Hist 404
Dilek Barlas
Fall 2010, Monday& Wednesday: 12:30-13:45
Office Hours: Monday& Wednesday: 10:00-12:00
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Course Description:
This course first discusses “what is history” in Carr’s words. It then introduces students to the
range of methodological and theoretical frameworks of history writing. It also focuses on
contemporary conceptual issues such as social history, gender and women’s history, and cultural
history. It is exploring major differences in assumptions about the meaning and purposes of
history.
Course Requirements:
Grading will be as follows:
1) Discussion Session: 30
-Essay questions: 15
-Discussion: 15
***If you miss more than 3 sessions, you will lose 30 points for discussion.
Mid-term: 35%
Final Exam: 35%
 It is required that students do not miss the exams (in the case of illness, a valid medical
excuse has to be submitted within 3 days of absence).
Academic Integrity: Please refer to page 62 of the catalog.
Readings: The readings are electronically available at:
http://libunix.ku.edu.tr/search/a?searchtype=r&searcharg=hist+404&SORT=D&searchscope=9
The reader includes the chapters of the following books and articles:
New Perspectives on Historical Writing, (ed.) Peter Burke (Pennsylvania: Polity Press, 1991).
Edward Halett Carr, What is History (New York: Random House, 1961)
Historiography in the Twentieth Century. (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1997).
Economy and Society in Early Modern Europe, (ed.) Peter Burke (London: Routledge, 1972).
Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).
Gender and the Politics of History. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
Sarah Maza, “Stories in History: Cultural Narratives in Recent Works in European History,” American
Historical Review, vol. 101 (5), 1996The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, (ed.) Terence J.
McDonald. (Ann Arbor: Michigan State University, 1996).
Habermas and the Public Sphere, (ed.) Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, Masschusetts: The MIT Press, 1996)
The Foucault Reader, (ed.) Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
The New Cultural History, (ed.) Lynn Hunt, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)
Edward Said, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage, 1979).
Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for “Indian” Pasts?”
Representations, 37 (1992)
Gyan Prakash, “Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,” American Historical Review, vol. 99 (5), 1994
The Postcolonial Aura, Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism (Colorado: Westview,
1997).
Course Schedule
Week 1 (27-29 September): Introduction
Week 2 (4-6 October):
Past and Future
Peter Burke, “Overture: the New History, its Past and its Future, in New Perspectives on
Historical Writing, pp. 1-23.
Week 3 (11-13 October):
Causation in History
Edward Halett Carr, What is History, pp.113-143
Week 4 (18-20 October):
The Annales School
Georg Iggers, “France: The Annales,” in Historiography in the Twentieth Century, pp.
51-64.
Fernand Braudel, “History and the Social Sciences,” in Economy and Society in Early
Modern Europe, pp. 11-41.
Week 5 (25-27 October):
Social History and British Marxist Historical Tradition
Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians, pp.1-22; 167-220. (
Week 6 (1-3 November):
Gender and Women’s History
Joan Wallach Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” in Gender and
the Politics of History, pp. 28-50.
John Scott, “Women’s History,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, pp. 42-66.
Week 7 (8-10 November):
Oral History
Gwyn Prins, “Oral History,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, pp. 114-139.
Week 8: No Class – Bayram
Week 9 (22-24 November): Mid-term Exam
The Revival of Narrative
Sarah Maza, “Stories in History: Cultural Narratives in Recent Works in European
History,” American Historical Review, pp. 1493-1515.
Peter Burke, “History of Events and the Revival of Narrative,” New Perspectives on
Historical Writing, pp. 233-248.
Week 10: (29 November-1 December)
From Social History to Cultural History
Geoff Eley, “Is All the World a Text? From Social History to the History of Society Two
Decades Later," in The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, pp. 193-243.
Week 11 (6-8 December):
The Habermas of Historians
Craig Calhoun, “Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere,” in Habermas and the
Public Sphere, pp. 1-48.
Week 12 (13-15 December):
The Foucault of Historians
Paul Rabinow, The Foucault Reader, pp. 3-29; 206-225.
Week 13 (20-22 December):
The Foucault of Historians II
Paul Rabinow, The Foucault Reader, pp. 239-256; 273-289.
Patricia O’Brian, “Michel Foucault’s History of Culture,” in The New Cultural History,
pp. 25-46.
Week 14 (27-29 December):
Said and Orientalism
Edward Said, Orientalism, pp. 1-28.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for
“Indian” Pasts?” Representations, pp. 1-26.
Week 15 (2-4 January):
Subaltern Studies
Gyan Prakash, “Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,” American Historical
Review, pp. 1475-1490.
Arif Dirlik, “The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global
Capitalism,” in The Postcolonial Aura, Third World Criticism in the Age of Global
Capitalism, pp. 52-83.