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Academic Year 2004/2005


Making History
HIST 380 FA

This research seminar will examine history--writing's own history--to reveal the values, moral aesthetic, and politics that have dominated the desire of people around the world to commemorate events, repeat them, and consciously build the present out of renewed confrontation with or celebration of their pasts. It will consider the relationship of social status and virtues. It will analyze the power of history to articulate political and moral options. Throughout the course we will focus on the rhetorical means by which historians present their views, the philosophical premises that undergird them, and the passions and interests that might have motivated them. This will require due attention to both the context and the text's production and reading and to the text's words themselves.

MAJOR READINGS

Major Readings may include: (selections)
THE EXODUS, IN THE WILDERNESS, THE BOOKS OF KINGS
Herodotus, THE HISTORIES
Thucydides, THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Tacitus, THE HISTORIES
Eusebius, THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
Bede, THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE
Snorri Sturluson, HEIMSKRINGLA
Anna Comnena, THE ALEXIAD
Machiavelli, FLORENTINE HISTORIES
Edward Gibbon, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
David Hume, THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
GWF Hegel, THE PHILOSOPH Y OF HISTORY
Thomas Carlyle, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Jakob Burkhardt, THE CIVILISATION OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY
Johan Huizinga, THE AUTUMN OF THE MIDDLE AGES
E. P. Thompson, THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS
Michel Foucault, MADNESS AND CIVILISATION
Robert Brentano, A NEW WORLD IN A SMALL PLACE
Simon Schama, DEAD CERTAINTIES
Keith Hopkins, A WORLD FULL OF GODS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Ongoing research into an historiographical text, evaluated as a research proposal, a bioliographic report, a rough draft, and a final draft of the project.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Class attendance and participation will affect final course grade.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005


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