Honors Historical Methods

COLLEGE OF LIBERALARTS

History 421

Honors Historical Methods

"History is for human self-knowledge… Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is." R. G. Collingwood

Dr. Melinda Zook Fall 2015

Phone: 494-4134 Univ. Hall 319

Email: MWF, 12:30-1:20

Office: University Hall 327

Office hours: Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30 & by appointment

Course Description

This course is a prequel to History 422 (Honors Thesis in Historical Research) and is designed to introduce Honors studentsto the tools of the historian’s craft and prepare them to write their HonorsThesis. The course is divided into two halves. In the first part of the semester, students will explore a variety of interpretative approaches, methods,and genres of history. Students will also read and discuss the work of various historians, examining how they build their arguments, the sources they use, and the habits of good writing. This half of the semester is also devoted to talking about the sources available at Purdue. Students are also required to find a topic for their Honors Thesis and a faculty mentor who agrees to guide them during the spring semester (History 422). In the second half of the semester, students will devote their time to locating their primary and secondary sources, building a bibliography, and writing a prospectus on their project.

Required Texts:

James Oliver HortonandLois E. Horton, eds.,Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory (University of North Carolina, 2008)

Alfred W. Crosby Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, (Praeger, 2003), 30th Anniversary Edition.

Richard Wunderli, Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen (Indiana University Press, 1992).

John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Supplemental Readings (provided by Prof. Zook):

The Confederate flag and monuments controversy, readings handed out in class.

What is History? Essays handed out in class.

Requirements

A) In the first part of the semester, students will write short (2-3 pages) essays every week.

B) By the end of the semester, students will have chosen a topic for their thesis, a faculty mentor, and a second reader;they will have completed a prospectus (7-8 pages) detailing what they intend to investigate and how they will proceed during the spring semester; and an extensive bibliography of at least 25 primary and secondary sources.

C) During thefinal weeks of the semester, students will present their work-in-progress to the class.

D) Attendance at all class meetings is MANDATORY. Each class missed will result in the loss of a half-grade.

Rules of the Game:

Never walk into class late. Silence your cell-phone once you enter the class room. If you use a laptop during class,you mayonly usea word processing program (absolutely no internet).

Use proper email etiquette (an email should begin with a salutation such as “Dear Professor X;” and end with a proper closing, such as “Sincerely” or “Yours.”).

Students who plagiarize any portion of their written assignments will be removed from this course, the Honors program, and the incident will be reported to the Dean of Students.

Final Grades will be calculated as follows:

Prospectus & bibliography50%

Oral presentation and discussion20%

Short papers30%

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Total100%

SCHEDULE OF LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS, AND READINGS

Monday, Aug. 24Introduction to History Honors

Welcome to the Honors Experience

Wednesday, Aug. 26History, Heritage and Hate: The Debate over the Flag

Readings on the Confederate flag and monuments controversy

Friday, Aug. 28History in the Public Sphere

Read Slavery and Public History, Introduction & chapters 1 & 4

Monday, Aug. 31History Wars

Read Slavery and Public History, chapter 7

Wednesday, Sept. 2In search of usable past

Read Slavery & Public History, chapters 8 & 10

Friday, Sept. 4The Professionalization of History

Monday, Sept. 7Labor Day (No Class)

Wednesday, Sept. 9 Social History

ReadPeasant Fires, chapters 1-3

Friday, Sept. 11History Honors Open House & Homecoming

Monday, Sept. 14Cultural History

ReadPeasant Fires, chapters 4-5

Wednesday, Sept. 16Micro-History

FinishPeasant Fires, 6-8

Friday, Sept. 18Going Global

Read The Colombian Exchange, preface, forwards, & chapter 1

Monday, Sept. 21Maize for Syphilis

Read The Colombian Exchange, chapters 2 & 3

Wednesday, Sept. 23Ecological History

Read The Colombian Exchange, chapters 4-6

Friday, Sept. 25Can we know the past?

Read The Landscape of History, chapters, 1-3

And, essays handed out in class on History & the Historian

Monday, Sept. 28History: Art or Science?

Read The Landscape of History, chapters, 4-6

Wednesday, Sept. 30Researching and Writing the Honors Thesis

Read The Landscape of History, chapter, 7-8

Friday, Oct. 2Finish all remaining business….

Oct. 5-Nov. 18 No Classes. Students research their project and prepare their

prospectus and bibliography. [I will be emailing you regularly; I

may set up individual meetingsto discuss your project. I may also

call for all of us to meet at ourregular class time.]

Friday, Oct. 23Trip to the Newberry Library, Chicago

Friday, Nov. 20Class: Individual presentation

Monday, Nov. 23Class: Individual presentation

Wed.-Friday, Nov. 25-27No Classes: Thanksgiving Break

Monday, Nov. 30Class: Individual presentation

Wednesday, Dec. 2Class: Individual presentation

Friday, Dec. 4Class: Individual presentation

Monday, Dec. 7Class: Individual presentation

Wednesday, Dec. 9Class: Individual presentation

Friday, Dec. 11Class: Individual presentation

HONORS THESES (past)

2008 Presentations

Iyad Shihadeh: “They Also Served: Untold Story of the Egyptian Labor Corps in the Great War.”Mentors: Professors Holden and Zook

Emma Meyer: “Myth of Nations: The Aryan Myth in British, Indian and German Nationalist Discourses.”Mentors: Professors Battacharya and Gray

Siobhan McGuire: “Conformity and Recusancy in Sixteenth-Century England: The Apostasy of Thomas Bell.” Mentors: Professors Zook and Farr

Mark Johnson: “Freedom through Exile: Mme de La Tour du Pin and The Emigration to the United States during the French Revolution.” Mentor: Professor Walton

Meredith Horn: “The Persecution of German-Americans during World War I: The Peculiar Experience inEvansville, IN.” Mentor: Professor Hurt

2009 Presentations

Rosemary E. Arnold: “Celebrated to Scorned: The Construction of Belle Boyd in Public Memory.” Mentors: Professors Janney and May

Nicole A. Capehart: “Sojourns, Slavery, and Sects: The Experiences of an Indiana Couple in Antebellum Mississippi.” Mentor: Professor May

Emily L. Dawes: “The Road to the Farhud: Baghdadi Jews in the 1930s.”

Mentors: Professors Holden and Walton

Samuel W. Needham: “Welsh Calvinistic Methodism in the Eighteenth Century.”

Mentor: Professor Zook

Mark D. Robison: “Perceptions of Early Syrian-American Immigration and the Achievement of Legal ‘Whiteness’.” Mentors: Professors Pitts and Holden

Charles G. Spencer: “Wherever Our Fortunes Fall: Medical Care of Wounded Soldiers during the Austro-Prussian War.” Mentors: Professors Gray and Ingrao

2010 Presentations

Elizabeth K. Allum: “Once Upon a Queen: The Reign of Queen Victoria Reflected in Nineteenth-Century British Children’s Literature.” Mentors: Professor Walton andZook

Ellie V. Carolus: “Not Rebels But Patriots: The Post-Civil War White South in Their Own Terms, 1965-1905” Mentor: Professor Janney

Gregory Halmi: “Intimate Killers: The Infantry in Iraq.”

Mentors: Professors Holden and Roberts

Amy Heaney: “A Necessary Neutrality: Spanish Volunteerism and Economic Collapse in World War II.” Mentors: ProfessorsForay and Gray

Rebecca Lutton: “Cola di Rienzo and the Influence of Antiquity.”

Mentors: Professors Ryan andZook

Corrina Smith: “The Election of 1860: Anglo-American Relations Reconsidered.”

Mentors: Professors May and Zook

Max Vande Vaarst: “A State without a Center: The Search for New Jersey’s Identity in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” Mentors: Professors Darren Dochuk and Nancy Gabin

2011 Presentations

Katrina Galt: “Drama, Divorce, and Diplomacy: Royal Marriage in Georgian England.”

Mentors: Professors Melinda Zook and Nancy Gabin

Brittany Poe: “Shifting Perspectives in Philosophy and Witchcraft in the Later Middle Ages.”

Mentors: Professors Michael Ryan and James Farr

William Vogel: “Warships and Disarmament on the Inland Seas: The Great Lakes, 1815-1871.”

Mentors: ProfessorsMorrison andMay

2012 Presentations

Jessica Bair: “Faster, Higher, Stronger: The Influence of Politics on the Olympic Games.”

Mentors: ProfessorsMorrison and Atkinson

Lynch Bennett: “Quakers, Proprietors, and Palatines: German Immigration in the Making of the

Philadelphia Election Riot of 1742.” Mentors: Professors Lambert and Larson

Vincent Dahl: “Controlling and Responding to Public Opinion: The London Metropolitan Police, 1829-1880.” Mentors: Professors Zook and Walton

Kyle Dowd: “Lost in the Desert: American Views of North Africa-from Operation Torch, 1942-1943.” Mentors: Professors Walton and Holden

J. T. Lang: “Pablo Picasso’s ‘Instrument de guerre’ Guernica [1937] as propaganda in Europe and the United States, 1937-1942.” Mentors: Professors Foray and Dossin

Abraham Trindle: “Tip of the Spear: Grand Deception and the History of Naval Special Warfare

Desert Shield Desert Storm, 1990-1991.” Mentors: Professors Holden and Atkinson

2013 Presentations

Kristen Blankenbaker, “Bra-less Bubbleheads and Bionic Women: Stereotypes and Perceptions of Second-Wave Feminism, 1963-1980.” Mentors: Professors Gabin and Walton

Kelsey Campbell, “’Incomparable Patience & Endless Mercy:’ the Reigning Virtues of Mary I.” Mentors: Professors Zook andFarr

Cade Carmichael, "The Dark Scales of Justice: The Legality of the 1692 Witchcraft Trials in Colonial America.” Mentors:Professors Pitts and Lambert

John Foerster, “The 10,000 Mile Appeal: President Wilson’s Trip Across America in Defense of the Treaty of Versailles.” Mentors: Professors Atkinson and Morrison

Olivia Hagedorn, "Explaining the Rise of Black Nationalism in Chicago: How Discrimination and Disillusionment Gave Rise to Black Collective Thought and Action from 1918-1945." Mentors: Professors Bynum and Curtis

2014 Presentations

Madison Heslop, "Charlie Chaplin Eats a Shoe: The Klondike Gold Rush in Popular Culture." Mentors: Professors Morrison and Curtis

Luke Howard, “Partisans, Patriotism and Politics: Indiana in the Civil War.” Mentors: ProfessorsJanney and May

Samantha Richards, “Constructing Memory: Remembering TheHerero and NamaGenocide, 1904-1907.” Mentors: ProfessorsDecker and Klein-Pejsova

Katie Martin, “Indiana and the CCC: Race Relations, Representation, and Company 517-C."Mentors: Professors Gabin and Brownell

Robert Kugler, “Turmoil and Transition in Iraq during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948." Mentors: Professors Holden and Atkinson

Jennifer McVeigh, “Cold War Airwaves: Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and the Evolution of Propaganda,” Mentors: Professors Klein-Pejsova and Smith

Bradley Pierson, “September 1970: A Turning Point for US-Israeli Relations.” Mentors: Professors Gray and Holden

Grant Priester, “The Legacy of the Stonewall Riots, 1969.” Mentors: Professors Pitts and Gabin

Kevin Robey, "Turning Tables: Gangsta Rap, the LAPD, and the 1992 LA Riots." Mentors: Professors Brownell and Bynum

2015 Presentations
Emily Durkin: "Popular Culture Depictions and Social Class on the RMS Titanic" Mentors: Professors Gabin and Zook
Ryan Freeman: "Through Eyes of Steel: Existentialism in the Industrial Calumet Region during the Post-WWII Era" Mentors: Professors Curtis and Gabin
Kevin Adams: "International Women's Day 1979: The Microstructure of a Polyvalent Iranian Women's Movement" Mentors: Professors Boisseau and Holden
Jon Schoenwetter: "'Shall Not Justice be Meted Out?' Northern Newspaper Portrayals of Civil War Prisoners: 1861-1868" Mentors: Professors Janney and Morrison
Lauren Haslem: "Shifting Cultural Climates: War and Mental Illness in Twentieth-Century America" Mentors: Professors Pitts and Kline
Nekoda Witsken: "Japanese and American Women as Agents of Nineteenth-Century Imperialism" Mentors: Professors Atkinson and Gabin
Jill Bosserman: "Employment and Empowerment: The Economic, Social, and Psychological Advancement of Working-Class Women in First-World-War Britian" Mentors: Professors Walton and Zook
Hannah Vaughn: "The Queen of Hearts: How Diana, Princess of Wales, Changed the Perception of the British Monarchy, 1981-2013" Mentors: Professors Zook and Walton

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