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School of History · ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
This course will help you to become a better historian and a better analyst of historical research, narratives and representations. It examines the principles, strategies and assumptions underlying different forms of history. It also explores current debates about the discipline and its future development. The course focuses on the development of historical practices over the past 250 years, and the character of the 'modern' discipline, but this process will be explored in the context of longer-term practices across time and between cultures. The course will encourage you to consider the social functions of historical writing as well as to explore the methods and models employed by historians within different traditions and schools of historical thought.
Article analysis or short essay (1,500 words)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
Essay; or Book Proposal, and self assessment (3,000 words)
Learning outcomes 1, 3, 4, 5
Contribution to collective learning
Learning outcomes 4, 5
Course diary
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 5
130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: involving a combination of lectures and group discussion ; and b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing.
There are no prescribed texts for this course. Weekly class source readings will be made available in electronic form. Preliminary Reading Recommended reading: John Burrow, A History of Histories, New York: Knopf, 2008. Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Marnie Hughes-Warrington, History as Wonder: Beginning with Historiography, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. [Inclusion of this text is approved by the Head of Department]. Daniel Woolf, A Concise History of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.