I) HIST 210: Introduction to Historiography

3 credit hours

Avery 214, MWF, 11:00-11:50

C. Leckey

Fall 2001

Office and office hours: Avery 209, MWF, 10-11; TR, 1-2, and by appointment

(423) 869-6427

cleckey@lmunet.edu

II) Prerequisites: HIST 121 or 122 or permission of instructor

III) Course description: This course introduces students to major schools of historical thought and groundbreaking interpretations/analyses of important subjects in European, American, and World History. This semester we will focus on four topics: 1) The Prophet Muhammad and his impact on Middle Eastern and world history; 2) Popular and elite culture in Early Modern Europe; 3) Stalinism; 4) Culture and society in Appalachia.

IV) Course objectives:

1) To introduce students to professional historical writing.

2) To illustrate that historical understanding, knowledge, and opinion evolve over time and typically reflect the conditions of the time in which the historian writes.

3) To show that history is produced in a larger scholarly community. In order to be meaningful, valid, and legitimate, it must be addressed to the larger community of historians, and present something new and challenging to the body of knowledge.

4) To improve writing and communication skills.

V) Texts

Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (at LMU bookstore)

Weller, Yesterday’s People: Life in Contemporary Appalachia (at LMU bookstore)

All other reading assignments will be found at the reserve desk at LMU library

VI) Outline of course/units of instruction (* indicates heavy reading day)

8/22: Course introduction

Section One (8/24-9/12): Stalinism

8/24: Introduction to Stalinism. Abbot Gleason, Totalitarianism, chapter 7.

8/27: "Totalitarian school" and the Smolensk archive. Merle Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, chapter 11.

*8/29: Biographical approaches to Stalinism. Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, chapters 1-3; OR Robert Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, chapters 12-13.

8/31: Revisionism. Stephen Cohen, Rethinking the Soviet Experience, chapter 1.

9/5-7: Revisionism (?). Sheila Fitzpatrick, "New Perspectives on Stalinism," and replies, Russian Review, 45, 4 (1986), 357-413.

9/10: Iconoclast. J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges, introduction, chapter 7.

9/12: Archival revelations. Selections from J. Arch Getty and Roberta Manning, eds., Stalinist Terror: B. Starkov, “Narkom Ezhov”; and A. Nove, “Victims of Stalinism: How Many?”

9/14: Strategies for writing Stalinism papers.

Section Two: Popular and elite cultures in early modern Europe

9/17: Introduction to cultural history. Stalinism papers due. No reading assignment.

9/19: Republic of Letters. Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, volume 2, chapter 2, part 1 ("The Republic of Letters").

*9/21: Class and status in pre-industrial Europe. Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, chapters 1-2, OR Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, introduction, chapters 1, 7.

9/24: Material bases of popular culture in early modern Europe. Le Roy Ladurie, "Rural Civilization," in The Territory of the Historian.

9/26-10/1: Popular culture--synthesis. Peter Burke, Popular culture in early modern Europe, chapters 1, 3, 7-8.

10/3-10/8: Dynamic interaction of popular and elite cultures. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, preface to the Italian edition, chapters 12-19, 24-31, 58-61.

10/10: Schism of popular and elite cultures. Robert Darnton, "The High Enlightenment and the Low-Life of Literature," in The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, and Roger Chartier, "Figures of the 'Other': Peasant Reading in the Age of Enlightenment," in Cultural History, Between Practices and Representations.

10/12: Towards the public sphere: Margaret Jacob, "The Mental Landscape of the Public Sphere: A European Perspective," Eighteenth-Century Studies, 28, 1 (Autumn, 1994), 95-113; Douglas Smith, "Freemasonry and the Public in Eighteenth-Century Russia," in Jane Burbank and David Ransel, eds., Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire, 281-304 (originally published in Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1995).

Section Three: Mohammad and the Rise of Islam

10/15: Introduction to medieval Islam. Popular/elite culture papers due. No reading assignment.

10/17: Founders. W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman, chapters 1-2, OR Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, chapters 1-2.

10/19-10/22: Setting the standard. Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad, chapter 4. 10/24-26: The individual and world history. Marshal Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, volume 1, book 1, chapter 2.

10/29: The Prophet vanishes. Richard Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel, "Apologia," chapters 1, 4.

10/31: Enfant terribile: Edward Said, Orientalism, chapter 3, part 4.

11/2: An Islamic perspective. Charles Le Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man, chapters 5-6.

*11/5: Impact of religious fundamentalism. Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, chapters 1-2, 4.

11/7-9: Dismantling the trade thesis. Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, introduction, chapters 9-10.

Section Four: Culture and society in Appalachia

11/12: Introduction to the social and cultural history of Appalachia. Muhammad papers due. No reading assignment.

11/14-16: The "colonial model". Harry M. Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, part 3.

11/19-26: Application of the "colonial model". Jack Weller, Yesterday's People: Life in Contemporary Appalachia, introduction, chapters 3-6.

11/28: Evolution of the "colonial model". Two selections from Lewis, Johnson, Askins, eds., Colonialism in Modern America: The Appalachian Case: Ronald Eller, "Industrialization and Social Change in Appalachia, 1880-1930: A Look at the Static Image," 35-46; Helen Lewis, Sue Koback, and Linda Johnson, "Family, Religion and Colonialism in Central Appalachia," 13-40.

11/30: The oral tradition and its critics. John Puckett, introduction to Foxfire Reconsidered: A Twenty-Year Experiment in Progressive Education; Roberta Herrin, "The Child and Appalachia: Rethinking Two Major American Symbols," in Robert Higgs, et. al., eds., Appalachia: Inside Out.

*12/3: Modernization theory debunked. Ronald Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930, chapters 5, 7.

12/5: Appalachia invented. Selections from Henry David Shapiro, Appalachia on our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness; OR Allen Batteau, The Invention of Appalachia.

12/7: A new synthesis? Relevant selections from Richard B. Crake, A History of Appalachia.

VII) Methods of instruction: Aside from a few setup lectures to introduce each topic, class periods will consist of discussion on the assigned readings. This is a seminar course.

VIII) Course requirements/methods of assessment: Four papers (6-7 pages, double-spaced, 11 or 12 font, one-inch margins) on the assigned reading. Questions, themes, and issues will be discussed and distributed in class beforehand. I encourage students to devise their own topics, but please clear it with me in advance.

Class participation: 10 %

Stalin paper: 15 %

Popular/elite culture paper: 25 %

Muhammad paper: 25 %

Appalachian culture paper: 25 %

IX) Class policies:

1) Students are permitted two cuts. More than two cuts will invite penalties at my discretion.

2) Students may revise papers once to improve their grade. This does not apply to the final paper (exam week).

X) No field experience required.

XI) Revised August 21, 2001.