Module Identifier HY30610  
Module Title HISTORIANS & THE WRITING OF HISTORY 1B  
Academic Year 2007/2008  
Co-ordinator Dr Peter A Lambert  
Semester Semester 2  
Other staff Dr Michael F Roberts, Dr Bjorn K U Weiler, Dr Richard G Coopey  
Pre-Requisite HY12120  
Mutually Exclusive HY30510 , HY30020  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   1 x fortnightly seminars  
  Lecture    
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Exam2 Hours  100%

Learning outcomes

This is a second-year core module, the aim of which is to provide second-year students with an opportunity to study the history of historical writing in the West since the mid-nineteenth century. On completion, students will:
a) be familiar with the key developments in Western historiography
b) have a level of proficiency in distinguishing between historiographical traditions and approaches
c) be able to reflect critically on the work of individual historians and historical `schools?
d) be able to explain historiographical developments both in the contexts of intellectual shifts and in those of wider institutional, political, social and cultural change
e) be better able to reflect critically on historical writing encountered elsewhere in their degree scheme
f) be able to reflect critically on key issues of Western historiography in seminars, unassessed essays and a take-away examination.
g) further develop oral and written skills which will have been improved through seminar discussions and an unassessed essay
h) more effectively engage in collaborative inter-action as a result of group work

Brief description

This module is designed to introduce students to the discipline of history and to increase their awareness as historians. It seeks to do this by tracing the development of a succession of `paradigms? in academic historical writing since the mid-nineteenth century. The module begins by considering how applicable Thomas Kuhn'r theory of `paradigms? is to academic historical writing. It then proceeds to examine the forms of statist history that developed in Britain, Europe and North America along with the professionalisation of history in the late nineteenth century, before moving on to look at a number of challenges to the `statist? paradigm, including the influence of Marx, the early Annales school, and British social and economic history. Postwar developments in historiography to be considered include the later work of the Annales historians, Namierism, the work of the British Marxist historians, and the `New Social History? in the United States, and the history of science and technology.

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
Burke, Peter (1990) The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-1989
Colley, Linda (1989) Lewis Namier
Green A. and K. Troup, eds (1999) The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory
Higham, John (1983) History: Professional Scholarship in America Revised.
Iggers Georg G. and L. Powell, eds (1990) Leopold Von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline
Iggers, Georg G (1997) Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge
Iggers, Georg G (1984) New Directions in European Historiography Revised.
Kaye, Harvey (1984) The British Marxist Historians
Kenyon, John (1983) The History Men
Keylor, W (1975) Academy and Community: The Foundation of the French Historical Profession
Molho, Anthony and Gordon S. Wood, eds (1998) Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret their Past
Novick, Peter (1988) That Noble Dream: The `Objectivity Question and the American Historical Profession
Schwarz-Cohen, R (1997) A Social History of American Technology
Smith, Bonnie G (1998) The Gender of History
Soffer, Reba N (1994) Discipline and Power: The University, History and the making of an English Elite, 1870-1930

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6