Colloquium in Public H Istory
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HI 791.001 Spring 2021 M 3-5:45 pm online NC State University 3 cr. hrs. Public History Colloquium in COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES In this course, we explore advanced historiographical readings on major topics in public history. This semester, you will become acquainted with many of the critical questions and concepts that scholars have developed as tools for thinking about public history as an intellectual enterprise. This is not a course on the practical application of public history or on the history of public history. We will not be reading books to learn the subject matter, although if you learn something about applying history in public spheres that would be a pleasant bonus. Instead, we are studying historiography, the assessment of public history as an intellectual discipline that tries to discover and interpret knowledge. This approach is designed to help you begin to historiographically situate your own dissertation topic and methodologies. Students’ objectives in this course are to: 1) understand the development of the academic discipline of public history and the conventions of writing that have characterized it; 2) become familiar with the vocabulary that public historians and There are no pre-reqs or co-reqs traditional historians use to describe historiographic trends and for this course. Nor are there enrollment restrictions or practices in public history; 3) understand and engage central debates additional expenses. in public historiography. public history historiography; 2) define and apply basic terms and concepts central to the field; and 3) define and relate theProfessor methodologies Craig of public Thompson history studies Friend. office hours: M 4-6 pm, W 12 n-2 pm, by appt. email: [email protected] office: Withers 368 office phone: 919-513-2227 1 THE SAC METHOD Public history scholarship helps GRADING SCALE For every reading that you do in this “illuminate the ways in which the 97-100=A+ course you should be able to summarize, public More‘comes toQuestions understand information’ and interact with the 93-96=A assess, and critique—SAC! You should 90-92=A- past.”—Allison Marsh, USC prepare for each class AS IF YOU WILL BE 87-89=B+ LEADING DISCUSSION! Indeed, you will be 83-86=B leading discussion on occasion. For all 80-82=B- 80>=F readings, you should be able to SAC! Food for Thought How have scholars described ummarize: What is the reading about? What is the story that public history as a practice? As a S the author is presenting? What is the argument? profession? As activism? As interaction among different social ssess: Why is the story written in such a manner? How is groups? A the argument supported? What is the conclusion? ritique: How effective is the story? How convincing is the How do academic historians C argument? How does it contribute to the larger understand public history? And historiography? how do public historians understand academic history? By being able to summarize, assess, and critique individual readings, you will develop the skills to see broader How do scholars define and historiographical landscapes and situate your own work and describe public history and what perspective. For public historiography, by the end of this are the nuanced ways in which it is course, you should be able to answer conceptualized? How have historians “invented” the field of public history? Why is interdisciplinarity a central How did historians working in different subfields decide theoretical concept? How does it what kinds of approaches and methodologies to manifest in scholarly literature? incorporate into their studies? What are the possible How and why have scholars interpreted public history as a consequences of its introduction practice-based, rather than intellectual, enterprise? How into public history historiography? does this disadvantage the public history scholar? What roles do gender, race, class, sexuality, and intersectionality HOW THIS COURSE WORKS play in conceptualizing public history in a postmodern age? PARTICIPATION. The class has common readings to help us conceptualize how historians have gone about the business of How has public history worked to researching and interpreting public history. The first three both expose the process of weeks, we are all responsible for facilitating discussion. Each historical study to a wider public succeeding week, one student will lead discussion on the and occlude its own practices reading, as indicated on the syllabus. For each book to which a behind disciplinary barriers and student is assigned, that student will also write a book review, claims of expertise and authority? due to the professor ASSIGNMENTS within a week following How do public historians Participation 20% discussion of the book. understand and interpret the Book Reviews (3) 45% Each student will digital age? Model Dissertation 10% submit a total of three Review Essay 25% book reviews. 2 Although one student is responsible for leading discussion each week, all students should prepare AS IF YOU WILL BE LEADING DISCUSSION! all readings, you should be able to SAC! The seminar is taught in the Socratic method, meaning that there will be asking and answering of questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions. Questions will be followed up with more questions in order to advance the discussion. An excellent example of how our conversations should manifest is Episode 10: Gender in Early America (or any other episode) of the The JuntoCast. You should use this podcast as a model for preparing for your contributions to discussion. Note how the discussants use books to drive the conversation, introducing authors, historical periods, and topics, and setting out main arguments as a way to relate themes and arguments. relate history even as they discuss historiography. elaborate on the evolution of gender historiography, including examining multiple themes concurrently. describe how authors and books add to our understanding of particular historical questions. BOOK REVIEWS. On each of the three occasions when you lead discussion of a book, you will submit NO LATER THAN THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT CLASS SESSION an eight-to-ten-page, double-spaced critical evaluation of that book. You need to summarize the book, yes, and assess the author’s success. Most importantly, you need to present a thoughtful, probing essay on an issue of historiographical significance, asking WHY the reading matters (or might matter) and what can be learned from it. You may consider the many questions listed on page two of this syllabus, but at minimum you should consider: What is most suggestive, stimulating, provocative about the work? Why? What are some of the implications or applications you imagine for the work in terms of methodology? What interpretations does it contain? What kinds of evidence are used? What are some of the implications or applications you imagine for the work in terms of topic and themes? Does the work enlarge your understanding of challenges in public history scholarship in important ways? How so? MODEL DISSERTATIONS ASSIGNMENT: We will discuss a set of model dissertations that have won major awards for outstanding quality. Note that these dissertations can be accessed through the library’s Dissertations and Theses database. Each student will present on two dissertations. Read the framing chapter of each dissertation and skim the entire dissertation to discern: • the topic, and the research question being asked of it; • why the topic and the question are important; • the answer to the question—the thesis; • the literature that already exists on this research question; • how the question fits into/relates to that literature; • the methodology/ies proposed to tackle the question. For the Model Dissertation paper, due NO LATER THAN THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT CLASS SESSION, each student must write five to seven double-spaced pages in which they compare and contrast the 3 Traditional History dissertations to the Public History dissertations. The paper should be guided by the questions listed above. THE FINAL ASSIGNMENT. A Review Essay of ALL the readings that you have done for this course, twenty to twenty-five pages in length. My expectation for quality summarization, assessment, and critique remains the same for this assignment. You may ask: Is extra research required? Are citations necessary? Is a bibliography necessary? My response: Are you really asking those questions? The essay should be structured thematically: NOT BOOK BY BOOK. A stellar example of a review essay in this field is Jennifer Manion, “Historic Heteroessentialism and Other Orderings in Early America,” Signs 34 (2009): 981-1003. Notice how it is NOT JUST an examination of book contents but a thematically complex and interwoven essay with a point about gender historiography. Similarly, you need to write an examination of the scholarship that is thematically complex and interwoven, with a point about public historiography. Other examples of review essays may be found in Reviews in American History. Focus on SAC for each of the works, including contrasting and comparing sources and methods, discussing effectiveness of arguments, and situating in larger historiographies of public history (for which you will need to draw from externally researched materials). REQUIRED BOOKS Araujo, Ana Lucia. Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past. New York: Bloomsbury Pub., 2021. $29.95 Black, Jeremy. Clio’s Battles: Historiography in Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. $30.00 Blee, Lisa, and Jean M. O’Brien. Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasiot. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. DiGiovine, Michael A. The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism. Landham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. $41.50 Haskins, Ekaterina V. Popular Memories: Commemoration, Participatory Culture, and Democratic Citizenship. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2015. $41.55 Kammen, Michael. Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture. New York: Penguin, 1991.