Is History True?: The Genealogies and Genres of Facts
HIST 349
Fall 2025
| Section:
01
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| This course may be repeated for credit. |
| Crosslisting:
CHUM 386, REES 249 |
History, as both genre and discipline, has a complicated relationship with truth. As a genre, it is popularly understood to be factual -- a reflection of what really happened; as a discipline, it constructs the very reality that it claims to represent. History, in short, is based on the "facts" that it constitutes as real. This is not to say that our world is "post-truth" or unreal or that all "facts" are equally true. Rather, it is to suggest that to access historical reality we need to investigate the genealogies and genres of "facts," since facts (even "alternative facts") are the building blocks that make reality politically, socially, and culturally meaningful. So how does a "fact" become real? What genres of proof are used to constitute historical truth, and by whom? In this class, we will use historical approaches to understand how "facts" gain meaning and agency and analyze the (often porous) boundaries between history, memory, myth, rumor, and conspiracy. To do this, we will consider case studies -- political tropes like "Godless Communism" or "Judeo-Bolshevism"; legal categories such as "genocide" and "crimes against humanity"; and historical frameworks like "the Holocaust" and the "end of history" -- to consider how they structure our worldviews. The format of the course will combine discussion seminar with independent research projects. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS HIST |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (History Minor)(History) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
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Michael Gordin, The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe (University of Chicago Press, 2012).
Paul Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism (Harvard University Press, 2018).
Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (Farrar, Straux, & Giroux, 2008).
Philip Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" (Penguin RandomHouse, 2016).
Cristina Vatulescu, Reading the Archival Revolution: Declassified Stories and Their Challenges (Stanford University Press, 2024).
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Examinations and Assignments:
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Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Smolkin,Victoria Times: ..T.... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 12 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 12 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: X | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
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