Jacques Revel

Jacques Revel

Cultural History in Questions

Trends and Debates (1950-2014)
Spring 2014

The seminar is devoted to some crucial points of the debate in cultural history since the mid-20th century. It offers a substantial amount of optional, interdisciplinary readings which will be presented and discussed in class. Students are not expected to read all of them, but to select a number of close readings. The course intends to provide a solid and basic critical basis for students interested in the cultural aspects of social life.

Requirements : all enrolled students are expected to give a brief presentation on one or more of the readings in class, and write a 15-20 p. final essay on a topic to be worked out together with the instructor. The class will meet twice a week during the second half of the Spring term.

General readings

Peter Burke, What is Cultural History?, CambridgeUK, Polity Press, 2004.

Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989.

Dominick LaCapra, Steven Kaplan, eds., Modern European Intellectual History. Reappraisals and New Perspectives, Ithaca, CornellUniversity Press, 1982.

George Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Hanover-London, WesleyanUniversity Press, 1997.

Jacques Revel, Lynn Hunt, eds, Histories. French Constructions of the Past, New York, The New Press, 1996.

1. Presentation : Culture and cultures.

Ernst Gombrich, “In Search of Cultural History”, in Ideals and Idols. Essays on Values in History and in Art, Oxford, 1979, p.25-59.

isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb...files/Gombrich.pdf

2. The autonomy of intellectual history

Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”, History and Theory, 8, 1969, p.3-53. (Jstor)

Robert Darnton, “Intellectual and Cultural History”, in Michael Kammen, ed., The Past Before Us. Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1980.

Anthony Grafton, “The History of Ideas : Precepts and Practice, 1950-2000 and Beyond”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 76, 1, 2006, p. 1-32. (Jstor)

Suggested reading :

Donald R. Kelley, The Descent of Ideas. The History of Intellectual History, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2002.

3. Mentalités and beyond

Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (1939), London, 1961, Book II, chap.2 (“Feeling and Thinking”).

Roger Chartier, “Intellectual History or Sociocultural history? The French Trajectories”, in Dominick LaCapra and Steven Kaplan, eds, Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New perspectives, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1982, p.13-46.

.Jacques Revel, Lynn Hunt, Histories. French Constructions of the Past..., p.31-33, 371-422.

Suggested reading :

Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, Chicago, ChicagoUniversity Press, 1980.

4. The trading zone: history and anthropology

Edward P. Thompson, «The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century», Past and Present, 50, 1971, p.76-136. (Jstor)

Edward P. Thompson, “Folklore, Anthropology and Social History”, The Indian Historical Review, January 1977.

Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Rites of Violence”, in Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975, p.152-188.

Suggested reading :

Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975.

5. Anthropology and history

Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description. Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”, in The Interpretation of Cultures, New York, Basic Books, 1973, p.3-30.

Geertz_Thick_Description.php

A debate :

Robert Darnton, “Workers Revolt : The Great Cat Massacre”, in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, New York, Basic Books, 1984, p. 75-104.

Forum : Roger Chartier, “Texts, Symbols, Frenchness”, Journal of Modern History, 57, 1985, p. 682-695 ; Robert Darnton, “The Symbolic Element in History”, JMH, 58, 1986, p. 218-234; Dominick LaCapra, “Chartier, Darnton, and the Great Symbol Massacre”, JMH, 60, 1988, p. 95-112 ; James Fernandez, “Historians Tell Tales : of Cartesian Cats and Gallic Cockfights”, JMH, 60, 1988, p. 113-127.

(Jstor)

Suggested reading :

Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1985.

6. Foucault: from archaelogy to genealogy

Michel Foucault: The Archeology of Knowledge, London, Pantheon, 1969, “Introduction”, p. 3-17.

monoskop.org/images/.../Foucault_Michel_Archaeology_of_Knowledge.p...

Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”, in D. Bouchard, ed., Language, Counter-memory, Practice, Ithaca, NY, CornellUniversity Press, 1977.

Patricia O’Brien, “Michel Foucault’s History of Culture”, in L. Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989, p.25-46.

Suggested reading :

David C. Hog, Foucault: A Critical Reader, Oxford, 1986.

7. Norbert Elias: culture as a social process

Norbert Elias, The Court Society (1933, 1969), Oxford, Blackwell, 1983, Foreword and chapter 3.

Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000, vol. II, «Synopsis: Towards a Theory of the Civilizing Process», p. 363-447.

8. History vs. Sociology

George Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Hanover-London, WesleyanUniversity Press, 1997, p.31-35, 65-77.

Pierre Bourdieu, “Intellectual Field and Creative Project”, (1966), Social Science Information, 8, 1969, p. 859-906. (Jstor)

Craig Calhoun, “The Rise and Domestication of Historical Sociology”, in Terrence J. McDonald ed., The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1996, p.305-337.

Suggested reading:

Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1990.

9. Culture in context. The varieties of microhistories

Giovanni Levi, «On Micro-history», in Peter Burke, ed.,New Perspectives in Historical Writing, Cambridge, UK, 1991, p.97-119.

Carlo Ginzburg, “Clues. Roots of an Evidential Paradigm”, in Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, Baltimore, The JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press, 1989, p.96-125.

Ginzburg%20Clues.pdf

Carlo Ginzburg, “Microhistory: Two or Three Things I Know About It”, Critical Inquiry, 20, 1993, p.10-35. (Jstor)

Jacques Revel, “Micro-analyse et construction du social”, in J. Revel, ed., Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience, Paris, Gallimard-Seuil, 1996, p.15-36.

Suggested readings:

Carlo Ginzburg: The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a 16th Century Miller, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

Or :

Giovanni Levi, Inheriting Power: the Story of an Exorcist, Chicago, ChicagoUniversity Press, 1988.

10. Language as Context

Dominick LaCapra, “Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading Texts”, History and Theory, 19, 3, 1980, p. 245-276. (Jstor)

Frank Ankersmit, “Historiography and Postmodernism”, History and Theory, 28, 1989, p.127-153. (Jstor)

Joan W. Scott, “On Language, Gender, and Working Class History”, International Labor and Working Class History, 31, 1987, p. 1-13.

Available online

Suggested reading:

Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

11. Questions about the linguistic turn

Two debates :

Forum : J. Toews, “Intellectual History After the Linguistic Turn : the Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience”, American Historical Review, 92, 4, 1987, p. 879-907 ; David Harlan, “Intellectual History and the Return of Literature”, AHR, 94, 1989, p. 581-609 ; David A. Hollinger, “The Return of the Prodigal : the Persistence of the Historical Knowing”, AHR, 94, 1989, p. 610-621 ; Joyce Appleby, “One Good Turn Deserves Another : Moving Beyond the Linguistic”, AHR, 94, 1989, p. 1326-1332.

(Jstor)

Hayden White, “Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth”, in Saul Friedlander (ed), Probing the Limits of Representation. Nazism and the “Final Solution”, Cambridge, Mass.- London, Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 37-53 ; Carlo Ginzburg, “Just One Witness”, Ibid., p. 82-96.

12. Representations:The New Cultural History

Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989.

Terrence McDonald, “Introduction”, in T. McDonald, ed., The Historic Turn…, p.1-14.

Suggested reading :

Roger Chartier, Cultural History Between Practices and Representations, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1988.

13. Memory

Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Inventing Tradition”, in E.J. Hobsbawm, T.Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 1-14.

pdf available online

Pierre Nora, “Entre mémoire et histoire”, in Les Lieux de mémoire, 1,La République, Paris, Gallimard, 1984, p. XVII-XLII. (Realms of Memory, New York, Columbia University Press, vol. 1, 1996, p. 1-20)

Pdf avvailable online.

Jacques Revel, “Le fardeau de la mémoire. Histoire et mémoire en France dans la France d’aujourd’hui”, French Politics, Culture and Society, 18, 2000, p. 1-12. (Jstor)

Suggested reading :

Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory (1950), New York, Harper & Row, 1980, chap 1 (p. 22-49) ; chap. 3 (p. 88-127).

14.The Pragmatic Turn: Culture as Agency

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984 (Introduction, chap. III and XII).

Pdf : danm.ucsc.edu/.../de%20certeau,%20the%20practice%20of%20everyday

William H. Sewell, «Refiguring the «Social» in the Social Sciences. An Interpretive Manifesto», Logics of History. Social Theory and Social Transformation, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2005, p. 318-372.

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