Admission requirements
Prerequisite: A100-level course in the Human Interaction major. This course gives entry to 300-level courses in Human Interaction. This course is the required methodology course for the Human Interaction major.
Description
This course introduces students to the theories and methods of history as a field of knowledge. Through close readings of scholarly texts, we will consider such questions as the words historians use; their narrative style, sources, methods, organization, and framing; and their assumptions about historical causation and human nature. How does the choice of each of these affect the historian’s work? How do historians decide which questions to ask? And how do they select, analyze, and present historical evidence? How have broader debates in the social sciences influenced the writing of history? And how have historical sub-fields—including social, political, cultural, economic, and intellectual history—varied over time and across space?
Rather than providing an abstract overview of historical writing from the Greeks to the present, this course will open a series of windows onto areas of innovative and exciting work being carried out in the discipline. In their written assignments, students will have an opportunity to focus on the areas of history that interest them most.
Course objectives
After successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
explain how the aims, philosophies, and methodologies of historians have varied over time and across space
identify and compare a range of historical sub-fields, including social, political, cultural, and intellectual history
discuss the relationship of history to other fields in the humanities and social sciences
enter into historiographical debates in their own right, both orally and in formal written prose
Timetable
Please see the LUC website: www.lucthehague.nl
Mode of instruction
This course will proceed primarily as a seminar, meeting for two 2-hour sessions per week. Each class will center on the discussion of an assigned reading, with introductory remarks by the professor and brief student presentations of supplementary texts. In addition to contributing informal web responses to a blackboard site before class, students will write two formal essays.
Assessment method
- Familiarity with debates among historians; critical reading and thinking; analytical framing: assessed through active participation in weekly discussions, based on prior reading of literature, including web postings (20% of final grade): Weekly
- Synthetic analysis and oral communication; asking the ‘right’ questions: assessed through class presentation of 10-15 minutes (20% of final grade): Once per block.
- Formal written historiographical analysis; cogent argumentation in relatively few pages: assessed through Short essay (1200-1500 words; 20% of final grade): Week 4
- In-depth literature review, synthesis, and analysis: assessed through final essay (2500-3000 words; 40% of final grade): Week 8
Blackboard
a link to the blackboard page may be entered here
Reading list Most course readings will be available via Blackboard. One text may be available for purchase online or at the student bookstore.
Registration This course is only open for LUC The Hague students.
Contact information
Dr. Ann Marie Wilson
a.m.wilson@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Weekly Overview
Week 1: What is History?
Week 2: Comparative Historical Traditions: Ancient & Modern, East & West
Week 3: Recent Historiographical Trends and Dilemmas
Week 4: Political and Intellectual History
Week 5: “Big History”: Economies, Environments, Globalization
Week 6: Microhistory, Cultural History, & the History of Everyday Life
Week 7: Gender, Race, Difference
Week 8: Reading Week
Preparation for first session
None.