Dr. L.M. Hudson

Office: Old Main 302

Office hours:  Mondays 3:30-4:30; Fridays 12:00-2:00 and by appointment

Office phone: (651) 696-6819     email: hudson@macalester.edu

 

The Study of History

History 379 / Spring 2006

 

 

Course Description

This course explores the craft of history.  We will investigate current practices and methodologies in the field as well as a variety of theoretical approaches used to study the past.  Topics include but are not limited to: scholarship on history and memory, the significance of race, gender, and sexuality as categories of analysis, public history, and how historians use evidence.

 

 

Required Texts  (Available at El Corral)

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History

(Beacon, 1995)

Gary Y. Okihiro,  Common Ground: Reimagining American History (Princeton, 2001)

David Glassberg, Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life (U. Mass.,

2001)

Simon Schama, Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations (Knopf, 1991)

Sharon E. Wood, The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a      Gilded Age City     (UNC, 2005) 

 

**There are also a number of readings on electronic reserve for this course

 

Assignments

This course is a seminar that combines lectures and discussion.  All students will be expected to be active participants each and every class meeting.  Each student will lead the class discussion for one week and turn in discussion questions to the class.   The writing assignments for the class will include two brief essays (approximately 5 pages) on course readings and one historiographic essay (approximately 10 pages) that analyzes the historiographic controversies and debates about a topic in American history.

 

The longer essay will be a large part of your work in this class and therefore it is important that you identify a topic early in the semester and begin going to the library to locate the scholarly conversation that you will analyze.  This is a project with many steps.  What follows is a key to the ten steps to happiness and completion of this project:

 

1)  Read and understand the assignment sheet

2)  Chose a topic with the help of the list the on assignment sheet and the professor

3)   Locate the historiography of your topic at the library and read it

 

4)   Prepare your annotated bibliography

5)  Make initial presentation about your topic to the class on February 15th  and turn in your annotated bibliography

6) Locate a controversy within your historiography and find a representative reading for             the class (approximately 10-25 pages), and put this in professor’s mailbox no later   than Monday, March 22nd 

7) Present the controversy to the class during week nine or ten  

8) Write a draft of your essay and go to the MAX center or consult with your professor             for editorial assistance

9)  Present your paper to the class (briefly) on the last day of class 

10)  Rewrite your paper and turn it in on time, in the professor’s mailbox, on Monday,   May 1st before 4 p.m.

 

 

Grades will be calculated as follows:  Each short essay will count as 20% of the final grade; class participation (including attendance and discussion) is 20%; and the historiographic essay is 40%.  The grade for the historiographic essay will be calculated as follows: 5% for the presentation of the topic and the annotated bibliography, 10% for the presentation of the controversy, and 25% for the final paper.  Remember that this course is a seminar and respectful behavior is of utmost importance: come to class on time, turn off your cell phones, bring the readings and your critical thinking skills, and be prepared to offer thoughtful comments in every class meeting.  Take note that in week six we will meet on Tuesday not Wednesday, two hours earlier (5 p.m.) at a different location: the Minnesota Historical Society.

 

Note: Every assignment must be completed to receive a grade in this course. Late papers will be marked down a letter grade for every day they are late.

 

 

Schedule

Week One (January 25):  The Study of History:  An Introduction

 

 

 

Week Two (February 1): Who Studies History and Why: Historians and Their                                                                           Work

 

The following selections from “Round Table: Self and Subject” Journal of American History (June 2002) are on reserve:

  • Richard White, “Here Is the Problem: An Introduction”
  • Karen Halttunen, “Self, Subject and the ‘Barefoot Historian’”
  • Philip J. Deloria, “Thinking About Self in a Family Way”
  • Jacquelyn Hall, “Last Words”
  • John Demos, “Using Self, Using History”

 

  • David Glassberg, Sense of History, chapter 1

 

 

 

Week Three (February 8):  Historical Knowledge and Memory

 

            **First essay due in class on Wednesday, February 8th

           

  • Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past, chapter 1
  • Glassberg, chapters 2-3
  • David Thelen, “Memory and American History” Journal of American History (March 1989) on reserve

 

Week Four (February 15):  Silencing the Past

           

  • Trouillot, chapter 2-5
  • Lynn M. Hudson, “Introduction,” from The Making of Mammy Pleasant: A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (Illinois, 2003) on reserve

 

**Students present topic for historiographic essay and turn in annotated bibliography

 

 

Week Five (February 22) :  Filming the Past

 

  • Glassberg, chapter 4
  • Robert A. Rosenstone, “History in Images /History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film,”  American Historical Review (Dec. 1988)  on reserve

 

 

Week Six (Tuesday, February 28):  Public History

Note: This week we will meet on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. We will meet from 5-8 at the Minnesota Historical Society to view the exhibit “Open House: If These Walls Could Talk” and discuss the readings.

 

  • Review website of the MHS exhibit before class! (http://www.mnhs.org/exhibits/openhouse/index.htm)
  • Glassberg, chapters 5-6

 

 

Week Seven (March 8): Reimagining American History: Using Race & Gender                                                                        as Categories of Analysis

Guest Lecturer: Cindy Wu, Department of American Studies, Macalester College

 

  • Gary Okihiro,  Common Ground

 

            **Second essay due in class on Wednesday, March 8th

 

 

SPRING BREAK  March 11-19

 

 

Week Eight  (March 22):  Evidence and Certainties

 

  • Simon Schama, Dead Certainties

 

 

Week Nine  (March 29):  Arguments and Controversies: Part One

 

·        Readings provided by students

            **Students present a controversy from their historiographic study

 

 

Week Ten (April 5):  Arguments and Controversies: Part Two

           

·        Readings provided by students

            **Students present a controversy from their historiographic study

 

 

Week Eleven (April 12):  Gender and Sexuality

·        Wood, introduction, chapters 1-4

·        Linda Kerber, “Gender,” from Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past ed. by Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood, pp. 41-58, on reserve

 

 

Week Twelve (April 19):  Time, Space, and the Study of History

·        Wood, chapters 5-9, and conclusion

 

 

 

Week Thirteen (April 26):  Final Presentations