Handbook

Subject Area: History  

In this capstone course you will join all the other students majoring in History in a weekly seminar designed to perfect and reflect on the skills you have learned in your history degree. In particular, you will conduct your own major research project: framing a question about the past that can be addressed by reconstructing past events from primary sources, while engaging with recent scholarship in your interpretation of these events. Here you will reflect on the fundamental principles of the discipline, together with the social and ethical implications of particular approaches to the practice of History. Readings, discussion and fieldwork are focused on developing appreciation of the role of historical knowledge in understanding and influencing our contemporary world. You will explore the origins, agendas, and methodologies behind a number of key contemporary historical approaches, and the controversies they have sparked within the discipline. You will consider the ways historians adapt their professional practices to public engagement through museums, the entertainment industry, and the courts. You will also experience the fundamental task of the historian through your own research project: framing a question about the past that can be addressed by reconstructing past events from primary sources, while engaging with recent scholarship in your interpretation of these events.