Seminar in historical methods

Lectures: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session

The following syllabi come from a variety of different terms. They illustrate the evolution of this course over time, and are intended to provide alternate views into the instruction of this course.

Spring 2008, David Ciarlo (PDF)

Spring 2007, David Ciarlo (PDF)

Spring 2005, David Ciarlo (PDF)

Spring 2004, Anne McCants (PDF)

Spring 2003, Jeffrey Ravel (PDF)

Spring 2002, Elizabeth Wood (PDF)

This course is designed to acquaint you with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. The books we will read have all made significant contributions to their respective sub-fields and have been selected to give as wide a coverage in both field and methodology as possible in one semester's worth of reading. We will examine how historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytic discussion of their topic, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of their various approaches.

The main written assignment for this course is a substantial research paper, on any reasonable subject of interest to you. These papers should be between 15-20 pages long, and should explore the given topic in substantial depth. History majors may use this paper to explore a possible thesis topic. The paper will be produced in the following stages:

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