H501 (C352) Historical Methodology

Indiana University Graduate School

Spring 2002

Time: Mondays, 5:45-8:25 p.m.

Place: Cavanaugh Hall 537

Faculty: Dr. Kevin C. Robbins

Associate Professor of History

Office: CA 504Q

Office Phone: 317-274-5819

E-Mail: krobbin1@iupui.edu

Office Hours: Tuesdays, 9:00 a.m.-Noon (and by Appointment)

H501 is here conceived as a course on historical research methods requiring students to familiarize themselves with the techniques professional historians now employ in selecting and framing historical problems, in the identification, collection, and analysis of sources, and in the cogent development of significant arguments or presentations explaining change in human behavior over time. The course has two main practical objectives: 1) to present students with required readings in recent masterworks of historical writing enabling sustained analysis of how professional historians now work, especially in cultural history, to document and decipher prior eras, communities, and habits of human comportment—corporal and intellectual; and 2) to enable each student to plan, richly contextualize, and launch his or her own graduate level research project—ideally related directly to their M.A. thesis or Public History paper plans (or, for non-degree students, to a significant subject or historical problem of appeal to them and for which they might undertake later sustained research. The instructor regards both objectives as eminently practical and mutually capable of helping students to organize and apply their own research talents. Progress toward these objectives should help students to appreciate historical investigation as essentially a craft most reliant upon practitioners’ empirical skills of source location, source analysis, and source interpretation. High theory or the theoretical implications of specific research methods in history and the social sciences are thus not considered by the instructor as relevant to this course of training in analysis and practice of creative, resourceful research methods.

This course will run as a graduate seminar. All students will complete all assigned class readings and come to all class sessions fully prepared to discuss at length the texts assigned. The instructor may provide brief introductory lectures prior to discussion informing students of relevant biographical or cultural factors shaping the work of the author or authors read. Student participants will also take an active assigned class role in presenting and commenting upon the texts read and the research designs presented. Each student will be responsible for initially presenting one of assigned readings to the class. This work will involve a brief biographical profile of the author or authors, references to the career and publications of the author or authors, some general overview of the assigned text's prime arguments and relationship to the author's prior course of research and writing, specific commentary on the sources utilized in the assigned text--especially by close study and reference to the notes and supporting bibliographies if any, and commentary/critique on the methods employed to exploit those sources for gain in power of argumentation and interpretation. Students are encouraged to offer their classmates print copies or printed illustrations of their text presentations as the deem appropriate. Presentations must be well organized, cogent, to the point, and comprehensive, covering the points outlined above. Students are welcome to consult with the instructor over the content of their introductions prior to delivering them.

Written work for this class over the semester will include four brief critical review essays focused on masterworks read. The format and content of these essays will be discussed in class and via handouts. Students are encouraged to use these review essays to assess whether and how methods of historical work in the assigned readings may beneficially inform, reshape, and improve their own research designs. The main written component of the course will be a thorough research project design. This organized research plan will include: a project statement, an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources highly relevant to the projected inquiry, a bibliographical essay on this relevant historical literature, a draft research design, and a final research design. All students are encouraged to discuss their research project extensively with the instructor. The instructor will also be happy to collaborate as needed with the student’s main thesis advisor(s) and other members of the university faculty engaged in the project so as to produce (with the student’s active assistance, the most efficient, innovative, and insightful project design possible.

Required readings for this edition of H501 are listed below in order of use. Students will note several unifying themes central to the latest and hottest historical scholarship interconnect these assigned works: the new history of the human senses and the analysis of material culture to uncover and illuminate the formation and change of human mentalities, rituals, socio-economic relations, and gender roles.

Classen, Constance, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell.

Routledge, London: 1994.

Camporesi, Piero, The Magic Harvest: Food, Folklore and Society. Polity Press, 1993.

Melchior-Bonnet, Sabine, The Mirror: A History. Routledge, London: 2001.

Corbin, Alain, Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the Nineteenth-Century French Countryside.

Columbia University Press, New York: 1998.

Haine, W. Scott, The World of the Paris Café: Sociability Among the French Working Class 1789

1914. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1996.

Davis, Mike, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World.

Verso Books, London: 2001.

Schmidt, Leigh E., Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays. Princeton

University Press, Princeton: 1995.

Conn, Steve, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926. University of Chicago Press,

Chicago: 1998.

Kitch, Carolyn, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass

Media. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C.: 2001.

Lewis, Tom, Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life.

Penguin Books, New York: 1999.

All texts are for sale in the IUPUI Bookstore and can also be found (often at a great discount) via various online book dealers (try Amazon.com first). All students should have their own copies of these required readings.

The following written assignments integral to the research design will be due according to the weekly class schedule given below.

Project Statement: 2-3 pages. Give the title of your proposed project and briefly discuss its significance. What historical problem(s) will you address. Why is it or why are they important? What sources in general will you use to get at and explore this subject? Where are they and on what scale will you work? How many sources do you think you need? What do you hope your work will contribute to the existing literature in the area you have selected and how will your work differ from that of other historians. Have you come up with a preliminary working hypothesis about your subject/problem? What is it?

Annotated Bibliography: a list to include approximately 25 primary and secondary sources, if both are available. Secondary sources should include books and articles and may also incorporate images, websites, maps, and other media relevant to the project. Each entry should have a complete bibliographical citation (single-spaced) according to accepted format (Chicago Manual of Style is best). This entry should be followed by a double-spaced paragraph (no more) describing the source and its most important contributions to your own project in terms of content, methods of investigation, or research questions presented. Primary sources should be listed first, followed by secondary materials, all arranged alphabetically.

Bibliographical Essay: approximately 20 pages. This assignment will be due toward the end of the semester and should reflect closer scrutiny of the sources listed in the annotated bibliography as well as of any additional material found over the course of the semester and deemed highly valuable to the research project. This essay should accomplish the following objectives: 1) revise the project statement based on the instructor's comments and additional research by the student; 2) connect the project thickly and informatively to the secondary literature included in the bibliography and to wider issues of methodological investigation, source interpretation, and revision of existing historical arguments concerning the project topic and sources.

Research Design: in an essay of 7-10 pages cogently describe your project, the historical problems it addresses, and how it complements, expands, or revises existing historical literature in the field or sub-field to which the project belongs. In addition, describe your proposed plan of research, anticipate the research problems you may encounter, and explain briefly your anticipated strategies for coping with or surmounting such problems. What sources will you use and what difficulties may the sources themselves pose in terms of availability, reliability, and interpretation. State clearly, how, if at all, your hypotheses about your project have changed over the course of your preliminary research and contextualizations.

Grading for this course will be determined as follows:

Review Essays 20%

Project Statement and Annotated Bibliography 20%

Bibliographic Essay 25%

Research Design 15%

Class Participation (including text presentation) 20%

Course Outline and Reading Assignments

Mon. 1/7 Course Introduction, Distribution of Syllabus, Explanation of Course Content

and Objectives. Description of Main Course Readings.

Mon. 1/14 Introduction and General Discussion of Classen, et. al., Aroma: Cultural

History of Smell.

Readings: Classen, Howes, Synnott, Aroma, pp. vi-158

Mon. 1/21 NO CLASS MLK DAY NO CLASS

Mon. 1/28 Concluding Discussion of Classen, et. al.

Readings: Aroma, pp. 158-242.

Mon. 2/4 Introduction and General Discussion of Camporesi.

Readings: Piero Camporesis, Magic Harvest: Food, Folklore, and Society, Chapters

1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

Research Project Statement due in class.

First Brief Critical Review Essay Topic distributed in class.

Mon. 2/11 Introduction and General Discussion of Melchior-Bonnet.

Readings: Sabine Melchior-Bonnet, The Mirror: A History, Introduction and Chapters 1-5, 7, and 9, pp. vii-155, 187-221, 246-274.

First Brief Critical Review Essay due in class.

Mon. 2/18 Introduction and General Discussion of Corbin.

Readings: Alain Corbin, Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the Nineteenth-Century

French Countryside, Foreword, Preface, and Chapters 1-4, pp. ix-158.

Mon. 2/25 Continuing Discussion of Sources, Methods, and Conclusions in Corbin.

Readings: Village Bells, Chapters 5-9, pp, 159-308.

Mon. 3/4 Introduction and Discussion of Haine.

Readings: W. Scott Haine, The World of the Paris Café: Sociability Among the

French Working Class, 1789-1914, Appendix, pp. 241-250, Chapters 1-4, 6-7,

and Conclusion, pp.ix-117, 150-206, and 234-240.

Second Brief Critical Review Essay Topic distributed in class.

Mon. 3/11--Fri. 3/15 SPRING BREAK NO CLASSES SPRING BREAK

Mon. 3/18 Introduction and Discussion of Davis.

Readings: Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of

The Third World, Preface, Part I, 1-3, and Part II, 4, pp. ix-140.

Preliminary Annotated Bibliography due in class.

Second Brief Critical Review Essay due in class.

Mon. 3/25 Continuing Discussion of Sources, Methods, Arguments in Davis, Victorian

Holocausts. Readings: Davis, Part II, 5 and Part III, 7-9, pp. 141-176 and 211-

310.

Mon. 4/1 Introduction and Discussion of Schmidt.

Readings: Leigh Schmidt, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American

Holidays, Introduction and Chapters 1-3, pp. 3-191.

Bibliographic Essay Due in Class.

Third Brief Critical Review Essay Topic distributed in class.

Mon. 4/8 Continuing Discussion of Schmidt.

Readings: Schmidt, Chapter 5 and Epilogue, pp. 244-303. Begin Conn for

Next Week.

Third Brief Critical Review Essay due in class.

Mon. 4/15 Introduction and General Discussion of Conn.

Readings: Steve Conn, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926,

Chapters 1-3, 5, and 7, pp. 3-114, 151-191, and 233-262.

Fourth Brief Critical Review Essay Topic distributed in class.

Mon. 4/22 Introduction and General Discussion of Kitch.

Readings: Carolyn Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual

Stereotypes in American Mass Media, Introduction, Chapters 1-4, 7-8, and Epilogue,

pp. 1-100, and 136-192.

Fourth Brief Critical Review Essay Due in class.

Mon. 4/29 Introduction and General Discussion of Lewis.

Readings: Tom Lewis, Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways,

Transforming American Life, Parts 1-3, Chapters 1-9, pp. ix-238.

Final Research Designs and Final Annotated Bibliographies due in class.