Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 1 session / week; 3 hours / session
Prerequisites
Two History subjects or permission of the instructor.
Course Overview
This class has two aims: to introduce students to methods and approaches commonly used in the scholarly study of history, and to give students the opportunity to develop a major historical essay based on primary sources. Historians do a lot of things in a lot of different ways, and so will we. We will study an array of topics across time and space as well as the distinctive ways in which historians of different parts of the world have approached the task of writing history. We will explore a number of different methodologies, such as political, social, economic, cultural, and popular histories. We will also consider a variety of sources (archival documents, oral sources, film, fiction, diaries, objects, and images) and the ways they can be used to research, interpret, and present the past.
Required Books
Kenda Mutongi, Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi (University of Chicago Press, 2017). ISBN: 9780226471396.
Eiko Maruko Siniawer, Waste: Consuming Postwar Japan (Cornell University Press, 2018). ISBN: 9781501725845. [Preview with Google Books]
For additional readings, see the Readings section.
Grading Policy
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Class participation and response papers | 45% |
| Student-led discussions | 10% |
| Final paper | 30% |
| Oral presentations | 15% |
For detail on the activities above, see the Assignments section.
