Writing Assignments
Weekly Response Papers
Every Tuesday (except during weeks in which you are preparing a longer paper), you will be expected to turn in a 1-2 page (typed, double-spaced) response paper pertaining to the week's reading assignment. These papers may take any form you like. They may be comprised of probing questions, content summaries, outlines of themes and patterns, commentaries on how the week's readings resonate with issues today, etc. I encourage you to experiment from week to week. Work at sharpening your critical and analytical skills.
Computer Lab Work
In the first half of the course, we will spend much of our time in the computer lab (O'Leary Library, 3rd Floor) being introduced to new methods of searching (using Gopher, for instance) for primary and secondary sources which could be used in one's research. At the end of most sessions, I will expect some kind of list of sources found during that session.
Three Review Essays
In addition to the weekly response papers, each student will write two 6-8 page papers. The first one, due in class on 10 March 1995, will be based on the assigned course reading up to that point in the semester, a distillation of everything covered in class thus far. The second paper will focus on one of the topics to be discussed in class between weeks 10 and 14, and should review the work of three to four historians who have written about the same subject. This assignment will require additional reading beyond that noted on the syllabus. It will be due in class on the Tuesday after that topic is discussed in class. You will be expected to meet with me individually on the Friday before the paper is due to discuss your draft. These Friday consultations will take the place of our class every week from week 9 to week 15.
Finally, a substantial historiographical essay (10-15 pages) will be due at the end of the semester. This paper should review the "history of the history" of a certain subject in which you are interested in doing your own research. Even if you are only slightly considering the prospect of graduate school, you are strongly encouraged to take a research seminar before leaving Umass-Lowell; this paper could be the first step in your preparation for such a course (and it could make your research seminar that much easier).
Grades
Your final grade in this course will be calculated as follows:
First paper
Second paper
Final paper
Response papers, computer work, and class participation
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20%
20%
40%
20%
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Schedule of Class Meetings
Week of 17 January: Early American Historiography
Reading: Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (Boston, 1805), Vol. 1, Chapter IV.
Week of 24 January: 19th Century American Historiography
Reading: George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent (NY: 1885), Chapters VII, VIII, IX, and X.
Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Washington, 1893).
NOTE: On 27 January, class will meet in the computer lab.
Week of 31 January: The Progressive School
Reading: Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: 1913) 1935 ed., Introduction to the 1935 edition, Preface, Chapters 3, 4, 5.
NOTE: on 3 February, class will meet in the computer lab.
Week of 7 February: Consensus School
Reading: Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York, 1955), Introduction, Parts IV and V.
NOTE: On 10 Februray, class will meet in the computer lab.
Week of 14 February: The Annales School and histoire totale
Reading: Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc, translated by John Day (Urbana, 1974), Introduction, pp. 11-83, 149-171, and the Conclusion.
NOTE: On 17 February, class will meet in the computer lab.
Week of 21 February: Marxist Approaches to History
Reading: E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1963), Preface, Chapters X, XI, and Section i of Chapter XVI.
NOTE: On 24 February, class will meet in the computer lab.
Week of 28 February: New Left History in America
Reading: Howard Zinn, Postwar America: 1945-1971 (Indianapolis, 1973), Introduction and Chapters 4 and 5.
NOTE: On 3 March, class will meet in the computer lab.
Week of 7 March: Varieties of Social History
Reading: Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, 1976), all.
FIRST PAPER DUE IN MY BOX BY NOON, 10 MARCH 1995
Week of 21 March: Ethnographic Approaches to History
Reading: Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia (Chapel Hill, 1982), Part I
Week of 28 March: The History of War and Cultural Conflict
Reading: John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: 1976), read about two of the three battles.
Week of 4 April: History and Race
Reading: Mechal Sobel, The World They Made Together (Princeton, 1987), Introduction, Part I, Part IV
Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll (New York, 1972), Preface and Book Two
Week of 11 April: History and Gender
Reading: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale (New York: 1990), pp. 1-133.
Week of 18 April: New Ways of Narrating History
Reading: Simon Schama, Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations) (New York: 1991), all.
Gordon S. Wood, Review of Schama in the New York Review of Books (27 June 1991), pp. 12-16.
Week of 25 April: Oral History
Reading: Wallace Terry, Bloods (New York, 1984), all.
Week of 2 May: The Future of History
Reading: Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988), Introduction and Part IV, Chapters 15 and 16.
Week of 9 May: Discussion of Final
FINAL PAPERS DUE IN CLASS: 9 May 1995
