| HIST 491-001 | Fall 2019 |
This course introduces some of the most influential approaches that historians (from antiquity through the present) have taken in writing about the past. It also addresses various meta-questions about history: What is history? What is it for? Who is it for? It addresses various philosophies of history (the underlying assumptions of how we can access and understand the past), as well as various historical interpretive frameworks that have shaped the professional practice of history.
Please be aware that this course shares some of the SLOs for the History Major Capstone courses, and pursues others unique to historiography. The SLOs listed below will motivate and guide our work together.
Demonstrate the ability to compare and contrast different processes, modes of thought, and modes of expression from different historical time periods and in different geographic areas.
Understand how and why historians have argued about philosophical and methodological approaches to their craft over time, and what cultural changes precipitated new views.
Recognize and articulate the diversity of human experience, including ethnicity, gender, language, as well as political, economic, social, and cultural structures over time and space—and how that is reflected in historical writing.
Formulate a clear argument, support the argument with appropriate and thorough evidence, and reach a convincing conclusion.
Provide accurate references to historical sources used in research projects.
As an undergraduate seminar, active engagement is crucial to (y)our success. Simply showing up to class counts for very little; I expect that you’ll actively participate in all discussions. If you are shy about speaking in class, don’t worry. You will become much more comfortable and fluent by the end of the semester. But it is an essential skill that much be practiced, and this is the perfect place to do so. Please come see me if you’d like to discuss how we can make it easier for you to jump into the discussion. To ensure the discussion isn’t dominated by the most outgoing students, I will call on people who aren’t speaking up. The point isn’t just to put people on the spot and create anxiety, but to help everyone hear as many perspectives as possible. Be prepared.
You cannot make up missed classes and I will not summarize them for you via email. Please DO NOT email me asking if you missed anything, or what you missed, or how to make it up. Feel free to ask your class colleagues for notes. Medical emergencies beyond your control are the one exception to the attendance policy, and you should let me know about these ASAP.
Tardiness greatly aggravates me. I consider it extremely rude and disruptive to walk into class late, especially in our small room. I get that weird random things happen that might make you a little late once or twice. Repeatedly being late will negatively impact your grade.
If you run into personal problems during the semester that make school difficult for you, please talk to me about what adjustments we can make to help you succeed in the course.
Although I do not calculate grades strictly mathematically, I have provided percentages to indicate how much relative weight each component of the course receives in my evaluation of student performance.
Active and thoughtful participation in class discussions (33%)
Preparation work for each class (33%)
We’ll divide the class into 4 groups, as equally as possible. Each group will be responsible for one of the following roles; everyone’s role will change each class (by adding 1 to your role number–that is, Commenters for Monday will be Discussion Guides on Wednesday, and so on). All posts are due by 9am the day of class.
Commenters: The commenters will post a 400-word critical comment on the readings. These should be high quality but informal writing, like you were writing for a literary magazine. Have an opinion, a specific point to make, and have fun writing about it. You must resist the urge to summarize the readings (we have summarizers to do that!).
Questioners: The questioners will post 4-5 questions that will help guide discussion for that class. Questions should be at different scales, but nothing to nit-picky. We will explicitly talk about why some questions are better than others, and pursue the most interesting ones. Don’t ask questions that actually have an obvious factual answer, but questions that help us think critically about the readings. Coming up with good questions is much harder than it sounds, which is why it’s good to practice it.
Summarizers: The summarizers will prepare a ~8-point summary of the assigned reading, of what they took to be the significant points. I expect all summarizers to make contributions at the beginning of class as a way of reminding everyone what they’ve read. Be sure that you prepare enough to have something original to say in conjunction with other summarizers.
Slackers: Enjoy your day off.
On your assignments, I will assign and post to your assignment a numerical score as follows:
Historiography guidebook (33%) Previous iterations of this course have created essays on historiographical topics for a lower-division historiography course. Each student will contribute revisions to an existing essay and create a new essay on a topic of their choice.
Please talk to me about your grade at any time, and as often as you’d like. Please do not email about this; a conversation is far more useful and efficient and avoids misunderstandings. Right before or after class is a good time, as well as office hours.
We will store our work at https://github.com/unm-historiography/2019-fall. We’ll talk more about this in class, but instructions are here. Repeated failure to post work for the class in the appropriate manner (without discussing with me the reasons why) will result in you being dropped from the course.
Although I have kept the reading load to a reasonable level (kind of low for an upper-level history course), some readings can quite dense and conceptually challenging, and you will be turning in work before 3 out of 4 classes. This emphasis on thinking and writing is by design, as a capstone course for the history department. Be honest with yourself about whether you have time to fit this course into your busy schedule. One of the goals of the course is that you will learn to read, absorb, and think critically about information more easily and quickly than you can already. That skill is hard-earned, and only comes with practice.
Accessibility Resources Center (Mesa Vista Hall 2021, 277-3506) provides academic support to students who have disabilities. If you think you need alternative accessible formats for undertaking and completing coursework, you should contact this service right away to assure your needs are met in a timely manner.