HIS 3001: Ideas of History

Abstract

Course description: Why read or write history? How can we know about the past? What can historians’ work tell us about the period in which they wrote? This course is designed to address these questions, which are fundamental to the discipline of history, by studying a selection of historians from antiquity to the Renaissance. Although we will see that these historians are often very different in their approaches to historical scholarship and historical narrative to contemporary historians, by examining their assumptions and practices, we will develop a privileged perspective on history writing today. Learning Objectives: • Students will be able to analyze primary sources by placing them in historical context. • Students will be able to evaluate modern historians’ use of source material and assess their interpretations of that material. • Students will be able to place arguments into a scholarly tradition or framework. • Students will be able to assess the reliability of sources and evaluate their content • Students will be able to cite sources as appropriate. • Students will be able to produce a work of historical analysis in clear prose.