Convenor Dr Claudia Stein This is a compulsory 30 CATS one-term MA module designed to equip students with the theoretical approaches and some of the methods used in the discipline of history necessary to carry out an extended piece of historical research and writing (dissertation). Students on all four MA History courses are required to follow it during the Autumn Term, and the teaching is delivered in weekly one-hour seminars.

Timetable

HI 989
Term	Autumn term only	Spring term only -- 5 (2 hours) Dissertation Workshops
Time	Weeks 1-5, 7-10 only (Term I) Lectures: Monday 11-12 Seminars: Tuesday, 11-12, 1-2;	Weeks: 2-4 (term 2); (term 3; 1-2) room: R.103 (term 2)
Room	Lecture: MS.03 (Maths Building) Seminar: A0.23 (Social Sciences Building)

Module Aims

• To widen and deepen students’ understanding of methods and approaches to the study of history across space and time
• To help students develop a conceptual and practical understanding of the skills required by historians and scholars from neighbouring disciplines
• To help students hone their ability to formulate and achieve a piece of critical and reflective historiographical writing
• To support students in developing the ability to undertake critical analysis
• To help students develop the ability to formulate and test concepts and hypotheses

Intended Learning Outcomes

• A conceptual and practical understanding of the skills required by Humanities scholars
• The ability to formulate and achieve a piece of critical and reflective historiographical writing
• The ability to undertake critical analysis
• The ability to formulate and test concepts and hypotheses

Outline Syllabus

• Week 01: Getting into the topic
• Week 2: Theory
• Week 3: Class
• Week 4: Power
• Week 5: Practice
• Week 6: Reading Week (no seminar)
• Week 7: Body
• Week 8: Gender
• Week 9: Race
• Week 10: Space

Advice: There is a recent book which offers a comprehensive, yet easy introduction into most of the module topics. Particularly for those who have not encountered the theoretical/methodological angle of academic history writing yet, please dip into it. Berger shows that academic history writing and research is not simply about discovering hidden 'facts' in the archives and libraries. History writing, Berger, demonstrates, is shaped by the political, social-cultural condition in which the historian lives. The module will introduce you to some of the past trends' in history writing. We will also see what is 'en vogue' today in order to help you situate your own work.

Stefan Berger, History and Identity: How Historical Theory Shapes Historical Practice (2022). (available e-book library)

Useful Bibliography:

• Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995)
• Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner and Kevin Passmore (eds), Writing History: Theory and Practice (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010)
• Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Beacon Press, 2005)
• Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (London: Verso, 1998)
• Richard Sennett, The Hidden Injuries of Class (Cambridge, 1977)
• Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 1. An Introduction (1978)
• Larissa N. Heinrich, The Afterlife of Images: Translating the Pathological Body between China and the West (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008)
• Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)
• Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption (London, 1997)

Assessment

1,500 word essay on a theoretical approach of the students choice (7, check handbook for deadline)

4,500 word essay on a theoretical approach of the students choice (check handbook for deadline)

For some tips about writing this essay see here.