Historiography Reading Seminar
beginning 24 Aug and thereafter on the third Thursday of the month
5.30pm at UTS Bldg 10 Level 14 Rm 201
contact:
ALL WELCOME
2017 Semester 2 Programme
24 August: Catherine Macaulay
Readings (page references to the edition at Hathi Trust below):
· The History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line (1763-1783) https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000108688
o The contents pages to each volume, which helpfully summarise the chapters
o Vol 1 Introduction
o Vol 4 pp 390-436 (esp 417-436)
o Vol 5 pp 79-82, 94-95, 381-383
For background on 18thC English history writing see: Karen O’Brien, ‘English Enlightenment Histories, 1750-c.1815’ in Rabasa, Sata, Tortarolo and Woolf eds., The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Vol 3, 1400-1800 (Oxford, 2012). email for a copy.
Points to consider:
· Macaulay’s use of primary documents (and her understanding of “facts”)
· her form of narrative
· her principle subject matter
· her notion of causation and liberty
· what she sees as the purpose of writing history?
· her gender, and her reputation as “the female historian”
21 September: Edward Gibbon
Readings (page references to the edition at Hathi Trust below):
· History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1789) https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008644070
o The contents pages to each volume, which helpfully summarise the chapters
o Vol. 3, pp 633-642, ‘General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West’ – NB actually written before the rest of the volumes.
o Vol. 1, Ch 1, pp 1-6, 10-13
o Vol. 1, Ch 15, pp 504-589
o Vol. 2, Ch 16, pp 79-85.
Points to consider:
· Gibbon’s interest in decline
· His approach to sources
· his subject matter
· How important does he think individuals are in making history?
· Gibbon’s notion of the past
For keenos: J.G.A. Pocock, ‘Gibbon's Decline and Fall and the World View of the Late Enlightenment,’ Eighteenth Century British Studies, 10, No. 3 (Spring, 1977), pp. 287-303, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2737901?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
19 October: Leopold von Ranke
Readings (page references to the edition at Hathi Trust below):
· History of the Reformation in Germany (1844) https://archive.org/stream/cu31924029240020#page/n15/mode/2up
o Author’s Preface (pp iii-vi) and Contents pages
o Introduction (pp 1-39)
o Bk V, ‘Retrospect’
o And if you are keen Bk II, (ch 1 and skim beginnings and ends of chapters)
· “The Young Ranke’s Vision of History and God” in The Theory and Practice of History, G. G. Iggers ed., (London, 2011) p 4 - available on google books https://goo.gl/niZQ2g
· “On the Relations of History and Philosophy” (A MS of the 1930s) in The Theory and Practice of History, G. G. Iggers ed., (London, 2011) pp 5-7 - available on google books https://goo.gl/j9Xu2R
Points to consider:
· historismus versus ‘Historicism’
· Ranke’s view of sources
· Why he was so dismissive of “contemporary historians”
· What he thinks drives historical change
16 November: Max Weber
Readings:
· The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), tr. Talcott Parsons (London, 1991) https://ia801901.us.archive.org/18/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.276060/2015.276060.The-Protestant.pdf
o pp. 13-183
· ‘Science as a Vocation’ (originally delivered 1917), tr. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 129-156, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946).
http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Science-as-a-Vocation.pdf
Points to consider:
· Weber's idea of modern Kultur
· Weber's approach to the problem of relativism
· how Weber uses evidence
· what Weber thought about historical specialisation
· Weber's view of Wissenschaf (Science)
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