What does Carr consider history to be about, and how does Carr, the historian, write history?
What do you think history does or should be about, and to what exent do you, or would you, go about
writing history differently than Carr does? Your paper should be written in essay form, with a clear
thesis that I can find in the first paragraph, and it should reference the sources of your ideas as well as
the sources of words that you quote, using Chicago style reference. This is a response to class discussion,
and we will decide in class on an appropriate due date.
Week 2, Sept 2 Historiography, the professionalization of History, epistemology, and a critique.
Discuss in class: Writing History: Theory and Practice, chapters 1 to 3 (historical “science”; Ranke;
professionalization). Also read Acton, John E. E. D., Baron. Lectures on Modern History. (London:
Macmillan 1906). Acton is found as an E-book through Coe Library homepage. Read introductory lecture
and choose one other. Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 6, Ch. 71 “Four
Causes of Decay and Destruction,” or any other chapter of your choosing. E-book. Read selections from
Simon Schama, Dead Certainties (Unwarrented Speculations). Pdf link from bibliography on ecompanion.
Written work: write a 750 word essay comparing Schama’s approach to thinking about and writing
history in the book Dead Certainties with the approach that one of the other historians uses (Ranke,
Acton, Gibbon). What is evidence and how do historians use evidence?
Week 3, Sept 9 Marx and his school of thought. Guest on professionalization, Jeff Means
Discuss in class: Writing History, Chapter 4—Marxist historiography. Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte. Ebook.
Read intro and a few pages of chapter 1. Capital: a critique of political economy. Chapter 26 & 27 (vol. 1)
“The Secret of Primitive Accumulation” and “Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the
Land”. Ebook. Charles Beard, The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, Chapter 6 (pdf). Rigby,
Marxism and History: an introduction. Intro and Ch. 9 on base and superstructure. E. P. Thompson, The
Making of the English Working class, intro and ch 16.
Professionalization: Grant and conference applications. Create and post a list of grants that you might
apply for, and of conferences that you might attend.
Week 4, Sept 16 History and the Social Sciences; Annales School. Guest: Brose on digital approaches to
research/analysis
Discuss in Class: Writing History, Chapter 5 Social Sciences; and 6 Annales. Read Braudel (Preface and
Economy chapters); Burgiere on the Annales School; Bloch; and Febvre; Kuhn.
Written work: after consulting with your probable thesis advisor, write up and post a 1-2 page
description of potential thesis topics, and begin a bibliography of relevant books and articles.
Written work: complete a grant application for an external grant that you may apply for, and post it.
Week 5, Sept 23 Post-Structuralism.
Discuss in class: Writing History, Chapter 7 on Post-structuralism and History. Foucault, selection from
The Order of Things, and selections from Discipline and Punish; Barthes; Bakhtin.
Written work: 3 page response, drawing on readings from past three weeks: more and less effective
uses of theory
Week 6, Sept 30 Anthropology and History. Guest, Messenger on Memory
Discuss in class: Writing History, Chapters 8 (psychoanalysis) and 9 (anthropology); also, Darnton, --only
the chapter on the Great Cat Massacre; LaDurie, Montaillou; Ginzburg, Cheese and Worms; Davis,
Martin Guerre; for the memory section, Pierre Nora, Aguilar, and Muller.
Written work: 3 page response, drawing on readings from past three weeks: more and less effective
uses of theory
Written work: post a full bibliography for your final paper, including journal articles and articles in
collections.
Week 7, Oct 7 Comparative and Social history. Guest: Poblete-Cross, comparative
Discuss in class: Writing History, Chapter 10 (comparative) and 12 (social); Geyer and Fitzpatrick;
Hobsbawm; Trevalyan; Eley; Skocpol—two chapters.
Week 8, Oct 14 Competing explanatory modes. Guest: Roberts, public history
Discuss in class: Writing History, Chapters 11 (political) and 13 (economic); Chapter 17 (voices from
below); Fogel & Engerman; Habermas; Halfin, Khelvniuk, Gregory.
Week 9, Oct 21, CONE LECTURE
Written work 1: post analysis of Fitzpatrick lecture
Written work 2: book review of a book from your bibliography, focusing on author's use of theory
Week 10, Oct 28 guest, Helfgott, cultural history, and Wells.
Discuss in class: Writing History, Chapter 14 (intellectual) and Peter Burke, What is Cultural History?
Read Cook, and read Huizinga or Burckhardt. There will be one or two more articles.
Written work: outline of your final paper
Week 11, Nov 4 Gender/Race/Ethnicity in History. Guest: Dewey (post-col)
Discuss in class: Writing History, chapters 15 (gender) and 16 (race/ethnicity); Canning; Joan Scott;
Stansell; Hall; James Scott; Viola.
Week 12, Nov 11 Post-colonial history. Guest: Schultz
Discuss in class: selections from Orientalism; Chakrabarty; Chatterjee; Duara; Cooper and Brubaker
Written work: three page response paper to last three weeks of readings.
Week 13, Nov 18 History’s battles: Appleby; LaCapra; Novick; Giddens; Stone; Palmer.
Written work: draft of your final paper
Week 14, Nov 25 NO CLASS, THANKSGIVING
Week 15, Dec 2 In class presentations of your research:
Week 16, Dec 9 FINALS week, final papers due.
Bibliography:
Acton, John E. E. D., Baron. Lectures on Modern History. London: Macmillan 1906. E-book; find it through
Coe Library homepage. Read introductory lecture and choose one other.
Aguilar , Paloma, and Carston Humelbaeck. "Collective Memory and National Identity in Spanish
Democracy: the Legacies of Francoism and the Civil War," History and Memory 2002, 14 (1-2): 121-165.
Anderson , Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism.
Revised edition. London: Verso 1991, Chapters 1-4 and 10.
Appleby , Joyce, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob. Telling the Truth about History. New York: Norton, 1994.
Introduction and Ch. 7.
The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov. Ed. Pam Morris. London:
Arnold Publishers, 1994. Introduction, 26-37, and 50-61.
Barthes , Roland. The Semiotic Challenge. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang 1988, pp. 95135.
Beard , Charles. Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York: MacMillan 1949, pp. 165-195.
Bloch , Marc. Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages: selected essays by Marc Bloch. Trans. William R.
Beer. Berkeley: University of California Press 1975, pp. 151-161 plus notes. Note that Bloch, a French
Jew executed by the Nazis in 1944, wrote these essays in the 1930s.
Bourdieu , Pierre. The Logic of Practice. Trans. Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1990
[1980].pp 46-79.
Braudel , Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II. Vol. 1.,
Trans. Sian Reynolds. New York: Harper and Rowe 1972 [1946]. Preface, table of contents, and 462542.
Burguiere , Andre. The Annales School: an Intellectual History. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press 2009 [2006]. Foreword, Chapter 1 and Chapter 3.
Burke, Peter. What is Cultural History? 2nd edition. Cambridge: Polity Press 2008.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Trans. S. G. C. Middlemore. Modern
Library 2000 [1860] E-book. Chapter entitled "The Individual".
Canning , Kathleen. Gender History in Practice: historical perspectives on Bodies, Class & Citizenship.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2006, 1-62.
Carr, E. H. (Edward Hallett). What is History? New York: Vintage 1961.
Carr , E. H. German Soviet Relations between the two World Wars, 1919-1939. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press 1951. Pp. 114-137 (Hitler and Stalin).
Carr, E. H., and Robert Davies. History of Soviet Russia. Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926-1929.
New York: Macmillan 1969. Preface and Ch. 13.
Chakrabarty , Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton:
Princeton University Press 2000. Introduction and Chapter 7.
Chatterjee , Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments, in The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999 [1993]. Chapters 1 and 7.
Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology, eds. Jacques LeGoff and Pierre Nora.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985 *1974+. Read Colin Lucas, “Introduction”, and Pierre Vilar,
“Constructing Marxist History.”
Cook , James, and Lawrence Glickman, “Twelve Propositions for a History of U.S. Cultural History,” in
The Cultural Turn in U. S. History: Past, Present, and Future, eds. James Cook, Lawrence Glickman,
Michael O’Malley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008 pp. 3-57.
Cooper, Frederick. "Race, Ideology, and the Perils of Comparative History," The American Historical
Review 1996, 101 (4): 1122-1138.
Cooper, Frederick and Rogers Brubaker. “Beyond Identity,” Theory and Society, 2000, 3 (29): 1-47.
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York: Basic
Book, 1984.
Davis , Nantalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge: Harvard University Press? Preface,
Intro, Chs 3, 4, and 10.
DeCerteau , Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of
California Press 1984. Introduction and Chapter 4.
Downs, Laura Lee. “If ‘Woman’ is Just and Empty Category, then why am I Afraid to Walk Alone at
Night?” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1993, 35 (2): 414-437.
Duara , Prasenjit. Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995. Introduction and Chapter 1.
Eley , Geoff and Keith Nield. The Future of Class in History: what’s left of the social? Ann Arbor: U of
Michigan Press 2007, Preface and Chapter 2.
Febvre , Lucien. The Problem of Unbelief in the sixteenth century: the religion of Rabelais. Trans.
Beatrice Gottleib. Harvard: Harvard University Press 1982. Preface and Ch. 9.
Fogel , Robert, and Stanley Engerman. Time on the Cross: the economics of American Negro Slavery.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1974. Prologue and Ch 3.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage
1995 [1975]. E-book. Read at least a portion of each of the four main sections.
Foucault , Michel. The Order of Things: an archeology of the human sciences. New York: Random House
1970 [1966] Intro and 14 to 77.
Geyer , Michael and Sheila Fitzpatrick. Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009). Introduction and Ch. 7.
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. [six volumes, 1776-1788]. Ebook. Read Vol. 6, Ch. 71 “Four Causes of Decay and Destruction.”
Giddens , Anthony. A contemporary critique of historical materialism. Stanford University Press 1981.
Read ix-xix, and 1-24.
Ginzburg , Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: the Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. Trans. John and
Anne Tedeschi. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1980 [1976]. All the prefaces and pp. 1-13.
Gregory , Paul. Terror by Quota: State Security from Lenin to Stalin. Yale University Press 2009, 167-218.
Habermas , Jurgen. The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of
bourgeois society. Trans. Thomas Burger. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989 [1962]. Preface and Ch. 8.
Halfin , Igal. Stalinist Confessions: Messianism and Terror at the Leningrad Communist University.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 2009. Intro and Ch. 5
Hall , Catherine. Civilising Subjects: Colony and Metropole in the English Imagination, 1830-1867.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Intro and 68-83.
Hobsbawm , Eric. Primitive Rebels: studies in archaic forms of social movement in the 19th and 20th
centuries. New York: Praeger, 1959. Introduction and Ch. 8.
Huizinga , Johan. The Waning of the Middle Ages. New York: Doubleday 1954 [1924]. Preface and
Chapter 1.
Ignatieff , Michael, “The Nightmare from which we are trying to awake,” The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic
War and the Modern Conscience (London: Chatto and Windus 1998), 164-190
Khlevniuk , Oleg. Master of the House: Stalin and his Inner Circle. New Haven: Yale University Press
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Kowalsky, Sharon A. Deviant Women: Female crime and Criminology in Revolutionary Russia, 18801930. Intro, Ch 1 and Ch 5.
Kuhn , Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Preface, Intro, and Ch 10.
Kurashige , Scott. The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles. Princeton University Press, 2008, 64-90.
LaCapra , Dominick. Representing the Holocaust: history, theory, trauma. Ithaca: Cornell University
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Le Roy LaDurie , Emmanuel. Montaillou: the promised land of error. Trans. Barbara Bray. New York:
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Marx, Karl. The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. [1852] Ebook. Read intro and a few pages of chapter 1
Marx, Karl. Capital: a critique of political economy. *1867+ Ebook. Read Chapter 26 & 27 (vol. 1) “The
Secret of Primitive Accumulation” and “Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land”.
Muller , Jan-Werner. Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past.
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Nora , Pierre. Realms of Memory: rethinking the French Past. New York: Columbia University Press 1996
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Palmer , Bryan. Descent into Discourse: the reification of language and the writing of social history.
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von Ranke , Leopold. The Theory and Practice of History. Eds. Georg Iggers and Konrad von Moltke.
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Rigby , S. H. Marxism and History: a critical introduction. 2nd edition. Manchester: Manchester
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Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979.
Schama , Simon. Dead Certainties (Unwarrented Speculations). New York: Knopf 1991. 3-34 and 319333.
Scott, Joan Kelly. “Gender: a useful category of historical analysis,” American Historical Review, 1986, 91
(5): 1053-1075. Available through Coe Library catalog, electronically
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Stansell, Christine. “Women in 19th Century America,” Gender and History 1999, 11 (3): 419-432.
Stone , Lawrence. The Past and the Present revisited. New York: Routledge, 1987. Read Ch. 1.
Thompson , E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. (New York: Vintage, 1966 [1963]). 1-25, and
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“Narrativity in the Representation of Reality” and Ch 5 “Foucault’s Discourse: the Historiography of antiHumanism”.
Writing History: Theory and Practice. 2nd edition. Eds. Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner, Kevin Passmore.
London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010