COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS
H o n o r r s s H i i s s t t o r r i i c c a l l M e e t t h o d s s
"History is for human self-knowledge… Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done.
The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is." R. G.
Collingwood
Dr. Melinda Zook Fall 2015
Phone: 494-4134 Univ. Hall 319
Email: mzook@purdue.edu
MWF, 12:30-1:20
Office: University Hall 327
Office hours: Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30 & by appointment
Course Description
This course is a prequel to History 422 (Honors Thesis in Historical Research) and is designed to introduce Honors students to the tools of the historian’s craft and prepare them to write their
Honors Thesis. The course is divided into two halves. In the first part of the semester, students will explore a variety of interpretative approaches, methods, and genres of history. Students will also read and discuss the work of various historians, examining how they build their arguments, the sources they use, and the habits of good writing. This half of the semester is also devoted to talking about the sources available at Purdue. Students are also required to find a topic for their
Honors Thesis and a faculty mentor who agrees to guide them during the spring semester
(History 422). In the second half of the semester, students will devote their time to locating their primary and secondary sources, building a bibliography, and writing a prospectus on their project.
Required Texts :
James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, eds., Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of
American Memory (University of North Carolina, 2008)
Alfred W. Crosby Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492,
(Praeger, 2003), 30th Anniversary Edition.
Richard Wunderli, Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen (Indiana University Press,
1992).
John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (Oxford University
Press, 2004).
Supplemental Readings (provided by Prof. Zook) :
The Confederate flag and monuments controversy, readings handed out in class.
What is History? Essays handed out in class.
1

Requirements
A) In the first part of the semester, students will write short (2-3 pages) essays every week.
B) By the end of the semester, students will have chosen a topic for their thesis, a faculty mentor, and a second reader; they will have completed a prospectus (7-8 pages) detailing what they intend to investigate and how they will proceed during the spring semester; and an extensive bibliography of at least 25 primary and secondary sources.
C) During the final weeks of the semester, students will present their work-in-progress to the class.
D) Attendance at all class meetings is MANDATORY . Each class missed will result in the loss of a half-grade.
Rules of the Game:
Never walk into class late. Silence your cell-phone once you enter the class room. If you use a laptop during class, you may only use a word processing program (absolutely no internet).
Use proper email etiquette (an email should begin with a salutation such as “Dear Professor X;” and end with a proper closing, such as “Sincerely” or “Yours.”).
Students who plagiarize any portion of their written assignments will be removed from this course, the Honors program, and the incident will be reported to the Dean of Students.
Final Grades will be calculated as follows:
Prospectus & bibliography
Oral presentation and discussion
Short papers
50%
20%
30%
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total 100%
SCHEDULE OF LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, AND READINGS
Monday, Aug. 24
Wednesday, Aug. 26
Introduction to History Honors
Welcome to the Honors Experience
History, Heritage and Hate: The Debate over the Flag
Readings on the Confederate flag and monuments controversy
Friday, Aug. 28 History in the Public Sphere
Read Slavery and Public History , Introduction & chapters 1 & 4
2

Monday, Aug. 31 History Wars
Read Slavery and Public History , chapter 7
Wednesday, Sept. 2
Friday, Sept. 4
Monday, Sept. 7
In search of usable past
Read Slavery & Public History , chapters 8 & 10
The Professionalization of History
Labor Day (No Class)
Wednesday, Sept. 9 Social History
Read Peasant Fires , chapters 1-3
Friday, Sept. 11
Monday, Sept. 14
Wednesday, Sept. 16
Friday, Sept. 18
Monday, Sept. 21
Wednesday, Sept. 23
Friday, Sept. 25
History Honors Open House & Homecoming
Cultural History
Read
Read
Peasant Fires
Micro-History
Finish Peasant Fires,
Going Global
, chapters 4-5
6-8
Read The Colombian Exchange , preface, forwards, & chapter 1
Maize for Syphilis
Ecological History
Read The Colombian Exchange , chapters 2 & 3
The Colombian Exchange
Can we know the past?
Read The Landscape of History
, chapters 4-6
, chapters, 1-3
And, essays handed out in class on History & the Historian
3

Monday, Sept. 28
Wednesday, Sept. 30
History: Art or Science?
Read The Landscape of History , chapters, 4-6
Researching and Writing the Honors Thesis
Read The Landscape of History, chapter, 7-8
Friday, Oct. 2 Finish all remaining business….
Oct. 5-Nov. 18 No Classes. Students research their project and prepare their prospectus and bibliography . [ I will be emailing you regularly; I
may set up individual meetings to discuss your project. I may also call for all of us to meet at our regular class time.]
Friday, Oct. 23
Friday, Nov. 20
Trip to the Newberry Library, Chicago
Class: Individual presentation
Monday, Nov. 23 Class: Individual presentation
Wed.-Friday, Nov. 25-27 No Classes: Thanksgiving Break
Class: Individual presentation Monday, Nov. 30
Wednesday, Dec. 2
Friday, Dec. 4
Class: Individual presentation
Class: Individual presentation
Class: Individual presentation Monday, Dec. 7
Wednesday, Dec. 9
Friday, Dec. 11
Class: Individual presentation
Class: Individual presentation
4

HONORS THESES (past)
2008 Presentations
Iyad Shihadeh: “They Also Served: Untold Story of the Egyptian Labor Corps in the Great
War.” Mentors: Professors Holden and Zook
Emma Meyer: “Myth of Nations: The Aryan Myth in British, Indian and German Nationalist
Discourses.” Mentors: Professors Battacharya and Gray
Siobhan McGuire: “Conformity and Recusancy in Sixteenth-Century England: The Apostasy of
Thomas Bell.” Mentors: Professors Zook and Farr
Mark Johnson: “Freedom through Exile: Mme de La Tour du Pin and The Emigration to the
United States during the French Revolution.” Mentor: Professor Walton
Meredith Horn: “The Persecution of German-Americans during World War I: The Peculiar
Experience in Evansville, IN.” Mentor: Professor Hurt
2009 Presentations
Rosemary E. Arnold: “Celebrated to Scorned: The Construction of Belle Boyd in Public
Memory.” Mentors: Professors Janney and May
Nicole A. Capehart: “Sojourns, Slavery, and Sects: The Experiences of an Indiana Couple in
Antebellum Mississippi.” Mentor: Professor May
Emily L. Dawes: “The Road to the Farhud: Baghdadi Jews in the 1930s.”
Mentors: Professors Holden and Walton
Samuel W. Needham: “Welsh Calvinistic Methodism in the Eighteenth Century.”
Mentor: Professor Zook
Mark D. Robison: “Perceptions of Early Syrian-American Immigration and the Achievement of
Legal ‘Whiteness’.” Mentors: Professors Pitts and Holden
Charles G. Spencer: “Wherever Our Fortunes Fall: Medical Care of Wounded Soldiers during the Austro-Prussian War.” Mentors: Professors Gray and Ingrao
2010 Presentations
Elizabeth K. Allum: “Once Upon a Queen: The Reign of Queen Victoria Reflected in
Nineteenth-Century British Children’s Literature.” Mentors: Professor Walton and Zook
Ellie V. Carolus: “Not Rebels But Patriots: The Post-Civil War White South in Their Own
Terms, 1965-1905” Mentor: Professor Janney
Gregory Halmi: “Intimate Killers: The Infantry in Iraq.”
5

Mentors: Professors Holden and Roberts
Amy Heaney: “A Necessary Neutrality: Spanish Volunteerism and Economic Collapse in
World War II.” Mentors: Professors Foray and Gray
Rebecca Lutton: “Cola di Rienzo and the Influence of Antiquity.”
Mentors: Professors Ryan and Zook
Corrina Smith: “The Election of 1860: Anglo-American Relations Reconsidered.”
Mentors: Professors May and Zook
Max Vande Vaarst: “A State without a Center: The Search for New Jersey’s Identity in the
Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” Mentors: Professors Darren Dochuk and Nancy Gabin
2011 Presentations
Katrina Galt: “Drama, Divorce, and Diplomacy: Royal Marriage in Georgian England.”
Mentors: Professors Melinda Zook and Nancy Gabin
Brittany Poe: “Shifting Perspectives in Philosophy and Witchcraft in the Later Middle Ages.”
Mentors: Professors Michael Ryan and James Farr
William Vogel: “Warships and Disarmament on the Inland Seas: The Great Lakes, 1815-1871.”
Mentors: Professors Morrison and May
2012 Presentations
Jessica Bair: “Faster, Higher, Stronger: The Influence of Politics on the Olympic Games.”
Mentors: Professors Morrison and Atkinson
Lynch Bennett: “Quakers, Proprietors, and Palatines: German Immigration in the Making of the
Philadelphia Election Riot of 1742.” Mentors: Professors Lambert and Larson
Vincent Dahl: “Controlling and Responding to Public Opinion: The London Metropolitan
Police, 1829-1880.” Mentors: Professors Zook and Walton
Kyle Dowd: “Lost in the Desert: American Views of North Africa-from Operation Torch, 1942-
1943.” Mentors: Professors Walton and Holden
J. T. Lang: “Pablo Picasso’s ‘Instrument de guerre’ Guernica
[1937] as propaganda in Europe and the United States, 1937-1942.” Mentors: Professors Foray and Dossin
Abraham Trindle: “Tip of the Spear: Grand Deception and the History of Naval Special Warfare
Desert Shield Desert Storm, 1990-1991.” Mentors: Professors Holden and Atkinson
2013 Presentations
Kristen Blankenbaker, “Bra-less Bubbleheads and Bionic Women: Stereotypes and Perceptions of Second-Wave Feminism, 1963-1980.” Mentors: Professors Gabin and Walton
6

Kelsey Campbell, “’Incomparable Patience & Endless Mercy:’ the Reigning Virtues of Mary I.”
Mentors: Professors Zook and Farr
Cade Carmichael, "The Dark Scales of Justice: The Legality of the 1692 Witchcraft Trials in
Colonial America.” Mentors: Professors Pitts and Lambert
John Foerster, “The 10,000 Mile Appeal: President Wilson’s Trip Across America in Defense of the Treaty of Versailles.” Mentors: Professors Atkinson and Morrison
Olivia Hagedorn, "Explaining the Rise of Black Nationalism in Chicago: How Discrimination and Disillusionment Gave Rise to Black Collective Thought and Action from 1918-1945."
Mentors: Professors Bynum and Curtis
2014 Presentations
Madison Heslop, "Charlie Chaplin Eats a Shoe: The Klondike Gold Rush in Popular Culture."
Mentors: Professors Morrison and Curtis
Luke Howard, “Partisans, Patriotism and Politics: Indiana in the Civil War.” Mentors:
Professors Janney and May
Samantha Richards, “Constructing Memory: Remembering The
Herero and Nama Genocide,
1904-1907.” Mentors: Professors Decker and Klein-Pejsova
Katie Martin, “Indiana and the CCC: Race Relations, Representation, and Company 517-C."
Mentors: Professors Gabin and Brownell
Robert Kugler, “Turmoil and Transition in Iraq during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948." Mentors:
Professors Holden and Atkinson
Jennifer McVeigh, “Cold War Airwaves: Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and the Evolution of Propaganda,” Mentors: Professors Klein-Pejsova and Smith
Bradley Pierson, “September 1970: A Turning Point for US-Israeli Relations.” Mentors:
Professors Gray and Holden
Grant Priester, “The Legacy of the Stonewall Riots, 1969.” Mentors: Professors Pitts and Gabin
Kevin Robey, "Turning Tables: Gangsta Rap, the LAPD, and the 1992 LA Riots." Mentors:
Professors Brownell and Bynum
2015 Presentations
Emily Durkin: "Popular Culture Depictions and Social Class on the RMS Titanic " Mentors:
Professors Gabin and Zook
Ryan Freeman: "Through Eyes of Steel: Existentialism in the Industrial Calumet Region during the Post-WWII Era" Mentors: Professors Curtis and Gabin
7

Kevin Adams: "International Women's Day 1979: The Microstructure of a Polyvalent Iranian
Women's Movement" Mentors: Professors Boisseau and Holden
Jon Schoenwetter: "'Shall Not Justice be Meted Out?' Northern Newspaper Portrayals of Civil
War Prisoners: 1861-1868" Mentors: Professors Janney and Morrison
Lauren Haslem: "Shifting Cultural Climates: War and Mental Illness in Twentieth-Century
America" Mentors: Professors Pitts and Kline
Nekoda Witsken: "Japanese and American Women as Agents of Nineteenth-Century
Imperialism" Mentors: Professors Atkinson and Gabin
Jill Bosserman: "Employment and Empowerment: The Economic, Social, and Psychological
Advancement of Working-Class Women in First-World-War Britian" Mentors: Professors
Walton and Zook
Hannah Vaughn: "The Queen of Hearts: How Diana, Princess of Wales, Changed the Perception of the British Monarchy, 1981-2013" Mentors: Professors Zook and Walton
8