This course introduces history majors to a range of problems, debates, and critical practices in the discipline of history. Part I explores varieties of evidence, historical imagination, and the perennial problem of structure versus agency. We conclude Part I with an example of how a topical field develops within the discipline, using slavery as our object lesson. Part II provides an opportunity for students to examine a specific historical problem and arrive at their own conclusions based on primary source study. Part III will consider distinct methods of and approaches to historical interpretation and explanation, including micro and macro-history, feminist and gender-based approaches, and deconstruction and post-modernism. |