I. Historical Memory II. How to write the history paper
A. How to choose a topic:
1. Value
2. Originality
3. Practicality
4. Unity
B. Pursuit of evidence
1. determine kind of primary documentation available
2. Secondary documentation
C. Criticism: examination of the document
1. opportunity?
2. objectivity?
3. transmission?
4. meaning?
5. significance?
D. Construction
E. Style -- most history journals use Chicago Manual of Style (U of Chicago)
F. Topics
III. Oral History
A. Prepare outline of what you think you may find/what you want to know
B. Prepare questions
C. Interview: precision, persistence, patience
D. After interview outline changes which should be made quickly
IV. Biography
THE HISTORIAN'S CRAFT
I. Some basic terms
A. History
1.
2.
3.
B. Historiography
Definitions:
Schools of thought:
Progressive (Frederick Jackson Turner, Chas. Beard,
Consensus (Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Boorstin)
New Left (Gabriel Kolko, Jesse Lemisch)
New Social History, Ethnic and Racial History, Women's History
1900-1940 1945-1963 1965-1970s
C. Historicism
1. belief that an adequate understanding of nature of anything & an adequate assessment of its value is gained only by considering it in terms of the place it occupied & the role it plays in a process of development
II. Is history humanistic/liberal arts, or is it scientific?
III. Kinds of history -- PERSPECTIVES
A. Great people vs. small people
B. Ideological vs. institutional
1. Chronological
2. Narrative
3. Analytic
4. Thematic
IV. Profiles of the historian:
A. Roles or models:
1. gossip
2. detective -- interest in why and how people do what they do
B. The historian's mind:
1. critical thinking
2. disciplined thinking
3. imaginative thinking
4. sympathetic thinking
5. summary: thinking on the basis of imagination, as experience and extension from it, disciplined by the documents
C. The historian's tools
1. rigorous training in graduate seminar
2. process of research
3. associations and conferences:
4. periodicals and books
5. teaching
V. The stuff of history