Course Goals: All historical scholarship deals with specifics and all historians are fascinated by the details of their own research. Be it the firing range of Napoleonic muskets or the conditions of women's work in the Dutch margarine industry, any topic can be gripping to the historian who researches it. The challenge, then, is to be able to move between specifics and more general claims, finding a way to explain the significance of your research to historians working in other fields. (And even to non-historians!) By exposing you to various methodological debates and to a variety of analytic frameworks, this course is intended to help you think broadly about your research and your writing. Some of the required readings were chosen as examples of a particular approach to history writing, others as criticisms. Many, though not all, reflect directly on the process of history writing and history making. You may find some of the readings difficult, but you should also find many of them extremely interesting.

Requirements: Attendance is mandatory.  If you miss a significant number of seminars, you will be at risk of failing the course, no matter what grade you have received on assessed coursework.  (In this context, “significant” means more than one unexcused absence.)  60% of each student’s final grade will be determined by his/her participation in class discussion (including the writing of three response papers).  Attendance, per se, is not graded, but it is an obvious prerequisite to successful involvement in discussions.  Students who attend seminars without speaking should expect to receive at highest a B- grade for participation.

Final Paper (50%): 15-20 pages, double spaced, DUE TUESDAY, 15 December by 3:00 p.m. in my pigeonhole in the History Department office.  There is no set topic for this paper, but you may find the following suggestions and guidelines helpful. General advice on paper writing is also available. If you have questions or concerns, please come and speak with me.

Policy on Academic Honesty: Final papers must include consistently formatted notes and a full bibliography.  Ignorance of scholarly reference form is no excuse and papers submitted without full references will be returned unmarked.  Plagiarism and misuse of sources constitute intellectual theft and will result in my immediately recommending that you be dropped from the graduate program.