Theories and Methods in Historical Studies

A Systematic Introduction Winter 2006 MA Course, 4 Credits Sorin Antohi CEU University Professor Head, History Department Director, Pasts, Inc. Center for Historical Studies The course is a systematic introduction to the theory and methodology of historical studies -- a mental map of the disciplines and discourses for which we generally use one word: history. The most significant theories and methods, schools and trends will be presented, against the wider background provided by the history of historical writing, epistemology, and other disciplines. The main objective of this course is to make sure that students, even when conducting very detailed empirical research, have a comprehensive, contemporary representation of what historical studies look like, as an interdisciplinary field situated between or both in the humanities and the social sciences. Also, the course is meant to help bridge the endemic gap between 'practitioners' and 'theorists', by outlining a professional canon that is relevant to both. Course Requirements Your progress in the course will be evaluated as follows: Midterm Paper and Its Oral Presentation Term Paper Class Participation 30% of the overall grade 50% 20%

Class participation means regular attendance and in-class comments and questions related to the weekly lectures and readings. Missing three classes means an automatic F, and expulsion of the student. Missing one or two classes means extra work, assigned by the instructor. The midterm paper is a ca. seven-page essay on one of the course topics; it is due in the beginning of the sixth week; it will have to be presented orally in the seminar section of the class; students will make these oral presentations in alphabetical order, starting with the sixth week. The term paper is a ca. twenty-page project in which students are expected to either approach course topics or to examine their own MA research topic and their draft MA thesis from a methodological-theoretical viewpoint. Term paper topics have to be discussed with and approved by the instructor; term papers are due in the beginning of the twelfth week. Required and Recommended Readings All required readings are included in the reader. Recommended readings include the books listed below (their chapters that are included in the reader constitute required readings, of course), as well as specific readings, in a variety of languages, which will be mentioned in the weekly lectures, and/or during consultations. Ankersmit, F.R. and Hans Kellner (eds.), A New Philosophy of History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Breisach, Ernest, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern, Chicago,

University of Chicago Press, 1983. Breisach, Ernest, The Future of History. The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Breisach, Ernest, On the Future of History. The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. Burke, Peter (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1991. Cohen, Ralph and Michael S. Roth (eds.), History and...Histories within the Human Sciences, Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1995. Iggers, Georg G., Historiography in the Twentieth Century, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1997. Kelley, Donald R., Faces of History. Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. Munslow, Alun, The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies, London: New York, 2000. Rsen, Jrn, ed., Western Historical Thinking. An Intercultural Debate, New YorkOxford: Berghahn Books, 2002. Course Agenda First Week: Introduction. Mapping Historical Studies Today Readings: Rusen, J., History: Overview, in Neil J. Smelser, Paul Baltes, editors-in-chief, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Amsterdam, etc.: Elsevier, 2001, Vol. 10, pp. 6857-6864. C. Lorenz, History: Forms of Presentation, Discourses, and Functions, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6836-6842. Peter Burke, "Overture: the New History, its Past and its Future", in Burke, ed., New Perspectives in Historical Studies, pp. 1-23. Alun Munslow, The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies, pp. 1-20 ("History Today. Critical Perspectives"). G.G. Iggers, Historiography and Historical Thought: Recent Trends, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6771-6776. Second Week: History and Theory: Dialogue or Fusion? And What Philosophy of History? Readings: M.C.Lemon, The Discipline of History and the History of Thought, London: Routledge, 1995, pp. 134-174 ("History and Theory") and pp. 265-7 (notes). C. Lorenz, History: Theories and Methods, in Smelser, Baltes, editors- inchief, op.cit., pp. 6869-6976. C.B. McCullagh, Historical Explanation, Theories of: Philosophical Aspects, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6731-6737.

Arthur C. Danto, "The Decline and Fall of the Analytical Philosophy of History", in Ankersmit and Kellner (eds.), A New Philosophy of History, pp. 70-85. Third Week: History, Literary Theory, Epistemology: The Narrative Strikes Back Readings: Georg G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, pp.118-133 ("The 'Linguistic Turn': The End of History as a Scholarly Discipline?") and 168-70 (notes). P.M. Lutzeler, History and Literature, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6817-6822. Alan Megill, "Does Narrative Have a Cognitive Value of Its Own?", in Walter Blanke, Friedrich Jaeger and Thomas Sandkller (eds.), Dimensionen der Historik. Geschichtstheorie, Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Geschichtskultur heute, Kln: Bhlau, 1998, pp.41-52. Paul Veyne, Writing History. Essay on Epistemology, translated by Mina Moore-Rinvolucri, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984, pp. 117-143 ("Theories, Types, Concepts") and 308-310 (notes). Fourth Week: History and Social Theory: Is History a Social Science? Readings: Georg G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, pp. 65-77 ("Critical Theory and Social Theory: 'Historical Social Science in the Federal Republic of Germany") and 160-2 (notes). Peter Burke, History and Social Theory, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992, pp. 1-21 ("Theorists and Historians"). C. Tilly, Historical Sociology, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6753-6757 Fifth Week: History and Geography: Common Legacies, New Rapprochements Reading: Leonard Guelke, "The Relations between Geography and History Reconsidered", History and Theory, Vol. 36, No.2, 1997, pp. 216-234. B. Graham, Historical Geography, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6737-6743. Sixth Week: History, Psychology, and Psychoanalysis: From mentalits to the Symptom and (Back) to Memory

Readings: Fred Weinstein, "Psychohistory and the Crisis of the Social Sciences", History and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 4, 1995, pp.299-319. Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan, "Setting the Framework", in Jay Winter, Emmanuel Sivan (eds.), War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 6-39. Assmann, History and Memory, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 6822-6829. Paul Ricoeur, Sorin Antohi, Memory, History, Forgiveness, Janus Head, 8(1), 2005, pp. 8-25. Seventh Week: History, Ethnography, Anthropology, Cultural Studies: Culture Revisited Readings: Clifford Geertz, "History and Anthropology"; Renato Rosaldo, "Response to Clifford Geertz"; Roger D. Abrahams, "History and Folklore: Luck-visits, House-attacks, and Playing Indian in Early America", all in Ralph Cohen and Michael S. Roth, History and...Histories within the Human Sciences, pp. 248-62; pp. 263-7; pp. 268-95, respectively. Eighth Week: The Local and the Global: Microhistory, Comparative History, World History Readings: Giovanni Levi, "On Microhistory", in Peter Burke, New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991, pp. 93-113. Chris Lorenz, "Comparative Historiography: Problems and Perspectives", History and Theory, 38, 1, 1999, pp. 25-39. Jrgen Kocka, "Asymmetrical Historical Comparison: The Case of the German Sonderweg", History and Theory, 38, 1, 1999, pp. 40-50. Peter Burke, "Western Historical Thinking in a Global Perspective -- 10 Theses", in Jrn Rsen, ed., Western Historical Thinking. An Intercultural Debate, New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2002, pp. 15-30. Jrn Rusen, Theoretical Approaches to an Intercultural Comparison of Historiography, in his History. Narration--Interpretation-Orientation, New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2005, pp. 109-128.

Ninth Week: Historical Experience and the Ontology of the Past: From Histori(ci)sm to Postmodernism Readings: F.R. Ankersmit, History and Tropology. The Rise and Fall of Metaphor, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 182238 ("Historism and Postmodernism. A Phenomenology of Historical Experience"). P. Rossi, Historicism, in Smelser, Baltes, editors-in-chief, op.cit., pp. 67586762. Ernest Breisach, On the Future of History, op.cit., pp. 1-25, 209-211 (A Preliminary Exploration of the Postmodernist Challenge). Tenth Week: History of Ideas: The New Total History? Reading: Donald Kelley, "What is Happening to the History of Ideas?", Journal of the History of Ideas, 1990, pp. 3-25. Eleventh Week: History in the Public Sphere: History Didactics, Textbooks, Historical Culture Reading: Jrn Rsen, Studies in Metahistory, pp. 187-202 ("The development of history didactics in West Germany: towards a new self-awareness of historical studies"). Twelfth Week: Historical Studies in a New Millennium: Contemplating the End of History, Revisiting Canons, or What? Readings: Lutz Niethammer, Posthistoire: Has History Come to an End? London: Verso, 1992, pp. 7-23 ("Retrogression: Loss or Overcoming of History?), and pp. 135152 ("The Dissolution of History"). Georg G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, pp. 134-147 ("From the Perspective of the 1990s", "Concluding Remarks") and pp. 171-175 (notes, "Suggested Readings"). Jrn Rsen, Studies in Metahistory, pp. 203-219 ("New directions in historical studies"). Paul Veyne, Writing History, pp. 213-235 ("Lengthening the Questionnaire") and 319-22 (notes).