History 387: Junior Seminar
This class is the first step toward a successful senior thesis and is divided into three units. In the first unit we will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline, examining some radical forms of historical thought, debating the relevance of present concerns to the study of the past, and considering how the writing of history has evolved over the past two and a half millennia. The second and third units will each replicate the senior thesis experience in miniature: we will read three contrasting secondary works and multiple primary sources on a topic, and then each student will write a paper that creates an original thesis out of the primary sources while situating its arguments in the midst of the historiographical debates of the secondary works.
The second unit will be on one of the greatest historiographical controversies of all time: the causes of the (reputed) fall of the western Roman Empire.
The class will determine the topic of the third unit. The instructor will propose two possible topics (The fall of Byzantium or the English Civil War), the class may “steal” a topic from one of the other 387 sections (medieval persecution, Jamestown, saints, or witches), and students should nominate pre-modern (i.e. pre-1789) topics themselves—although the instructor reserves veto power if there is limited contemporary English-language historiography on a topic. All topics will be put to a single transferable vote in the second week and the instructor will shape the final three weeks accordingly. Update: The class voted on “Eighteenth-Century Empresses and Queens” as the topic.
Instructional Methods
Most classes will be composed of three parts: an in-class writing exercise on topics ranging from the philosophy to the practice of history; a lengthy discussion on the reading of the week; and a mini-lecture on some aspect of historical study, such as how to read an academic book, schools of historiography, and the study of paleography.
Assignments
In many weeks a book review of at least two pages (double spaced, 12 point font including all punctuation marks) will be due. Your review should mention the main argument and sources of the author and should discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the book. On weeks in which primary sources have also been assigned, you should at some point in your review consider how well the primary sources agree with the argument of the historian. More detailed instructions will be handed out, and in some weeks you may be required to address specific questions.
There will be two papers (8-10+ pages) that will require you create your own thesis about the topics of units two and three. Each paper should use the primary sources to defend your argument while demonstrating how your argument relates to those of the secondary works read. The first paper is due on Friday, November 7th, and the second paper is due on Tuesday, December 9th.
In the Fifth Week each student will give an oral presentation based on his or her reading of a classic historian (chosen in class during the Third Week). Questions students might answer in their presentations include: What is the subject matter? When does the account begin and end, and how close is this to the historian’s own time? What was the historian’s purpose in writing this text? How does this text reflect the historical circumstances of its writing? Does John Burrow accurately describe this author? How so or why not? Does the historian have a thesis or guiding world view? What are the historian’s standards of proof? How does the historian reassure the reader that he is being accurate? How trustworthy is this historian? Is he trustworthy in some areas but not in others? What does the historian consider important? What does the historian exclude that we might consider important today? How would you describe as the style of the writing? What is the significance of that style for the work as a whole? What lessons can contemporary historians learn about the writing of history from this text? What are three different historical arguments that you could use this text to support? What is interesting and important for your classmates to know about this text?
Each student should pass out a handout to the class that includes the title, author, the year(s) in which the work was written and/or first published, and a select quotation from the work that exemplifies the style and method of the historian.
During the the Sixth Week we will have an in-class debate between Pagden’s book Worlds at War and Goody’s book The Theft of History. Often classroom debates can descend into sophistry and the burning of straw men. This exercise is designed to help you avoid these perils by setting two authors against each other who, while quite distinct, agree on many points. Subtlety of argument and thought is the goal here, not dramatic flourish and point scoring. The group will be split into two: one half will read Pagden and the other half Goody. On the day of the debate, three members of each side will be randomly assigned to the other party as traitorous spies with an in-depth understanding of the opponent. Twenty minutes will be given at the beginning of the class to allow each side to prepare their arguments and learn from their three new members about the other side.
During the Eleventh Week we will have an in-class paper workshop. You should bring four copies of your first paper to class. One you will turn in—and it will be graded as part of your final paper grade. The other three will be read by and discussed with fellow classmates. The final paper is due on Friday and should include the three copies of your previous draft with your classmates’ comments so that I can see how you responded to their comments in your final version.
Grading
Participation: 10%
Book Reviews: 30%
First Paper: 30%
Second Paper: 30%
Course Schedule
Unit One: The Theory of History
Week One (8/27): Introduction
Week Two (9/3): History and Imagination
Reading: Simon Schama, Dead Certainties
Assignment: Book Review
Week Three (9/10): History and Science
Reading: Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain
Assignment: Book Review
Week Four (9/17): History and History
Reading: John Burrow, A History of Histories
Assignment: Reflection Paper
Week Five (9/24): Classic Historians
Reading: One of the following, selected in class:
Herodotus, The Histories
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War
Polybius, The Histories
Sallust, The Jurgurthine War and The Conspiracy of Catiline
Livy, The History of Rome
Appian, The Civil Wars
Plutarch, Lives
Tacitus, Annals
Tacitus, Histories
Josephus, The Jewish Wars
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
Jordanes, History of the Deeds of the Goths
Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards
Gregory of Tours, A History of the Franks
The Venerable Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English
People
Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain
William of Malmesbury, The Contemporary History
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon
Froissart, Chronicles
Villani, New Chronicles
Bruni, History of the Florentine People
Machiavelli, History of Florence
Guicciardini, History of Italy
Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry VII
Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent
Carlyle, French Revolution
Robertson, History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V
Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
Parkman, The Oregon Trail
Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations From 1494 to
1514
Assignment: Prepare an oral presentation and a handout
Week Six (10/1): The Historian as Moral Arbiter
Reading: Anthony Pagden, Worlds at War (for last names beginning A-M)
Jack Goody, The Theft of History (for last names beginning N-Z)
Assignment: Book Review and preparation for the in-class debate
Unit Two: The Fall of the Roman Empire
Week Seven (10/8): Enlightened History and Irony
Reading: Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(selections)
Ammianus Marcellinus (selections)
Assignment: Book Review
Week Eight (10/15): History and Economics
Reading: Ramsay Macmullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome
Primary Source Packet #1
Assignment: Book Review
Week Nine (10/22): Revisionism
Reading: Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides or Barbarians and Romans
Primary Source Packet #2
Assignment: Book Review
Week Ten (10/29): Empires and Oracles
Reading: Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire
Primary Source Packet #3
Assignment: Book Review
Week Eleven (11/5): Paper Workshop
Reading: None
Assignment: Four copies of your rough draft of the first paper.
Unit Three: Eighteenth-Century Queenship
Week Twelve (11/12): Catherine the Great
Reading: Isabel de Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History
Brenda Meehan-Waters, “Catherine the Great and the Problem of
Female Rule”
Cissie Fairchilds, “Rulers” from Women in Early Modern Europe
Your choice of any primary source document:
Catherine the Great, Memoirs
Princess Dashkova, Memoirs
Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Voltaire
Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Potemkin
Catherine the Great, Instructions of 1767
Catherine the Great, “Oh, these times!”
Catherine the Great, “The Siberian Shaman”
Assignment: Book Review
Week Thirteen (11/19): Maria Theresa
Reading: Charles Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1815, pp. 150-197
Jean Bérenger, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1700-1918, pp.
56-98
Short documents on the Division of Poland
George Galloway, “Tears of Poland”
Luise Gottsched, “Description of Maria Theresa”
Regina Schulte, “Madame, Ma Chère Fille”
Larry Wolff, “Hapsburg Letters”
Part One of Maria Theresa-Marie Antoinette Correspondence
Assignment: Book Review
Week Fourteen (12/3): Marie Antoinette
Reading: Caroline Weber, The Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette
Wore to the French Revolution
Lynn Hunt, “The Many Bodies of Marie-Antoinette”
Part Two of Marie Theresa-Marie Antoinette Correspondence
Assignment: Book Review
