Jacques Revel Debates in Cultural History Spring 2008 General Readings

Jacques Revel Debates in Cultural History Spring 2008 General readings

Peter Burke, What is Cultural History?, Polity Press, Cambridge UK, 2004. Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989. Dominick LaCapra, Steven Kaplan, eds., Modern European Intellectual History. Reappraisals and New Perspectives, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1982. George Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Wesleyan University Press, Hanover-London, 1997. Jacques Revel, Lynn Hunt, eds, Histories. French Constructions of the Past, New York, The New Press, 1996.

1. Presentation : Culture and cultures.

Peter Burke, What is Cultural History?, Cambridge UK, 2004. Ernst Gombrich, “In Search of Cultural History”, in Ideals and Idols. Essays on Values in History and in Art, Oxford, 1979, p. 25-59.

2. The autonomy of intellectual history

John Higham, “Intellectual History and its Neighbours”, The Journal of the History of Ideas, 15, 3, 1954. Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”, History and Theory, 8, 1969, p. 3-53. Donald R. Kelley, “Horizons in Intellectual History : Retrospect, Circumspect, Prospect”, Journal of the History of Ideas”, 48, 1, 1987, p. 1-32. Robert Darnton, “Intellectual and Cultural History”, in Michael Kammen, ed., The Past Before Us. Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, Ithaca, NY, Cornell Univesity Press, 1980.

3. Mentalités and beyond

Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (1939), London, 1961, Book II, chap. 2 (“Feeling and Thinking”). Roger Chartier, “Intellectual History or Sociocultural history? The French Trajectories”, in Dominick LaCapra and Steven Kaplan, eds, Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New perspectives, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1982, p. 13-46. Jacques Le Goff, “Mentalities” in J. Le Goff and P. Nora, eds, Constructing the Past, Cambridge, 1985. Jacques Revel, Lynn Hunt, Histories. French Constructions of the Past..., p. 31-33, 371-422.

Suggested reading : Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1980.

4. The trading zone: history and anthropology

Edward P. Thompson, « The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century », Past and Present, 50, 1971, p. 76-136. Edward P. Thompson, “Folklore, Anthropology and Social History”, The Indian Historical Review, January 1977. Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence”, in Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975, p. 152-188.

Suggested reading : Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975.

5. Anthropology and history

Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description. Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”, in The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, Basic Books, 1973, p. 3-30. Bernard Cohn, “History and Anthropology: the State of Play”, Comparative studies in society and history, 22, 1980, p. 198-221. Nicholas Dirks, “Is Vice Versa? Historical Anthropologies and Anthropological Histories”, in T. McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn..., p. 17-51.

Suggested readings : Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1985.

6. Foucault: from archaelogy to genealogy

Michel Foucault: The Archeology of Knowledge, London, Pantheon, 1969, “Introduction”. Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, in D. Bouchard, ed., Language, Counter- memory, Practice, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1977. David C. Hog, Foucault: A Critical Reader, Oxford, 1986. Patricia O’Brien, “Michel Foucault’s History of Culture”, in L. Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989, p. 25-46.

7. Norbert Elias: culture as a social process

Norbert Elias, The Court Society (1933, 1969), Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, Foreword and chapter 3. Roger Chartier, “Formation sociale et économie psychique: la société de cour dans le procès de civilisation”, Préface to N. Elias, La société de cour, Paris, Flammarion, 1985, p. I- XXVIII.

8. History vs. Sociology

2 George Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Hanover-London, Wesleyan University Press, 1997, p. 31-35, 65-77. Pierre Bourdieu, “Intellectual Field and Creative Project”, (1966), Social Science Information, 8, 1969, p. 859-906. Craig Calhoun, “The Rise and Domestication of Historical Sociology”, in T. McDonald ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, 1996, p. 305-337.

Suggested reading: Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1990.

9 -10 Culture in context. The varieties of microhistories

Giovanni Levi, « On Micro-history », in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives in Historical Writing, Cambridge, UK, 1991, p. 97-119. Carlo Ginzburg, “Clues. Roots of an Evidential Paradigm”, in Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, p. 96-125. Carlo Ginzburg, “Microhistory: Two or Three Things I Know About It”, Critical Inquiry, 20, 1993, p. 10-35. Jacques Revel, “Micro-analyse et construction du social”, in J. Revel, ed., Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience, Paris, Gallimard-Seuil, 1996, p. 15-36. Simona Cerutti, « Microhistory : Social Relations vs Cultural Models », in A.-M. Castren, M. Lonkila, M. Peltonen, eds., Between Sociology and History. Essays on Microhistory, Collective Action, and Nation-Building, Helsinki, SKS/ Finnish Literature Society, 2004, p. 17-40.

Suggested readings: Carlo Ginzburg: The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a 16th Century Miller, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. Or: Giovanni Levi, Inheriting Power: the Story of an Exorcist, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1988.

11. Culture as context. The linguistic turn

J. Toews, “Intellectual History After the Linguistic Turn”, American Historical Review, 92, 4, 1987, p. 879-907. Frank Ankersmit, “Historiography and Postmodernism”, History and Theory, 28, 1989, p. 127-153. Roger Chartier, “Questions to Hayden White”, in On the Edge of the Cliff. History, Language, and Practices, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Matti Peltonen, “After the Linguistic Turn? Hayden White’s Tropology and History Theory in the 1990’s”, in A. M. Castrén, M. Lonkila, M. Peltonen, eds, Between Sociology and History..., p. 87-101.

Suggested reading: Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

12. The New Cultural History

Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989. Roger Chartier, Cultural History Between Practices and Representations, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1988. Terrence McDonald, “Introduction”, in T. McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn..., p. 1-14. William Sewell,

13. The Pragmatic Turn: Culture as Agency

Victoria Bonnell, Lynn Hunt, eds, Beyond the Cultural Turn, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999, p. 1-61. William H. Sewell, « Refiguring hte « Social » in the Social Sciences. An Interpretive Manifesto », Logics of History. Social Theory and Social Transformation, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2005, p. 318-372.

Suggested reading : Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984, part 1 and 2.