Virginia Wesleyan College
HIST 258 Introduction to Historiography
Fall 2007--TTh 9:30-10:45--Birdsong 101
Professor: Dr. Susannah Walker
Office: Eggleston 107
Email: swalker@vwc.edu (this is the best way to contact me)
Office Phone: 233-8769
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:00-1:00, Wednesdays 4:30-5:30
Course Description and Objectives:
This course is designed to introduce history majors to a crucial component of historical scholarship: contending with professional historians' debates about the past. Students who have taken even introductory college history courses know that historians often do not interpret the same evidence in the same ways, or agree about what caused major events, or even share the same sense of what historical questions should be asked or how topics should be framed. As a part of exploring any historical topic, students must familiarize themselves with what other historians have written about it, and how those historians have responded to one another's points of view. Only then, can they engage with the scholarly debates relevant to the topic they are studying. Historiography includes exploring these sorts of debates, as well as examining the theoretical underpinnings of historians' perspectives, and tracing how and why historical scholarship on a topic changes over time. In this class, we will focus on three historigraphically rich topics, spanning three continents and three centuries, so that students may develop skills in interpreting and synthesizing historians' arguments. The topics are the French Revolution, Nat Turner's rebellion, and the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Students will also each research and write a historigraphical essay on a topic of their choice. It is my aim that this course will help history majors contend with the historigraphical component in other history courses they take, and, especially, that it will prepare them to do historiographical research for their own projects in History 360 and History 460.
Readings:
Please purchase these books well before we are due to start them in class:
• Mark Gilderhus, History and Historians: A Historiographical Introduction (Prentice Hall) ISBN: 0132286785
• Ronald Schechter (ed) The French Revolution: The Essential Readings (Blackwell Publishing) ISBN: 063121271X
• Kenneth Greenberg (ed) Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory (Oxford University Press) ISBN: 0195177568
• Michael Hogan (ed) Hiroshima in History and Memory (Cambridge University Press) ISBN: 0521566827
• Additional readings distributed in class.
** YOU MUST READ READINGS BEFORE THE DAY THEY ARE LISTED ACCORDING TO THE SCHEDULE AND ALWAYS BRING READINGS TO CLASS!
Grade Distribution:
• Historiographical essay on Hiroshima due October 2: 15%
• Historiographical essay on Nat Turner's Rebellion due October 30: 15%
• Historiographical essay on the French Revolution due November 20: 15%
• Independent project due December 4: 40%
• Participation: 15%
Historiograpical Essays:
For each historiographical topic in this class we are reading a collection of scholarly essays written by historians. For each book, you will write a 6-8 page essay analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing the essays. Further details will be distributed in class.
Independent Project:
Each of you will research the historiography of a topic that you choose and produce a historiographical essay of 15-20 pages. A proposal for your project is due September 20 . You should pick a topic that has a rich historical scholarship without being too broad. This project requires a lot of research and reading (as many as 20 or more scholarly books and/or journal articles) before you even begin to write, so you need to get started early. Please feel free to discuss potential topic ideas with me as soon as you think of them them. Before the final essay is due you will also write an annotated bibliography (due October 9 ) and a rough draft (due November 8 ) Further details will be distributed in class.
Participation:
• Most classes will be discussion-focused and depend on all students doing the readings carefully and coming to class ready for intense verbal analysis of all assigned readings.
• I will not take attendance, but I will keep track of each student's participation every day. If you have too many absences you could fail participation and will risk failing this course.
• You cannot "make up" participation with extra credit assignments unless there are extraordinary extenuating circumstances such as extended illness.
• Participation includes, among other things, intelligently commenting on the readings, attentively listening and responding to your fellow students, and asking questions.
• I will evaluate both the quality and quantity of your participation. You can fail participation even if you never missed a class, but barely spoke the entire semester!
Rough Guide to Participation Evaluation Criteria:
• A to A: Student virtually never misses class and almost always speaks in class. His or her comments in class reflect that he or she has completed and understands the readings. The student can make perceptive connections between readings and topics from various class days.
• B- to B+: Student might have missed a few too many classes, but participates at the "A" level when in class, or he or she might be in class consistently, but does not always participate, or his or her participation needs to be more thoughtful, sophisticated, or perceptive.
• C- to C+: Student might participate at the A-B level when in class but is absent a lot. OR, even if absences are not a big problem, the quantity and analytical quality of participation is average at best.
• D- to D+: Student participates sporadically and participation reflects inadequate, but passable, preparation for class.
• F: Students can fail participation if they miss more than six classes. Students can fail participation if they come to class but rarely or never speak.
Attendance Policy:
I will not take attendance formally, but frequent absences will certainly affect your participation grade. In general, I do not need to hear from you if you are going to miss class. If you miss an assignment due to illness, you must provide me with a doctor's note in order to make up any work without penalty. If you are an athlete and are going to miss class for a game, let me know about it before the class you are missing. DO NOT hand me a list of your games with away games highlighted at the start of the semester and expect me to keep track of when you are going to miss class. Of course you, and only you, are responsible for making up any missed work.
Late Policy:
Unexcused late assignments will receive a 1/3-letter grade reduction for each day late (weekends count as one day.) If you need to hand an assignment in late due to illness, you must provide a doctor's note to avoid any penalties.
Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism includes:
• Using someone else's words or ideas without documentation.
• Turning in an entire paper or a portion of a paper that someone else wrote as your own. This includes papers on the internet as well as other students' papers.
• Copying some portion of your text from another source without proper documentation.
• Borrowing another person's specific ideas (not necessarily his or her words), terminology, or structure without documenting the source.
• Letting someone else revise or rewrite your work. (This is not the same as getting advice and guidance from a professor, another student, or someone in the Writing Center.)
*It is relatively easy for professors to catch plagiarism. If I find a case of plagiarism in this class, I will require all students to submit their work electronically so it can be run through plagiarism detection software.
**According to the VWC Honor Code (in the Student Handbook), plagiarism constitutes an act of academic dishonesty. A first time offence may result in failure on the assignment or in the entire course, and a letter will be placed in the student's academic file. However, more serious actions may be taken, including an appeal to the Honor Court, especially if the student is a repeat offender. (See the Student Handbook for more information on this.)
Grading:
Here is the grading scale for this class:
A 100-93 Excellent work
A- 92-90 Excellent work with some minor problems
B+ 89-87 Very good work, definitely above average
B 86-83 Good work
B- 82-80 Above average
C+ 79-77 Slightly better than above average performance
C 76-73 Average performance
C- 72-70 Average performance, bordering on below average
D+ 69-67 Work meets minimum requirements
D 66-63 Work meets minimum requirements - but is well below average quality
D- 62-60 Work meets minimum requirements - but is bordering on failure
F Sub-60 Failure
Class Conduct:
It is expected that students will:
• Come to class having read the assignment for that day and that they will be prepared to listen, take notes, and participate in discussions.
• Turn off all cell phones, PDAs, and any other electronic devices before class begins. (If you use a laptop to take notes be sure that is ALL you are using it for while in class!)
• Come to class on time and stay awake!
• Listen respectfully to the ideas of other students and express ideas in a non-combative manner.
• Not talk privately with another student while anyone else in the class is speaking.
Students with Disabilities:
Virginia Wesleyan College recognizes and seeks to accommodate students with special needs. To use accommodations, students must first register with the college's disability services coordinator, Mrs. Fayne Pearson (455-3246), and provide the college with appropriate professional documentation. If you need accommodations in this course because of a documented disability, you must contact Mrs. Pearson this semester ; she will then send me official notification. This process must be followed every semester you attend Virginia Wesleyan College.
Class Schedule:
*Readings must be completed by class time on the date under which they are listed. PLEASE BRING READINGS TO CLASS!!!
8/28 Class Introduction
8/30 Introduction to Modern Historical Scholarship
• Gilderhus, Chapters 1 and 3
9/4 Philosophies of History
• Gilderhus, Chapters 4 and 5
9/6 Recent Trends in Historical Scholarship
• Gilderhus, Chapters 6 and 7
9/11 Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Introduction
• Documentary Film: Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped
*I will distribute guidelines for the individual projects today
9/13 Hiroshima and Historiography
• Hogan, Chapters 1 and 2
*I will distribute guidelines for the historiographical essays today AND briefly discuss the project proposals.
9/18 The Bomb and Japan's Surrender
• Hogan, Chapters 3 and 4
9/20 Historical Memory and Japanese Survivors
• Hogan, Chapters 5 and 7
Project proposals due today!
9/25 American Memory and Commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Hogan, Chapters 6, 8, and 9
9/27 Introduction to Nat Turner's Rebellion
• Lecture on the historiography of slavery in the United States
10/2 Nat Turner's Contested Rebellion
• Film: Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property
Historiographical Essay on Hiroshima in History and Memory DUE Today!
10/4 Deconstructing the Confessions
• The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831) - Handout
• Greenberg, Chapters 1 and 2
10/9 The Rebellion
• Greenberg, 3 and 4
ANNOTATED BIbliography of projects Due Today!
10/11 Midsemester Break
10/16 Nat Turner in Historical Context
• Greenberg 5, 6, and 7
10/18 Nat Turner in Historical Context cont.
• Greenberg 8, 9, and 10
10/23 Nat Turner in Historical Memory
• Greenberg, 11, 12, 13, and epilogue
10/25 Introduction to the French Revolution
• Background Reading - handout
• Guest Lecture: Dr. Sewell
10/30 Introduction to the Historiography of the French Revolution
• Schechter, Introduction
• Marxist Perspective: Albert Soboul, "The French Revolution in the History of the Contemporary World (handout)
Historiographical Essay on Nat Turner: A Slave rebellion in History and memory DUE today!
11/1 Early Revisionism
• Chapters 1 and 2
11/6 Cultural History
• Chapters 3 and 4
11/8 The Bourgeois Revolution Question
• Chapters 5 and 6
Project Rough Draft due Today!
11/13 Gender Analysis
• Chapters 7 and 8
11/15 NO CLASS - Meetings about the rough draft
11/20 NO CLASS - Historiographical Essay on the French Revolution Due Today!
11/22 THANKSGIVING
11/27 and 11/29 - Project Presentations12/4 H istoriographical essays due today (LAST DAY OF CLASS)!