21H.931 | Spring 2002 | Undergraduate

Seminar in Historical Methods

Readings

LEC # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction - The Meanings of History  
2 Words, The Building Blocks

Williams, Raymond. Keywords. Introduction (26 pp.) and 15 entries (especially recommended: history, culture, art, industry, democracy, civilization, class, educated, work).

Hunt, Lynn. “The Rhetoric of Revolution.” In Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Pp. 19-51.

Fraser, Nancy, and Linda Gordon. “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State.” Signs 19, 2 (1994).

3 The Historian’s Voice

White, Hayden. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” In The Content of the Form. Pp. 1-25.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. “The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia.” Excerpts from The Russian Revolution. Pp. 40-67.

Trotsky, Leon. The Russian Revolution. Pp. 304-335.

Brower, Daniel, ed. The Russian Revolution. Pp. 40-48, 57-81. (Selections by John Keep, “Revolution in the Factories”; Marc Ferro, “Citizen-Soldiers in the Revolutionary Struggle”; I. I. Mints, “Lenin’s Revolutionary Leadership”; Robert Daniels, “The Unpredictable Revolution.”)

Pipes, Richard. Three Why’s of the Russian Revolution. Pp. 31-62.

4 Interrogating Evidence

Ginzburg, Carlo. “The Inquisitor as Anthropologist,” and “Witchcraft and Popular Piety: Notes on a Modenese Trial of 1519.” In Clues, Myths, and The Historical Method. Baltimore, 1992, pp. 1-16, 156-164.

Davis, Natalie Zemon. Fiction in the Archives. Pp. 1-114, 141-42.

5 Evidence From The Physical World Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. Pp. vii-x, 3-156.
6 Voice and Historical Subject Demos, John. Unredeemed Captive. Preface, pp. 3-198, 237-41.
7 Oral History Appy, Christian. Working-Class War. Pp. 1-85, 117-44, 206-49, 298-321.
8 Macro-Historical Structures Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Pp. 9-13 (Preface), 17-76, 102-85, 269-314 (“The Weavers”), 711-46.
9 Drama in History (Guest Speaker: Jeff Ravel)

Maza, Sara. Private Lives and Public Affairs. Pp. 1-17, 167-211 (“Diamond Necklace Affair”).

Darnton, Robert. “The Great Cat Massacre.” Pp. 76-104.

Mah, Harold. “Suppressing the Text: The Metaphysics of Ethnographic History in Darnton’s Great Cat Massacre.” History Workshop 31 (Spring 1991): 1-20.

Chartier, Roger. “Text, Symbols, and Frenchness.” Journal of Modern History 57 (1985): 682-95.

LeCapra, Dominick. “Chartier, Darnton, and The Great Symbol Massacre.” Journal of Modern History 60 (1988): 95-112.

10 Comparative History Kolchin, Peter. Unfree Labor. Pp. ix-xiii, 1-102. Plus one further chapter (to be divided among the class).
11 “Truth” and “Falsehood” - Narratives and Counter-narratives

Wood, Elizabeth A. “The Trial of Lenin: Legitimating the Revolution Through Political Theater, 1920-1923.” Russian Review (April 2002): 1-15.

Tucker, Robert C. “Stalin, Bukharin, and History as Conspiracy.” In The Great Purge Trial. Edited by Tucker. New York, 1965, pp. ix-xlviii.

Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror. 1990, pp. 341-98.

Cohen, Stephen F. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. Pp. 372-81.

12 Class Presentations  
13 Memory and History, Part I Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Beacon Press, 1995 (entire).
14 Memory, Part II  

Course Info

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As Taught In
Spring 2002
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Written Assignments