History 601 - European Historiography

This course is designed to introduce graduate students to a variety of the best recent historical writing on modern Europe. The topics range from the French Revolution to recent debates over German history in relation to the Holocaust and global-history perspectives on Europe's past. Included are classic questions such as explaining the French Revolutionary Terror and the rise of the Nazis as well as new inquiries into the history of private life, gender, and collective memory. Besides participating in weekly discussions, each student will write a book review and a review essay, present a commentary on the readings to the class, and write a paper on a historiographical methodology or style. Students who are not concentrating in European history may learn much that could be useful from the approaches and methodological thinking of leading European historians.

Open to Doctoral & Masters students only. This course is designed to introduce students to diverse trends in the twentieth century historiography of Europe. The course attempts to provide students an introduction to the wide varieties of ways of approaching European history and to cultivate in students an openness to different methodological and theoretical approaches as well as the necessary skills to read and evaluate such writing at the graduate level.

As an organizing theme, we will look at the relationship between individual, regional, and national identities within the context of broader historical processes and structures. At the heart of this exploration is the consideration of multiple narratives, perspectives, and interpretations that comprise any historical account. We will explore topics that range from the nature of the French Revolution to the German ?Historians? Debate? over whether or not Germany developed along a ?special path.? To do so, we will examine competing models of social and cultural history, microstoria, consumer society, imperialism, gender, and culture.