Course outline

This course provides an introduction to the different ways in which history is researched, thought about and presented by tracing the main developments in historiography and methodology over the last two centuries. Firstly, it explores the ideas and approaches of some of the most important historians and examines trends in historical thought and practice from empiricists and ‘whig’ historians to Marxists and the Annales School. Secondly, it looks at some of the most significant approaches to historical scholarship, including social, economic, intellectual, cultural and comparative history. Thirdly, it seeks to understand how historians have learnt from other disciplines, such as the social sciences. Fourthly, it confronts some of the thorniest concepts with which historians grapple, such as race, ethnicity, gender and class. The overall aim is to explore how questions about the past are framed and their answers attempted, emphasising the different ways in which historians approach the past and the extent to which their conclusions are evidentially and methodologically dependent. The course will, therefore, explore: what constitutes an historical problem; the varied nature of evidence; the selection and sorting of evidence (including the use of concepts, categories and theory); and the presentation of findings. The course is taught by a mixture of lectures and discussion seminars, both of which will involve confronting not just different ways of doing history, but also the skills which students need to master in order to become effective historians. As such the course seeks to provide the foundation for an undergraduate experience which is both intellectually rewarding and academically successful.

The course is taught by lectures and seminar classes, the latter of which will emphasise collective discussion, based upon the lectures and the essential readings. Students are assigned to one of eight seminar groups.

Lectures:                   Monday, 10-11

                                Term 1: Chemistry: Christopher Ingold Lecture Theatre

                                Term 2: Anatomy: J. Z. Young Lecture Theatre (G29)

Seminars:          Term 1: Mondays, 12-1, 4-5, 5-6, depending on group allocation

                                Monday, 12-1: Charles Bell, G18 (J. Peacey)

                                Monday, 4-5: B30, 25 Gordon Square (J. Sabapathy)

                                Monday, 4-5: Foster Court 112 (T. Rath)

                                Monday, 4-5: G10, 26 Gordon Square (D. Sim)

                                Monday, 5-6: Foster Court 216 (J. Peacey)

                                Monday, 5-6: B30, 25 Gordon Square (J. Sabapathy)

                                Monday, 5-6: Foster Court 220 (D. Sim)

                                Monday, 5-6: G10, 26 Gordon Square (T. Rath)

                        Term 2: Mondays, 12-1, 4-5, 5-6, depending on group allocation

                                Monday, 12-1: B30, 25 Gordon Square (J. Peacey)

                                Monday, 4-5: B30, 25 Gordon Square (J. Sabapathy)

                                Monday, 4-5: Foster Court 216 (T. Rath)

                                Monday, 4-5: Taviton (16) 346 (D. Sim)

                                Monday, 5-6: Foster Court 216 (J. Peacey)

                                Monday, 5-6: B30, 25 Gordon Square (J. Sabapathy)

                                Monday, 5-6: Foster Court 220 (D. Sim)

                                Monday, 5-6: Taviton (16), 346 (T. Rath)

For students who attend for the whole year, the course will be assessed by one essay (25%) and one three-hour written examination paper (75%). You must achieve a pass in both your coursework and your examination in order to pass the course.

Your assessed essay must be c.2,500 words long (including footnotes/endnotes but excluding bibliography).

Your essay must be well presented and clear. Please use double-spacing, 10, 11 or 12 point text, and leave margins of at least 2.5cm. Proof-read your work carefully and do not rely entirely on spell-checkers – they can introduce mistakes, particularly with proper names. Please put your name on your essay. One of the hard copies you submit will be returned to you with corrections and feedback.

Questions for assessed coursework essays are listed below. You must choose a title from this sheet.

Questions for assessed coursework essays:

‘The writing of history before Ranke is fatally compromised by reliance on rhetorical devices.’ Discuss.

‘The distinction between ‘good’ history and ‘bad’ history is only a matter of facts’. Is this position defensible?

What is wrong with studying history ‘with reference to the present’?

What did Marx think was the motor of history?

Is economic history history without individuals?

Is the idea of ‘class’ essential to ‘social history’?

Have historians taken sufficient notice of ‘nature’ as an historical protagonist – and what approaches are most fruitful for doing so?

What do we gain by thinking historically about objects and images that we cannot gain from thinking historically about texts? Discuss and illustrate. 

To what extent can historians become anthropologists of the dead ­– and should they want to?

If historians no longer need to justify studying ‘normal’ people’s beliefs, are historians of ‘mentalités’ doing much beyond ‘more of the same’?

How important is it for the intellectual historian to place a text in its context, and why?

Why has the problem of racial and ethnic identity become important for historians and historiographical debate?

Is gender a useful category for historical analysis?

Can historians usefully compare more than two phenomena at a time?

Critically asses the strengths and weaknesses of the ‘transnational turn’ in historiography.

The official deadline for your assessed essay is 12.00 noon on Monday 18 March 2013. You will be penalized if you fail to meet this deadline unless you have been granted an extension by the Chair of the Board of Examiners.

Your work must be submitted on Moodle/Turn-it-in by 12.00 noon BST on deadline day. Two hard copies with coversheet must also be submitted directly into the course tutor’s pigeonhole within 24 hours of the deadline. Please follow the guidelines on submission procedures on the departmental website at www.ucl.ac.uk/history, under ‘Undergraduates’.

Exam

The exam will last three hours. The paper has three, equally-weighted, questions:

Question 1 requires you to comment on two of about six gobbets of primary or secondary sources, relating largely to issues of evidence and its interpretation.

Question 2 comprises about five sub-questions concerning a particular historical debate or concept. You answer one sub-question.

Question 3 is a single question dealing with general historical issues

Non-assessed assignments

In addition to your coursework essay, you will also be expected to complete the following non-assessed tasks:

1. Journal article review

Write a 500-word synopsis of a journal article

To be submitted via Moodle no later than Monday 12^th November 2012.

2. Book review

Write a 1000-word review of a book from the reading list.

To be submitted via Moodle no later than Monday 7th January 2013.

3. Essay plan

A one-page plan for the essay you intend to submit at the end of Term 2.

To be submitted via Moodle no later than Monday 18^th February 2013.

The above assignments, together with the two skills sessions during the year, will help you develop your analytical and writing skills in preparation for your assessed essay due on Monday 18th March, and of course for your exam in Term 3.

These assignments are therefore – although non-assessed – extremely important and your seminar tutor and the course convener consider their timely completion to be a very significant matter.