The Proseminar in History is the first part of a required six hour sequence. Consisting of a detailed investigation of a major historical topic or problem, it is also preparation for the Research Seminar in History. With attention to current research and major interpretations in a specific area, the sequence focuses attention on interrelationships tying historical research materials, methodologies to interpret them, and theoretical perspectives to guide those inquiries. The sequence culminates with the preparation of a major research paper based on primary source materials.

This semester we focus on the topic and themes of Histories Old and New. In other words, history itself—in theory and practice—constitutes our main interest: the historical processes involved in the the ongoing creation and recreation, development, transformations, and reestablishment of major goals and ideals, forms, practices, ideological and institutional expressions, and their challenges during the last two centuries with special attention to the last 100 years. This framing encourages comparative perspectives over chronological time and geographical places among historians themselves, the subjects of their study, and the conduct of those studies. On one level, we will review critically the formation of the modern historical profession and its canons. On another level, we will seek to understand how the formation and then establishment of a succession of "new histories" in time leads to conflict with subsequent, proclaimed "new[er] histories.

Among the many crucial problems this subject and our approach to it open for historical study and interpretation are questions of theory and practice with respect to knowledge--definitions, constructions, conflicts, organization, production, distribution; academic disciplines and popular subjects; professions and professionalization; institutions and institutionalization—private and public; ideologies and ideals such as objectivity; audiences and readerships; historical change and changes in history; and the complex relationships among history, intellectual change, culture, society, economy, politics, class, gender, race, ethncity, and other differences and hierarchies.

Requirements

1. reading, preparation., participation, and informal oral reports
2. a brief essay (no more than 3 pages) comparing the historical approaches and interpretive practice of John Higham’s History: Professional Scholarship in America with either Georg Iggers’ New Directions in European History or Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession
3. a brief essay (no more than 3 pages) describing and exploring one field or subfield deemed a "new history," drawn from readings and anthologies listed in weeks 7-10 of the syllabus
4. formal research proposal (10-12 pages) to guide work in the next semester’s Research Seminar

Books

For purchase:

John Higham, History: Professional Scholarship in America (Johns Hopkins UP, 1989 rev.ed.)

Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical
Profession (Cambridge UP, 1988)

Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-89 (Stanford UP,
1990)

Fernand Braudel, On History (U of Chicago, 1980 1969)

Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (Columbia UP, 1988)

Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (California, 1989)

Terrence McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences (Michigan, 1996)

Optional:

Alun Munslow, Deconstructing History (Routledge, 1997)

Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History (Norton,
1994)

Georg Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, rev. ed. (Wesleyan UP, 1984)

Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (Penn State, 1991)

 
 

HIS 6813

Harvey J. Graff

 

1.  Introduction: History and Histories; Old, New, Newer . . . .

Background reading:

        Alun Munslow, Deconstructing History (Routledge, 1997)

        Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History (Norton, 1994)

        On Appleby et al, see also: "Forum on Telling the Truth about History,"

        History and Theory, 34 (1995), 320-329; and "Truth, Objectivity, and History: An Exchange," Journal of
        the History of Ideas, 56 (1995), 651-680

        Frances FitzGerald, America Revisited (Vintage, 1980)
 
 
 

                    John Higham, History: Professional Scholarship in America (Johns Hopkins, 1989 rev.ed.) [read quickly]

                    _____, The Clothing of Clio (Cambridge, 1985)

                    Bonnie Smith, The Gender of History (Harvard, 1998)

                     Thomas Haskell, The Emergence of Professional Social Science (Illinois, 1977)

                    Julie A. Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of
                    Morality (Chicago, 1996)

                    James Turner, "Secularization and Sacralization: Speculations on Some Religious Origins of the Secular
                    Humanities Curriculum, 1850-1880," in The Secularization of the Academy, ed. George M.Marsden and Bradley
                    J. Longfield (Oxford, 1992) 74-106]

                    Bruce Kuklick, "The Emergence of the Humanities," South Atlantic Quarterly, 89 (1990), 195-206

Recommended:

                    Julie A. Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of
                    Morality (Chicago, 1996)

                    James Turner, "Secularization and Sacralization: Speculations on Some Religious Origins of the Secular
                    Humanities Curriculum, 1850-1880," in The Secularization of the Academy, ed. George M. Marsden and
                    Bradley  J. Longfield (Oxford, 1992) 74-106

                    Bonnie Smith, The Gender of History (Harvard, 1998)

 4.  That Noble Dream?: The "Objectivity Question" and Other Pressing Matters
 

                    Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession
                    (Cambridge UP, 1988), Introduction & Part I (1-110)

Selected critiques:

                    Novick, That Noble Dream, Parts II & III (111-414) & critics

Recommended:

                    Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (Knopf, 1968)

                    James Harvey Robinson, Charles Beard, and other major figures: works and criticism

                    Caroline Ware, ed., The Cultural Approach to History (1940)

                    Thomas Bender, "The New History—Then and Now," Reviews in American History, 2 (1984) 612-622,
                    and other retrospective review essays in Reviews in American History, History and Theory, etc.

                    Stanley Kutler, ed., American Retrospectives: Historians on Historians (Johns Hopkins, 1995)

                    Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-89 (Stanford, 1990)

                    Fernand Braudel, On History (Chicago, 1980 1969]), esp. pp. 3-22, 25-54, and choice of selections

                    For sampling: major works of Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, Fernand Braudel

Recommended:

                    Lucien Febvre, A New Kind of History and Other Essays, ed. Peter Burke (Harper and Row, 1973)

                    Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, "Motionless History," Social Science History, 1 (1977), 115-136

                    Traian Stoianovich, French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm (Cornell, 1976)

                    "History With a French Accent," Journal of Modern History, 44, 4 (Dec., 1972) 447-539

                    Review [of the Fernand Braudel Center], 1, ¾ (Winter/Spring, 1978)

7. New Histories of the 1960s and After

                    Novick, That Noble Dream, Part IV (415-629)

Select chapters to sample in:

                    Felix Gilbert and Stephen Graubard, eds., Historical Studies Today (Norton, 1972)

Recommended:

                    Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (California, 1989)

                    Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (Penn State, 1991)

                    Terrence McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences (Michigan, 1996)

                    Eric Foner, ed., The New American History (Temple, 1990)

                    Reviews in American History [RAH], 10, 4 (1982), "The Promise of American History" and 26, 1 (1998),
                    "The Challenge of American History"

                    Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood, eds., Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past
                    (Princeton, 1998)

For chuckles: AHR Forum: "The Old History and the New," AHR 94, 3 (June, 1989), 654-698

                    David Thelen, ed., "A Round Table: What Has Changed and Not Changed in American Historical Practice?"
                    Journal of American History [JAH] 76, 2 (Sept.,1989), 393-478

                    Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, "The Political Crisis of Social History," in their Fruits of
                    Merchant Capital (Oxford UP, 1983), 179-212, 428-429

                    Henry Abelove et al., eds., Visions of History: Interviews (Pantheon, 1983) and interviews in more recent issues
                    of Radical History Review

Recommended:

                    John Higham and Paul Conkin, eds., New Directions in American Intellectual History (Johns Hopkins UP, 1979)
                    Dominick LaCapra and Steven L. Kaplan, eds., Modern European Intellectual History (Cornell, 1982)

                    Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (California, 1989)

                    Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing (Penn State, 1991)

                    Felix Gilbert and Stephen Graubard, eds., Historical Studies Today (Norton,1972)

                    Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg, eds., The New History: 1980s and Beyond (Princeton, 1982)

                    Michael Kammen, ed., The Past Before Us (Cornell, 1980)

                    Alan Bogue, ed. Emerging Theoretical Models in Social and Political History (Sage,1973)

                    "History and the Social Sciences: Progress and Prospects," American Behavioral Scientist, 21, 2 (1977)

                    David Landes and Charles Tilly, History as Social Science (Prentice Hall, 1971)

Weeks 9-10. We select from a large range of possibilities; note ancillary fields and readings (above and below). Follow your own interests and curiosity in exploring.

9. Women’s History and Gender History

                    Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (Columbia, 1988)

 For critiques, see:
                    "Responses," International Review of Social History, no 31 (1987), 14-36; Scott’s "Reply," no. 32 (1987),
                    39-45

                    Louise Tilly, "Gender, Women’s History, and Social History," with Comments and Response, Social Science
                    History, 13, (1989), 439-462; 463-482

See also:
                    Bonnie Smith, The Gender of History (Harvard, 1998)

10. New Cultural History and Turns Linguistic and Other
 

                    Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (California, 1989), esp. Introduction, chs.1,2,3,4

                    Terrence McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences (Michigan, 1996), esp. Introduction, chs.by
                    McDonald, Eley, Scott (Sewell, Calhoun chs. if possible)

                    Key examples include the work of Carlo Ginsberg, Roger Chartier, Natalie Z. Davis, Robert Darnton, among
                    others

                    Dominick LaCapra, History and Criticism (Cornell, 1985)

                    ____, Rethinking Intellectual History (Cornell, 1983)

                    ____, Soundings in Critical Theory (Corenll, 1989)

                    Mark Poster, Critical Theory and Poststructuralism in Search of a Context (Cornell, 1989)

                    John E. Toews, "Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of
                    Experience," AHR, 92, 4 (Oct., 1987), 879-907

                    AHR Forum: David Harlan, "Intellectual History and the Return of Literacture," 94, 3 (June,1989) 581-609,
                    David Hollinger, "The Return of the Prodigal: The Persistence of Historical Knowing," 610-621 Harlan, "Reply,"
                    622-627

                    Harlan exchange with Joyce Appleby in subsequent issue

                    Allan Megill, "Recounting the Past: ‘Description," Explanation, and Narrative in Historiography," 627-653

                    Allan Megill and Donald N McCloskey, "The Rhetoric of History," in The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences, ed.
                    John S. Nelson et al (Wisconsin, 1987), 221-238

                    Bryan D. Palmer, Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History
                    (Temple, 1990)

                    August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Afro-American Historiography and the Historical Profession (Illinois 1986)

                    Leonard Berlanstein, ed., Rethinking Labor History (Illinois, 1993)

                    Eric Arnesen, Julie Greene, and Bruce Laurie, eds., Labor Histories (Illinois, 1998)

 
For Ethnicity

                Jose’ David Saldivar, Border Matters: Remapping Cultural Studies (California, 1997)

                Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, ed., Immigration Reconsidered (Oxford, 1990)

                Werner Sollors, ed., The Invention of Ethnicity (Oxford, 1989)

For Families:

                    Tamara Hareven and Andrejs Plakans, ed., Family History at the Crossroads (Princeton, 1987)

                    AHR Forum, 99, 5 (Dec., 1994):

                    Gyan Prakash, "Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism," 1475-1490

                    Florencia M. Mallon, "The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies: Perspectives from Latin American
                    History," 1491-1515

                    Frederick Cooper, "Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History," 1516-1545

12. Narratives Old and New/Syntheses Lost and Found/Histories and their Publics

                    Thomas Bender, "Wholes and Parts: The Need for Synthesis in American History," JAH, 73, 1 (June, 1986),
                    120-136

                    David Thelen, ed., "A Round Table: Synthesis in American History," JAH, 74, 1 (June, 1987), 107-130

                    William Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative," JAH, 78, 4 (Mar, 1992), 1347-1376

See also:
                    Eric Monkkonen, "The Dangers of Synthesis," AHR, 91 (1986), 1146-1157

                    Lawrence Stone, "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History," Past and Present, no. 85
                    (1979), 3-24

                    Eric Hobsbawm, "The Revival of Narrative: Some Comments," no. 86 (1980), 3-8

                    Phillip Abrams, "History, Sociology, Historical Sociology," no. 87 (1980), 3-16

                    Stone, "History and Post-Modernism," no. 131 (1991), 217-218

                    Responses by Patrick Joyce, no. 133 (1991), 204-209; Catriona Kelly, no. 133 (1991), 209-213; Reply
                    by Stone, no. 135 (1992) 189-194; Gabrielle M. Spiegel, 195-208
See also:
                    Gabrielle Spiegel, "History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages," Specululm,
                    65 (1990), 59-86

For chuckles: see AHR Forum: "The Old History and the New," AHR, 94, 3 (June, 1989), 654-698: T. Hamerow, G.
                    Himmelfarb, L. Levine, J.W. Scott, J.Toews
 
 

13.  Drafting time

14.Histories Present/Future

 
                    Hayden White "The Burden of History," History and Theory, 5 (1966) 111-134

                    George Lipsitz, "Precious and Communicable: History in an Age of Popular Culture," in his Time
                    Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture (Minnesota, 1990),21-36

                    Casey Blake and Christopher Phelps, "History as Social Criticism: Conversations with Christopher Lasch," JAH,
                    80 (1994) 1310-1332
 

Recommended:

                    Editorials to nos. 1& 2 of Rethinking History, Summer & Autumn, 1997

                    Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig, eds., Presenting the Past  (Temple UP, 1986)

                    Radical History Review issues on public histories

                    Peter Stearns, Meaning Over Memory: Recasting the Teaching of Culture and History (North Carolina, 1993)

                    David Thelen, ed., "Memory and American History," JAH, 75, 4 (Mar., 1989) (also published as a book,
                    Memory and American History [Indiana, 199])

                    David Thelen, ed.,"The Practice of American History: A Special Issue," JAH, 81, 3 (Dec, 1994)

                    Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life
                    (Columbia UP, 1998)

                    Michael B. Katz, Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, the "Underclass," and Urban Schools as History
                    (Princeton, 1995)

                    David L. Ransel, ed., "Volume 100, No. 3," AHR, 100, 3 (June 1995)

                    _____, ed., "Summing Up," AHR, 100, 4 (Oct., 1995)

                    John Higham, "The Future of American History," JAH, 80 (1994), 1289-1309
 

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