Brief syllabus: this is for informational purposes while students are
registering. A full syllabus will be available in early January @ our D2L
site.
HIST 293: Seminar on Historical Method:
Theory and Approach
Hybrid Course: Taught Partially On-Line
Face to Face Class: M 3:30-4:45, MER G47
Instructor: Rachel Ida Buff
Office Hours: W 10-12 & by appointment
HLT 313/x6483
rbuff@uwm.edu
Catalog description: Systematic exploration of the varieties of historical thought and of common
problems in writing history, including causation, generalization, objectivity, purpose and value of
history.
Course description: The profession of history might be imagined as a (relatively) friendly game among a
large number of scholars (some living, some dead) packed into a crowded room. The basis for this
scholarly “game” is a very complicated jigsaw puzzle (history), with a lot of the pieces missing and
many of the pieces that exist fitting in more than one place. To complicate things even more, no one is
sure what the completed puzzle should look like (ie, there is no “picture on the box”), there are few
hard-and-fast rules about how to put the puzzle together, and even those few hard-and-fast rules have
changed over time.
HIST 293 is a sophomore-level seminar class that introduces history majors and minors
to the basic frameworks that allow that scholarly “puzzle-game” to proceed with (relative)
ease, even though scholars often strongly disagree with each other about who is “winning” in
piecing the puzzle together (ie, writing “good” history). Despite all the complications and
disagreements, there is a widely-shared and (relatively) stable agreement about how the game
is to be properly played at any particularly moment. This seminar class tracks some of the
major “rule changes” in the history puzzle-game across time, introduces the various “teams”
that are playing and the stakes they understand themselves to be competing for, and explains
the current “rules,” so that young historians can (with some practice) “play the game” too, and
perhaps fit a few pieces of the puzzle together for themselves.
This is a sophomore-level course. At minimum, I expect you to be able to: 1) keep up
with the required readings at the assigned pace (APPROXIMATELY 60 PAGES PER CLASS); 2)
read critically and think independently; 3) form your own judgments, and be able to defend
and explain your judgments based on reasonable evidence, using basic academic criteria; 4)
put your descriptions, explanations, and arguments into written formats that can be easily
understood and accepted by other students and scholars; 5) listen, speak about, and debate
matters of interest in an engaged but respectful way.
The portion of the course devoted to class meetings is designed to be student-centered
and discussion-oriented. This means that each member of the class must take responsibility for
motivating discussion and maintaining a high level of dialogue at each meeting. On the other
hand, students have a fair amount of decision-making authority as to the directions the
discussions will take. This class seeks to encourage a kind of education that stresses critical
thinking, individual motivation, practical public communication skills, and the “discovery”
stage of education. That is, the course opens a space for mature, independent, critical thinking
about our shared lives -- past, present, and future -- rather than a simple recitation of what
the professor or book authors know.
Overall course goals: On the successful completion of the course, the student should be able to
1) clearly explain the basic theoretical conceptions of historical study [ie, “the varieties of
historical thought”], 2) clearly explain the problems associated with these theoretical
conceptions, and also clearly explain some of the solutions that have been offered to these
problems [“common problems in writing history”], 3) apply basic primary and secondary
research techniques, and 4) select and apply appropriate theoretical conceptions and research
techniques to produce historical interpretations that satisfy the student and meets the current
standards of the profession.
Required Readings:
 The Information-Literate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students, by Jenny L. Presnell
(ISBN: 978-0-19-517652-0)


Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief
History with Documents, by David Howard-Pitney (ISBN: 0-312-39505-1)
The Kitchen Table Debates and Cold War Consumer Politics: A Brief History with Documents, by
Sarah T. Philips and Shane Hamilton (ISBN: 0-312-67710-3)
All the above are available through People’s Books: http://www.peoplesbookscoop.org
804 E. Center St.
Milwaukee, WI, 53212
Phone & Fax : 414-962-0575
 Articles and other resources on D2L
 Chronology created during course work
Face to Face Class Meetings & On-Line Work:
Typically, we will meet once a week in a face-to-face session during the scheduled class time.
Subsequently, there will be work on-line assigned, due before the next class.
Jan 26:
Intro: Milwaukee History
On line:
Working with Primary Sources
Feb 2:
Social/Cultural History
On line:
Primary source lab, discussion
Feb 16:
Intro to Periodicals
On line:
Primary source lab, discussion
Due:
Primary Source Analysis
Feb 23:
100 Days of Milwaukee History: Intro. Local History
On line:
Chronologies and time-lines
March 2:
March on Milwaukee, digital history & Archives intro
On line:
the March on Milwaukee in historical context
Due:
Primary Source Analysis
March 9:
Gender History
On line:
Due:
Exam
March 16:
Spring Break
March 23:
Political Historiography
On line:
Compare and contrast timelines
Due:
Most Important 10 Events in Milwaukee History due
March 30:
Marxist Historiography
On line:
Battle of Interpretations
Due:
Annotated Primary Source Bibliography
April 6:
No face-to-face class
On line:
Exam
Due:
Rough Draft, Primary Source Analysis
April 13:
Historical Perspectives on Milwaukee
On-line
Work in pairs on analysis
Due:
Secondary Source Bibliography
April 20:
Writing workshop: thesis/introductions
On-line
Work in pairs on thesis/introductions
April 27:
In-class powerpoint presentations
On-line
Write up/discussion of other students’ presentations
May 4
In-class powerpoint presentations
On-line
Write up/discussion of other students’ presentations
Most important 25-50 Events in Milwaukee History Due
Final Papers Due: May 11