Methodology

In this seminar, you will be introduced to theoretical reflections by historians on defining problems of our discipline as well as to some new directions in the practice of history. Weekly responses and two short papers constitute the principal writing assignments.

We will read reflections on the writing and practice of history by authors from antiquity to the twentieth century.

What does, and what can, history as an academic discipline claim to do? The seminar will examine these questions by examining the contemporary practice of historians (historiographical, methodological) and pondering the claims made by historians (epistemological, philosophical). The scope for these investigations will be limited, in the main, to developments in history and related disciplines in the past 60 years.

History is not just so many dead presidents, and in this course we will be exploring different ways of imagining, writing, filming, commemorating, and even escaping history. This seminar begins with canonical works in the philosophy of history, surveys developments in theory and criticism from structuralism to structuralism, and concludes with recent debates about history and memory in museum and pop culture. We will be discussing the history of theory and the theories of history to learn how each tale we tell about our past depends on a theory of history, however simple or abstract.

History 283 is a readings course in history and theory.

This section of History 283 explores the relationship between a) the contemporary practice of historians and b) major theoretical issues in the human sciences. Recent examples of historical scholarship will be read and discussed with their authors-- members of the Berkeley Department of History­alongside treatises that articulate the theoretical issues to which the scholarship is somehow connected, not necessary as an ";application"; but sometimes in an adversarial relation.

In the west, history has always been part of very large debates about the nature of society, the powers and limits of government, the capacity of individuals, and the role of religion. It is less a matter of writing history than of thinking with history â€_Ä" thinking about the present through the past. The questions are why we do history this way and whether we should continue doing it. Because this habitus is distinctively (and originally) European, the readings are entirely European.

This section of History 283 explores the relationship between a) the contemporary practice of historians and b) major theoretical issues in the human sciences. Recent examples of historical scholarship will be read and discussed with their authors-- members of the Berkeley Department of History­alongside treatises that articulate the theoretical issues to which the scholarship is somehow connected, not necessary as an ";application"; but sometimes in an adversarial relation.