HIST 395.01 THEORIES AND USES OF HISTORY 
St. Mary's College of Maryland 
Fall 2006 Dr. Linda Jones Hall MW 2:40-4:30 Kent Hall 312 
Office: 204 Kent Hall Phone: 240-895-4434 
Office hours: Office hours: 9:20-10:40 a.m. on Mon. and 1:30-2:20 on Wed. 
other times by appointment 
email ljhall@smcm.edu webpage: http://www.smcm.edu/users/ljhall/ljhall.html 
 
Course Description 
This course covers the development of Western historical thinking, with particular emphasis on the most significant speculative philosophies of history and the methodology of the historical discipline. An important goal of the course is a study of the relationship of history to other academic disciplines as tools for understanding the nature of human and social reality. Formerly HIST 490.  
 
Required texts These texts are available at the SMCM bookstore.  
 
TEXT = Breisach, Ernst. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. 2d ed. University of Chicago Press. 1994. ISBN 0-226-07278-9 Fall 1994. 
PGH = The Portable Greek Historians. The Essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius. Selected and edited by M. I. Finley. Penguin, 1959, 1977. ISBN 0-14-015065-x 
TACITUS = Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome. Translated by Michael Grant. Penguin ISBN 0-14-044060-7. 
GIBBON = Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; abridged with a new introduction by David Womersley, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-043764-9  
CRUSADES = S.J. Allen and Emilie Amt, The Crusades: A Reader; Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures series VIII, Broadview Press, 2003, ISBN 1551115379. 
ORIENTALISM = Edward Said, Orientalism, New York: Vintage Books, 1979, ISBN 039474067X. 
HOUSES = Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, eds., The Houses of History: a critical reader in twentieth-century history and theory, New York: New York University Press, 1999, ISBN 08147 3127 9. 
Recommended guide to writing papers 
Kate Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Revised by John Grossman and Alice Bennett. 6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN 022816273. 
 
COURSE EXPECTATIONS 
Regular attendance and discussion is expected, and will be considered in the calculation of your final grade for the course. Be sure to read your assignments with close attention. GRADING 
Participation, class discussion, short response papers 200 
(Each student will lead a class discussion on one book and one article = 50 + 50;  
each student will submit a one-paragraph question and answer on each book and each article other than the one s/he discusses = 50; attendance = 50) 
Midterm exam (on readings to date) 200 
Final exam (on readings since midterm exam) 200 
Bibliography, outline, narrative for final paper 100 
Oral presentation of your paper topic 50  
Term paper (see below) 250  
A 15-page term paper analyzing a particular historical methodology. The paper  
may focus on a particular subject in history (for example, the French Revolution, or Reconstruction), and discuss how the methodological approach to that topic has changed over time. Or, the paper may cover the history of the development of a particular methodological approach (for example, gender history or economic history). If you know what you plan to write your senior research project or St. Mary's Project about, this would be a good opportunity to relate this paper to your final project by exploring what has been written on your subject before hand and examining the historiographical strengths and weaknesses of the existing books and articles.  
 
GRADE SCALE 
Ultimately, the student's grade is based on the professor's assessment of the student's work.  
94-100 = A, 93-90 = A-, 87-89 = B+, 84-86 = B, 80-83 = B-, 77-79 = C+, 74-76 = C,  
70-73 = C-, 67-69 = D+, 64-66 = D, 63-60 = D-, below 60 = F 
Academic dishonesty is a very serious offense. Penalties can include, but are not limited to, a zero on the work in question, an F in the course, and referral to the Office of the Provost. See the SMCM catalog, the student handbook, or the information at this link: http://www.smcm.edu/academics/academserv/advisingmanual/appendix%20c.htm  
 
IMPORTANT RESEARCH RESOURCES and JOURNAL ARTICLES:  
You can use both JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/ and Project Muse http://muse.jhu.edu/ for finding relevant bibliography and printing articles.  
For ancient history articles, a specialized search tool is TOCS-IN, which lists journal articles http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/amphoras/tocfind 
Then you can then connect to SFX to see if SMCM has the article in print or online http://www.smcm.edu/library/sfx.htm  
If we do not own or have online access to the article, you can request it from Interlibrary Loan services after you find the citations by TOCS-IN or other technique http://www.smcm.edu/library/template-libquick.cfm?doc_id=816  
E-RESERVES: access and password will be provided in class 
 
SCHEDULE FOR HIST 395.01, FALL 2006, PROF. LINDA JONES HALL 
 
Week 1  
Mon. Aug 28 Introduction: how we know about the past 
Wed Aug 30 Greek Historiography, TEXT Introduction, Chs 1-2;  
PGH Herodotus, pp. 27-28, 63-74, 79-119, 133-208 
 
Week 2 Greek and Hellenistic Historiography 
Mon. Sep 4 LABOR DAY--NO CLASS  
Wed. Sep 6 PGH, Thucydides, pp. 217-218, 231-245, 251-290 
 
Week 3 Roman Historiography 
Mon Sep 11 TEXT Ch 3; PGH, Polybius, 441-501;  
TEXT Ch 4, Livy http://homepage.usask.ca/~jrp638/DeptTransls/Livy.html  
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/livy39.html  
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/650livy1-34.html 
Wed Sep 13 TEXT Ch 5-6; TACITUS, pp. 32-227 
 
Week 4 Roman and Christian Historiography 
Mon. Sep 18 TACITUS, pp. 360-396; TEXT Ch 7; The triumph of Christianity 
Tertullian http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/200Tertullian-pagan.html 
Eusebius http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/conv-const.html  
Lactantius http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/lactant/lactperf.html  
Wed Sep 20 TEXT Ch 8; CRUSADES, Chs 1-2 
 
Week 5 Medieval Historiography 
Mon. Sep 25 TEXT Ch 9; CRUSADES, Chs 3-5 
Wed Sep 27 TEXT Ch 10; CRUSADES, Chs 6, 8, 9 
 
Week 6 Renaissance Historiography  
Mon Oct 2 TEXT Ch 11-12; REVIEW AND DISCUSSION 
Machiavelli http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/prince-excerp.html  
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/muhlberger/2155/discours.htm  
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/machiavelli-prince.html  
Wed Oct 4 FIRST TEST 
 
Week 7 Eighteenth century Historiography 
Mon Oct 9 TEXT Ch 13;  
GIBBON, introduction, pp. ix-xxxvi; pp. 3-8; Rome, chs1-6, pp. 9-89 
For online copy of Gibbon, go to http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/  
Or http://www.forham.edu/halsall/source/gibbon-fall.html  
Wed Oct 11 TEXT Ch 14-15; GIBBON, chs 15-22, pp. 121-229, Christianity 
 
Week 8 Nationalist Historiography  
Mon Oct 16 TEXT Ch 16; GIBBON, chs 25-39, pp. 327-445, Barbarian Europe 
Wed Oct 18 GIBBON, chs 50-53, pp. 588-673, Arabs and Islam 
 
Week 9 Modern Historiography  
Mon Oct 23 TEXT Chs 17-18; Frederick Jackson Turner (1893) "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" http://history.acusd.edu/gen/text/civ/turner.html http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/primarysources/corporations/docs/turner.htmlTEXT Ch 20; Carl Becker, "Everyman His Own Historian, American Historical Review 37:2 (January 1932): 221-36 [JSTOR]  
Wed Oct 25 Economic Historiography TEXT Ch 19; HOUSES, Ch.2 Marxist historians; Marx at http://www.ex.ac.uk/Projects/meia/Archive 
 
Week 10 Modern Historiography continued 
Mon Oct 30 TEXT Ch 21; HOUSES, Ch 12, The Challenge of poststruturalism/ postmodernism; F. R. Ankersmit, "Historiography and Postmodernism," History and Theory,Volume 28, Issue 2 (May 1989), 137-153 [JSTOR]  
Wed Nov 1 TEXT Ch 22; HOUSES, Ch 8, The question of narrative; Lawrence Stone, "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History," Past and Present 85 (1979): 3-24 [JSTOR]; Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description;" 1-30 [e-reserve]  
 
Week 11  
Mon Nov 6 TEXT Ch 23; HOUSES, Ch 10, Gender and History; Joan W. Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91:5 (December 1986): 1053-75 [JSTOR]; Lyndal Roper, Introduction@from Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, sexuality and religion in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 1994), 1-34 [e-reserve]  
Wed Nov 8 OUTLINES DUE; TEXT Ch 24-25;  
HOUSES, Ch.3, Freud and Psychohistory 
 
Week 12 World History; The Annalistes and Postcolonialism 
Mon Nov 13 TEXT Ch 26; HOUSES, Ch. 4, The Annales; Lynn Hunt, "French History in the Last Twenty Year: The Rise and Fall of the Annales Paradigm," Journal of Contemporary History 21 (1986): 209-24 [JSTOR]; preface to The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Harper and Row, 1972), 17-24 [e-reserve] 
Wed Nov 15, TEXT Ch 27-28, HOUSES, Ch 11, Postcolonial history 
SAID, preface, pp. 31-73, 284-328, 329-352 
 
Week 13  
Mon. Nov 20 PAPERS DUE;  
TEXT, Epilogue; Michael Geyer and Charles Bright, "World History in a Global Age," American Historical Review 100: 4 (October 1995): 1034-1060 [JSTOR]; Joan Scott, "History in Crisis? The Others' Side of the Story," American Historical Review 94, 3 (June 1989): 680-92 [JSTOR] 
Wed Nov 22, THANKSGIVING BREAK--NO CLASS 
 
Week 14 Presentations 
Mon Nov 27 Presentations 
Wed Nov 29 Presentations 
 
Week 15 Mon Dec 4 Presentations 
Wed Dec 6 Presentations 
 
Exam for this class Tuesday December 12, 2:00-4:15 pm in regular classroom 
Emphasis on material since midterm exam