Fall 2003
Tuesdays 2:30-4:20
pm
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Instructor |
E-mail |
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Phone |
5-2287 |
Office Hours |
Tuesdays 11:30-1:30 Thursdays 9:30-10:15 And by appointment |
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Office |
SH160 |
website |
All texts are available at UBS. Those marked with an asterisk have been placed on reserve at the Main Library and the remainder are on order and should be processed shortly.
Robert M. Burns and Hugh Rayment-Pickard, eds. Philosophies of History: From Enlightenment to Postmodernity (2000).
*William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (1999 [1981]).
*Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (1997).
*Philippe Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century (1996).
Philippa Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (2003).
*Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (1980).
*Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (1997).
*Stanley G. Payne, Spain’s First Democracy: The Second Republic, 1931-1936 (1993).
*Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1998).
Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe (1993).
The Payne book has been delayed because it is now available only in "print-on-demand." It should, however, arrive within 2-3 weeks of the start of class. The paperback edition of Levine is due out in late Sept, so we should get it in time, but if not we will make other arrangements.
This course is intended to serve three functions: to introduce graduate students to a variety of philosophical and methodological approaches to European history; to begin to prepare students for a comprehensive exam field in European history; and to provide students with an opportunity to write an historiographic essay relevant to their own area of scholarly research.
The class is organized into three units. In the first three weeks of the semester we will focus on different philosophical approaches to history. In other words, we will look at how thinkers since the Enlightenment have approached the question “what is history?” Particular emphasis will be placed on ideas that are especially influential in the last quarter century of European historiography. The next nine weeks of the semester will be spent reading works that will expose students to a range of historical topics and methods from the collapse of the ancien regime to the toppling of the Berlin Wall. Issues of gender, empire, culture, politics, and ideology in modern European history will be the focus of our attention.
As several students have already taken this course with another instructor, or have some background in European history, I have chosen to mix some very central works with some a little off the beaten track. In discussion we will have an opportunity to contextualize the works under consideration with reference to more canonical works for the benefit of those who have not yet been exposed to these authors. Indeed, the authors themselves usually lay out the relationship in their introductions. It is expected that more senior students in the class will come prepared to discuss the works in light of others they have encountered, both for their own benefit and for the benefit of more junior students. You should understand this course not as the final word in European history, but as merely an introduction. Works like those by Lynn Hunt and E.P. Thompson are essential reading for any historian, even if that means taking the initiative to familiarize yourself with them beyond the boundaries of this course.
Attendance at every class session is required. Students are expected to come to class having read the material and prepared to engage in active discussion. Student are also expected to fulfill the following assignments:
Leading discussion (20%)
Class participation (30%)
Historiographic paper (50%)
Leading discussion (20%):
Each student will sign up to lead discussion twice between Sept. 2 and Nov. 11: once solo, and once doubled or (in at least one case) tripled up with (an)other student(s). Students are expected to come prepared with discussion questions designed to foreground the work’s major themes, historiographic context and contribution, critical reception, and methodological strengths and weaknesses. Students are not to lecture on the books, but facilitate discussion guided by their historical and historiographical knowledge. Among the students, you bear primary responsibility for exploring the critical reception of the work/historiographical impact in the weeks you facilitate discussion. Keep in mind that you should not merely move from one fact-based, detail-oriented question to another, but jumpstart a dynamic debate over the work and its contribution. This means that not only do you have to read the work itself, but you will need to do some sleuthing about the debates that the work addresses.
Class participation (30%)
This portion of your grade will be based on three
components: (1) your contribution to classroom discussion; (2) a series of
2-pages precises that you will submit during the first twelve weeks of the
semester based on the common readings; and (3) your critical evaluation of your
fellow students draft papers.
Contribution to discussion is evaluated based on active engagement in
discussion through probing, thoughtful comments and questions. Remember: you want others to participate
actively when you lead discussion, so show your colleagues the same courtesy.
The reviews will not be graded, but will receive a check or no check. You must turn in reviews for ten of the first twelve weeks (units one and two). You can determine independently and without prior arrangement which weeks you will submit a review. The review should clearly explain the works major points, methods, sources, strengths and weaknesses, and historiographic contribution.
At the end of the semester, we will exchange drafts of historiographic essays. You are responsible for reading all your colleagues’ drafts and coming to the two sessions devoted to discussing them ready to offer professional, constructive, critical questions and comments. At the same time, each student will be paired with a fellow student who bears primary responsibility for offering a detailed, in-depth critique. As with the assignment to lead discussion, approach this exchange with an eye toward the benefits of putting in the kind of effort you hope your colleagues will invest in your own work.
Historiographic paper (50%)
You will write a 20-page historiographic essay that deals
with modern Europe for this course. It
should cover approximately 10-15 books that revolve around a single,
well-defined theme or topic in modern European history. It is hoped that, in consultation with the
professor, you will be able to fashion a topic that both deals with modern
European history and has some thematic, methodological, or chronological
relationship to your own research interests, even if they lay outside European
history. For example, perhaps you are
interested in communism in Latin America.
You could write a paper on Marxism and the Russian Revolution, social
democracy in Germany, or the politics of the Left in postwar Europe, to name
just a few examples. Perhaps you’re
interested in Cistercian nuns. You
could write a paper about the role of religion in European national identity,
or gender in Victorian England. You
will need to think openly and creatively about ways to make this paper relevant
to your studies and to your development of a base of knowledge about modern
European history. If you are planning
on a comps field in modern Europe, this is a good opportunity to lay the
groundwork for a thematic focus within that field.
To help keep you on track, I’ve laid out some deadlines:
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September 16 |
inform me of your proposed paper topic |
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October 7 |
turn in a bibliography (subject to revision) |
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October 28 |
one page introduction to the major historiographic themes you have identified for your topic |
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November 11 |
exchange drafts of papers to be discussed 11/18 [we will discuss in class how these exchanges will be carried out] |
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November 25 |
exchange drafts of papers to be discussed 12/2 |
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December 9 |
turn in final papers and discuss |
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Unit
One: Philosophies of History |
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Aug. 26 |
Introduction to the Course |
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Sept. 2 |
Philosophies of History, pt. I Reading: Burns and Rayment-Pickard, Philosophies of History:
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Sept. 9 |
Philosophies of History, pt. II Reading: Burns and Rayment-Pickard, Philosophies of History:
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Unit
Two: Readings in Modern European History |
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Sept. 16 |
The French Revolution Reading: William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution *Inform professor of paper topic |
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Sept. 23 |
The Rise of the Working Class Reading: Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches. |
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Sept. 30 |
Consumption and Consumerism Reading: Philippe Perrot, Fashioning the
Bourgeoisie |
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Oct. 7 |
Metropole and Empire Reading: Philippa Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics. *historiographic paper bibliography due |
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Oct. 14 |
European Modernism Reading: Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna |
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Oct. 21 |
Stalinism Reading: Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain |
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Oct. 28 |
Failed Democratization and the Rise of Fascism Reading: Stanley Payne, Spain’s First Democracy *one-page introduction to paper’s major themes due |
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Nov. 4 |
WWII Reading: Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men |
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Nov. 11 |
The Collapse of the Iron Curtain Reading: Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling
Down |
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Unit
Three: Historiographic Papers |
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Nov. 18 |
Critique of drafts, pt. I |
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Nov. 25 |
NO CLASS; exchange of drafts for 12/2 class |
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Dec. 2 |
Critique of drafts, pt. II |
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Dec. 9 |
Historiographic Papers Due |
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