Theoretical Issues in History and Literature
Theoretical issues topics
1.
Paradigms and approaches: Positivism, realism, modernism, postmodernism
Preparatory Reading
Hayden White, ‘The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory’ in The
Content of the Form, Baltimore and London, 1987.
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, 1989, chapter 1.
Paul Ricouer, Memory, History, Forgetting, 2004, Part 3, ch 1, section ‘ “Our”
Modernity’.
Paul Hamilton, ‘The Nature of Historical Explanation’, in Historicism, 2nd ed, NY and
London, 2002, pp. 14-21.
Further Reading
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory
Mary Fulbrook, Historical Theory, Chs. 1-3 (and further references in this)
Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical
Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987)
Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1994)
Keith Jenkins and Alun Munslow (eds.), The Nature of History Reader (London:
Routledge, 2004)
2.
Post-modernity (1): structuralism / poststructuralism (Barthes, Derrida)
Preparatory Reading
Roland Barthes, Image Music Text, `Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives',
John Sturrock, "Language" in Structuralism, 2nd Edition, Blackwell, 2003, pp. 25-47.
Jacques Derrida, ‘Signature Event Context’, in Limited Inc, Evanston, 1993.
Jacques Derrida, ‘Letter to a Japanese Friend’, 1999, http://www.english-ecorner.com/comparativeCulture/etexts/more/feminist_reader/japanesefriend.html
Further Reading
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory. An Introduction, chs. 3 and 4
3.
Post-modernity (2): neo-Marxism, postcolonialism, other
Preparatory Reading
Georg Lukacs, The Ideology of Modernism (1957). Useful extract to be found in Marxist
Literary Theory, ed. By Terry Eagleton and Drew Milne (Blackwell, 1996).
T. W. Adorno, Commitment (1962), also in Eagleton and Milne.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for
‘India’s’ Pasts,” Representations, no. 37, 1992, pp. 1-26.
1
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in C. Nelson and L. Goldberg,
Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Further Reading
Works by historians such as the 'English Marxists': Christopher Hill, E. J. Hobsbawm, E.
P. Thompson.
Lynn Hunt (ed), The New Cultural History
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin (eds.), The Postcolonial Studies Reader
Robert Young, White Mythologies
4.
Structure and agency (1): Politics, society and mentalities/culture
Preparatory Reading
P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice
Further Reading
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984
Mary Fulbrook, Historical Theory, Chs. 4-7
A. Giddens, Theory of Structuration
C. Lloyd, The Structures of History
5.
Structure and agency (2): subjectivities in history and literature
Preparatory Reading
Bruce Fink, The Lacanian Subject. Between Language and Juissance, Princeton, 1995, ch.
4.
Judith Butler, ‘Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of “Postmodernism”‘,
in Feminists Theorize the Political, ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott.
Joan Copjec, ‘m/f, or Not Reconciled’ in The Woman in Question, ed Parveen Adams and
Elizabeth Cowie, 1995.
Further Reading
6.
Domination and discourse: power, class, culture
Preparatory Reading
M. Foucault, History of Sexuality vol. I, Part 4, ch. 2
Joan Copjec, ‘Structures Don’t March in the Streets’, in Read my Desire. Lacan against the
Historicists, 1994.
Further Reading
T. Bottomore and M. Rubel, Karl Marx: Selected Writings
2
W. G. Runciman, Max Weber: Selections in Translation, selections;
Michel Foucault, "The Discourse on Language," appendix to his The Archaeology of
Knowledge.
M. Foucault, On Power
7.
Collective Identities (1): Gender and feminism
Preparatory Reading
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1990. Ch 1 part iv,
Ch 3 part iv, Conclusion.
Joan Copjec, ‘Sex and the Euthanasia of Reason’, in Read my Desire. Lacan against the
Historicists, 1994. Focus on the first section.
Further Reading
The Sexual Subject. A Screen Reader in Sexuality (London and NY: Routledge, 1992).
See especially : General Introduction and chapters 1, 3, 10, 12, 13 and 16.
Mary Ann Doane, Femmes Fatales. Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (NY and
London: Routledge, 1991), chapter 11.
Keith Ansell-Pearson, ‘Nietzsche, Woman and Political Theory’ in Nietzsche, Feminism
and Political Theory, ed. by Paul Patton (London and NY: Routledge, 1993), pp. 27-48.
8.
Collective identities (2): national and ethnic identities
Preparatory Reading
Homi Bhaba, Nation and Narration
Anderson, Benedict, "Imagined communities" in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader by
Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, Tiffin, Helen, 2nd Edition, Routledge, 2006, pages 123125.
Fanon, Frantz, "National Culture" in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader by Ashcroft, Bill,
Griffiths, Gareth, Tiffin, Helen, 2nd Edition, Routledge, 2006, pages 119-122.
Barrington, Lowell W., ‘"Nation" and "Nationalism": the misuse of key concepts in
political science’, in PS, Political Science & Politics, 30 (4), 1997, pages 712-716.
Geertz, Clifford / Connor, Walker, "The Question of definition" in Nationalism by
Hutchinson, John, Smith, Anthony Douglas, Oxford University Press, 1994, pages 3134/36-46.
Eriksen, Thomas H., "Ethnicity, race, class and nation" in Ethnicity by Hutchinson, John,
Smith, Anthony Douglas, Oxford University Press, 1996, pages 28-31.
Further Reading
M. Fulbrook, German National Identity after the Holocaust
9.
Time and memory: ‘collective memory’
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Preparatory Reading
Paul Ricouer, Memory, History, Forgetting, 2004, Part 3, ch. 3, section ‘The Forgetting
of recollection: uses and abuses’
G. Rosenthal (ed.), The Holocaust in Three-Generations. Families of Victims and
Perpetrators of the Nazi-Regime London: Cassell, 1998
Further Reading
Reinhart Koselleck, “Perspective and Temporality: A Contribution to the
Historiographical Exposure of the Historical World,” in idem., Futures Past: On the
Semantics of Historical Time, trans.: Keith Tribe. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,
1985, pp. 130-155.
Peter Novick, The Holocaust and Collective Memory (London: Bloomsbury, 2000 [1999]).
Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
10.
Objectivity and value neutrality
Preparatory Reading
Paul Ricouer, Memory, History, Forgetting, 2004, Part 3, ch 1, section ‘The Historian and
the Judge’.
Further Reading
Max Weber, essay on objectivity and value neutrality, in The Methodology of the Social
Sciences ed. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, From Max Weber
Max Weber, essays on `Science as a Vocation' and `Politics as a Vocation' in W. G.
Runciman, Selections from Max Weber
T. Haskell, Objectivity is not Neutrality
P. Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical
Profession
Mary Fulbrook, Historical Theory, Chs. 8-10.
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