Seminar in Historical Methods, Spring 2004
- Author:
- McCants, Anne Elizabeth Conger
- Subject:
- Humanities, Social Sciences
- Institution Name:
- M.I.T.
- Collection:
- MIT OpenCourseWare
- Grade Level:
- Post-secondary
- Abstract:
Examines different types of historical writing: political, social, cultural, demographic, biographical, and comparative. Includes discussion of historical films, fiction, memoirs, and conventional history. Particular attention given to works which have broken new ground in terms of their methodology and approach. Required writing includes brief weekly response papers and a substantial research paper (including proposal, first draft, and final draft), in conjunction with a formal oral presentation. Weekly discussion of readings include periodic student-led discussion and/or presentations. Open to all students, but required of history majors and minors in junior year. This course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. The books we 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 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.
- Languages:
- English
- Material Type:
- Full Course, Homework and Assignments, Lecture Notes, Syllabi, Video Lectures
- Media Format:
- Text/HTML, Downloadable docs, Video
- Conditions of Use:
-
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
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