Course Description and Course Objectives

Course HIST2002B is based upon the exploration and discussion of issues associated with History (the subject), and its theory. In so doing the course grants opportunities for students to deepen their knowledge, understanding, and familiarity of what History is, what interpretations people hold of it, the methods and approaches that may be adopted to study the past, and issues tied to the writing of History. Learners therefore will be trained in certain fundamentals: recognising distinct historical approaches; grasping debates amongst historians; developing their own historical perspectives; expressing themselves clearly in spoken and written form, and forging credible historical argument based upon the gathering of evidence and critical thinking.

Based upon two classroom scenarios, weekly lectures and a monthly tutorial, the course is design to engage students with the nature and dynamics of Historiography, and to discover a new understanding of History (in the broadest sense) through lively classroom participation. With an active learning process, and with emphasis on primary sources, students will be guided so that they can attain knowledge and confidence in order to identify and reflect on the points of view held by historians, the kinds of interpretations historians hold about the past, and the possible reasons for the existence of those interpretations.

During the course students will be expected to articulate their historical understanding through three means: speech, writing, video. In this manner learners will by term’s end not only possess a robust set of skills pertinent to the analysis, critique, and expression of History, a collection of skills complimentary to the students’ subsequent study of History at CUHK, but also further awareness of issues allied to the production of History, e.g. in journal/book or contemporary media form (i.e. the internet and TV).

Course HIST2002B is purposefully designed so that the following learning outcomes can be achieved:

• Acquire an understanding of the development of the study of History with reference to its theories, concepts, and methodologies.
• Develop the capacity to critically assess historical analysis, argument and interpretation, both in past and present contexts.
• Enlarge awareness of debates surrounding the theory and practice of History.
• Gain knowledge into how historical arguments are made, and to reflect upon the nature of historical enterprise within Hong Kong.
• Exhibit critical thinking and research skills through short online exercises, the writing of an academic essay, and the manufacture of a video on History.

Course Structure

Week 1. Course Introduction (Thursday, 11^th January 2018)

The focus of this class is to introduce some of the ways in which the question ‘what is History?’ has been asked, and to note some of the answers that have been provided by scholars. ‘History’ therefore shall be emphasised as a practice and an activity, and defined not just in its everyday meaning as dealing with ‘the past’.

J Appleby, L Hunt and M Jacob, Telling the Truth about History  UL E175 A67 1994

GR Elton, The Practice of History  UL Res 4 Hours/UL D16 E4 2002

M Fulbrook, Historical Theory  UL Res 1 Day D16.8 F856 2002

GG Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography  UL D13 I35

K Jenkins, On ‘What is History?’  UL D13 J38 1995

A Marwick, The Nature of History  UL D13 M32 1989

J Tosh, Historians on History: An Anthology  UL D16.8 H6241742 2000

Week 2. The Historian’s Skills (Thursday, 18^th January 2018)

What abilities are required to ‘reconstruct’ and ‘narrate’ the past?

M Abbott, History Skills  UL D16.3 H54 1996

K Jenkins and A Munslow, The Nature of History Reader  UL D16.8 N37 2004

WR Chadwell, The Historian’s Toolbox  UL D16 W62 2007

N Luraghi, The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus  UL DF211 H577 2001

JR Strayer, The Historian’s Craft  UL Res 4 hours D13.B5613

MT Gilderhus, History and Historians: A Historiographical Introduction  UL Res 1 Day D16.8 G395 2003

Week 3. The Status of Historical Knowledge (Thursday, 25^th January 2018)

Just what constitutes knowledge of the past (both in factual and theoretical terms)?

WB Gallie, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding  UL D16.8 G27 1964

DR Kelley, Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment  e-Book via CUHK Library

GG Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century  UL D13.2 I3413 1997

B Southgate, History: What and Why? Ancient, Modern and Postmodern Perspectives  UL D16.8 S683 1996

J. Rusen, Western Historical Thinking: An Intercultural Debate  UL D16.9 W454 2002

Week 4. Sources of/in History (Thursday, 1^st February 2018)

Is the study of the past merely reliant upon the collection of materials? How do historians gather and use evidence to ‘show’ the past?

L Howsam, Past into Print. The Publishing of History in Britain, 1850-1950  UL Z286 H5 H69 2009

A Curthoys, and J Docker, Is History Fiction?  UL D16.8 C87 2005

RV Daniels, Studying History: How and Why  UL D16.2 D16

G Kitson Clark, The Critical Historian  UL D16 K578

GJ Renier, History, its Purpose and Method  UL D16 R35

M Bentley, Modern Historiography: An Introduction  UL D13 B427 1999

D Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country  UL Res 1 Day D16.8 .L68

Week 5. Historical Eras and the Writing of History (Thursday, 8^th February 2018)

Did different traditions of historical thinking exist in the past? If so, what set them apart from each other? Are these traditions still relevant? Furthermore, how and why do we still have a bond to historians before us?

QE Wang and GG Iggers, Turning Points in Historiography  UL D13 T87 2002

GS Shrimpton, History and Memory in Ancient Greece  UL DF211 S57 1997

J Marincola, A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography  NA General Education DE8 C65 2007

R Black, Renaissance Thought: A Reader  UL DG533 R454 2001

M Phillips, ‘The Disenchanted Witness: Participation and Alienation in Florentine Historiography’, Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (1983)

P Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories  UL DS468 C47 1993

PJ Corfield, Time and the Shape of History  UL BD638 C67 2007

Week 6. No Class! Chinese New Year Break! (Thursday, 15^th February 2018) 

Week 7. The Enlightenment: A Historical Renaissance? (Thursday, 22^nd February 2018)

What was the Enlightenment, and how did it shape the evolution of historiography?

D Allan, Making British Culture  UL DA485 A527 2008

Phillips, M., ‘Reconsiderations on History and Antiquarianism: Arnaldo Momigliano and the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996)

RM Burns, Philosophies of History  UL D16.7 P45 2000

H Trevor-Roper, History and the Enlightenment  UL D13.2 T74 2010

P Hamilton, Historicism  CC PN81 H256 2003

E Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern  UL Res 1 Day D13 B686 1994

M Bentley, Companion to Historiography  UL D13 C63 1997

Week 8. Marx and the Theory of History (Thursday, 1^st March 2018)

The lecture will investigate and explain some of the ways in which Marx’s history and philosophy of history has been used by twentieth-century historians and social scientists.

E Hobsbawm with K Marx and E Engels, The Communist Manifesto  UL Res 4 Hours HX39.5 A5213 1998

S. Berger, H. Feldner and K. Passmore, Writing History: Theory and Practice  UL D13 W73 2003

J Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx  UL HX39.5 E43 

R. Blackburn, Ideology in Social Science: Readings in Critical Social Theory  UL H61 B477 1972

D McLellan, Marxism after Marx: An Introduction  UL HX36 M23

E Hobsbawm, ‘Eric Hobsbawm: A Historian Living Through History’, Socialist History 8 (1995)

HJ Kaye, The Powers of the Past  UL D16.8 K34

Week 9. History From Below (Thursday, 8^th March 2018)

What exactly is the idea of ‘history from below’, and how will it permit us, as historians, to revise the idea of ‘history from above’?

EP Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class  UL HN398 E5T48 1993

P Burke, What Is Cultural History?  UL HM621 B874 2004

A Munslow, The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies  e-Book via CUHK Library

H Kaye and K McClelland, EP Thompson: Critical Perspectives  UL HX244.7 T45E18

GS Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832-1982  UL HN400 S6J66

H Bess, ‘EP Thompson: The Historian as Activist’, American Historical Review 98 (1993)

W Lamont, Historical Controversies and Historians  UL D13 H49 1998

Week 10. Micro-History (Thursday, 15^th March 2018)

What is micro-history? What kind of methods and perspectives does it involve? How do historians using its methods relate to wider contexts?

BS Gregory, ‘Is Small Beautiful? Micro-history and the History of Everyday Life’, History and Theory 38 (1999)

GG Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: from Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge  UL D13.2 I3413 1997

J Brewer, ‘Microhistory and the Histories of Everyday Life’, Cultural and Social History 7 (2010)

P Burke, New Perspectives on Historical Writing  UL D13 N45

C Ginzburg, ‘Micro-history: Two or Three Things That I Know About It’, Critical Inquiry 20 (1993)

B Reay, Microhistories: Demography, Society and Culture in Rural England, 1800-1930  UL HQ759.98 R43 1996

I Szijarto, ‘Four Arguments for Micro-history’, Rethinking History 6 (2002)

Week 11. The Annales School (Thursday, 22^nd March 2018)

This lecture will consider the development of the influential Annales School of historical thought. We can explore in some detail the interaction of historical and sociological models in determining a new way to analyse and grasp the past.

M Bloch, The Historian’s Craft  UL Res 4 Hours D13 B5613

L Febvre, Annales  e-Book available via CUHK library website

P Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929-89  UL D16 B94

S Clark, The Annales School  UL D13 A644 1999

T Stoianovich, French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm  UL DC36.9 S76

C Fink, Marc Bloch: A Life in History  UL D15 B596F56 1991

E Le Roy Ladurie, The Territory of the Historian  UL DC36.9 L3713

Week 12. No Class! Reading Week! (Thursday, 29^th March 2018)

Week 13. No Class! Ching Ming Festival! (Thursday, 5^th April 2018)

Week 14. Changing ‘History’ (Thursday, 12^th April 2018)

Why has the need arisen to rewrite history? On what grounds is history rewritten, or in contrast, left in its existing state?

M Haynes and J Wolfreys, History and Revolution: Refuting Revisionism  UL D16.9 H559 2007

KMF Platt, Epic Revisionism  e-Book available via CUHK library website

RJ Maddox, Hiroshima in History  UL D767.25.H6 H6335 2007

D Ko, Cinderella’s Sisters  UL Res 6 Hours GT498.F66 K55 2005

H Zinn, A People’s History of the United States  UL E169.1 Z53

Week 15. Podcast Presentations (Thursday, 19^th April 2018).

The final class centres upon the presentation of student podcasts.

Attendance (40% of total term score)

(i) Being present at lectures and tutorials.

(ii)Participation (i.e. engaging in class discussions, undertaking class exercises, postings on the HIST2002B Facebook group).

(iii) Two short online exercises (of the student’s choice from a list of exercise presented by the teacher).

Assignment 1: Basic research assignment (about 2000 words – 25% of term grade).

Assignment 2: Podcast assignment (35% of term grade), a group exercise culminating in the creation of a podcast to be presented at term’s end to the class.

Tutorials are to be held on the following dates:

Tutorial 1 – January 25 2018

Tutorial 2 – February 1 2018

Tutorial 3 – March 8 2018

Tutorial 4 – March 15 2018

All tutorials will relate, as previously noted, to assignments 1 and 2 and give opportunity for discussion with regard to these two written tasks.

Required Reading

The core text for HIST2002B is History in Practice by Ludmilla Jordanova. Registered students will be expected to acquire a copy of this book. However other authored works of use and importance to the course include:

M Bentley, Modern Historiography: An Introduction  UL D13 B427 1999

P Burke (ed.), History and Historians in the Twentieth Century  UL D16.8 .H578 2002

R Evans, In Defense of History  UL Res 1 Day D16.8 E847 1999

M Hughes-Warrington, Fifty Key Thinkers on History  UL D13 H75 2000

K Jenkins, Re-thinking History  UL D16.8.J386

A Marwick, The New Nature of History: Knowledge, Evidence, Language  UL D13 M322 2001b

B Southgate, History: What and Why?  UL D16.8 S683 2001

J Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History  UL Res 4 Hours/UL D13 T62 2010

Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations. Details may be found at here.

With each assignment, students will be required to submit a signed declaration that they are aware of these policies, regulations, guidelines and procedures.

• In the case of group projects, all members of the group should be asked to sign the declaration, each of whom is responsible and liable to disciplinary actions, irrespective of whether he/she has signed the declaration and whether he/she has contributed, directly or indirectly, to the problematic
• For assignments in the form of a computer-generated document that is principally text-based and submitted via VeriGuide, the statement, in the form of a receipt, will be issued by the system upon students’ uploading of the soft copy of the assignment. 
• Students are fully aware that their work may be investigated by AI content detection software to determine originality.
• Students are fully aware of the AI approach(es) adopted in the course. In the case where some AI tools are allowed, students have made proper acknowledgment and citations as instructed by the course teacher.

Assignments without the properly signed declaration will not be graded by teachers.

Only the final version of the assignment should be submitted via VeriGuide.

The submission of a piece of work, or a part of a piece of work, for more than one purpose (e.g. to satisfy the requirements in two different courses) without declaration to this effect shall be regarded as having committed undeclared multiple submissions. It is common and acceptable to reuse a turn of phrase or a sentence or two from one’s own work; but wholesale reuse is problematic. In any case, agreement from the course teacher(s) concerned should be obtained prior to the submission of the piece of work.

The copyright of the teaching materials, including lecture notes, assignments and examination questions etc., produced by staff members/ teachers of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) belongs to CUHK. Students may download the teaching materials produced by the staff members/ teachers from the Learning Management Systems, e.g. Blackboard adopted by CUHK for their own educational use, but shall not distribute/ share/ copy the materials to a third-party without seeking prior permission from the staff members/ teachers concerned.