Historiography

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

• Argument: Students will be able to present relevant evidence in support of a clear thesis
• Bibliographical Skills: Students will use conventional and electronic media to construct an advanced bibliography
• Citations: Students will use quotations and scholarly citations correctly and appropriately in formal prose
• Historiography: Students will be able to define historiography and will be able to contextualize (place in context) their own work within existing scholarship
• Methodology: Students will be able to comprehend and distinguish between different schools of historical methodology
• Written Communication: Students will employ clear and sophisticated prose to communicate the fruits of their research

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure	Percentage/Points
Oral Presentation on Readings (SLOs, 1, 4, 6)	10 points
General Discussion and Participation (SLOs 1, 4, 6)	15 points
Four Analytical Essays (3-5 pp each) (SLOs 1, 3, 6, 9)	40%
Scholarly Sub-Field Presentation (SLO’s 4, 6)	10 points
Scholarly Sub-Field Bibliography (SLO 2)	10%
Scholarly Sub-Field Essay (SLOs 1, 3, 4, 6, 9)	15%

Grading Scale:

Percentage	Letter Grade
93-100	A
90-92	A-
87-89	B+
83-86	B
80-82	B-
77-79	C+
73-76	C
70-72	C-
67-69	D+
63-66	D
60-62	D-
59 or lower	F

Attendance/Participation:

Attendance is critical in this course. You may miss one (1) class without explanation. For every additional unexcused absence, your final grade average will be reduced by 5 points.

If you miss 4 classes (=31% of the course), you automatically fail the class.

Exceptions to this policy include religious holidays, certain student activities (sports, drama), serious illness, and longstanding pre-existing obligations cleared by me; if one of these situations arises, you must talk to me about it.

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

• Sarah Maza, Thinking About History (University of Chicago Press, 2017). ISBN: 978-0226109336.
• R.H. Hilton, Bond Men Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381 (London: Routledge, 1973; reprint 2003; reprint with new introduction 2024). ISBN: 978-1032641898.
• Gabriel Loiacono, How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories (OUP, 2021). ISBN: 978-1097515433.
• Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Harvard UP, 1983). ISBN: 978-0674766914.
• Robin Fleming, The Material Fall of Roman Britain, 300-525 CE (Philadelphia, 2021). 978-0-8122-5244-6.
• Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (New York: Vintage, 2015). ISBN: 978-08041734
• Jen Manion, Female Husbands: a Trans History (Cambridge UP, 2020). 978-1108718271.
• Erika Lee, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (UNC Press, 2003) 978-0807863138.
• Caroline Elkins, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (Knopf, 2022). ISBN: 978-0307473493.
• J.R. McNeill, Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 (Cambridge UP, 2010) ISBN: 9780521459105.
• Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: a Global History (Vintage, 2015) ISBN: 9780375713965.
• Lynn Hunt, History: Why it Matters (Polity, 2018). ISBN: 978-1509525546.