Course Description
Examination of microhistory, which uses specific topics and sources to examine larger historical problems. Also, a review of microhistory theoretical and methodological connections to other scholarly disciplines such as cultural anthropology and other genres of history, including local history and the history of everyday life.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
In addition to completing the reading required of
undergraduates, graduate students will be asked to take on more
in-depth research and readings of an advanced nature and write
one or more 20-page research papers on microhistorical texts.
Athena Title
Getting Personal Microhistory
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students who complete this course will gain a strong grasp of important methodological and theoretical issues confronting all historians by examining the choices historians make regarding both the parameters of research and the conversion of research into composed arguments and narratives.
Topical Outline
1. What is Microhistory? 2. Microhistories of Early Modern Europe 3. The Historian as Storyteller 4. The Historian as Detective 5. Working with Fragments 6. Histories of Medicine (and Progress) 7. History and Anthropology 8. Thick Description 9. The Atlantic Slave Trade 10. Modern Microhistories 11. Institutions of Confinement 12. Nation-Building 13. Social Investigations 14. Political Communication 15. Modern War and Memory 16. Dictatorship 17. Histories of Everyday Life 18. The Holocaust 19. Film and History 20. Totalitarianism
Syllabus