Course Description
Exploration of the ethical relationship between peoples and their historical scholarship though a series of case studies. These case studies examine the ethical implications of the use of history in education, moral pedagogy, political propaganda, national defense planning, public social debate, culture production, and other venues.
Athena Title
Ethics of History
Pre or Corequisite
One course in HIST or FYOS or ENGL or POLS or INTL or BIOL or PSYC or RELI
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- By the end of this course, students will understand the relevant debates surrounding the ethics of history.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to analyze the different ethical stances adopted toward in these historical case studies.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to articulate their own well-reasoned stance on ethical questions in history.
Topical Outline
- History and morality. Is history a teacher of morals? Are or should historians be teachers of morality? Is the classroom a bully pulpit or a laboratory? Gordon Wright, "History as a Moral Science” AHA Presidential Address, 1975 https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/presidential-addresses/gordon-wright.
- The “lessons of history.” Does history provide instruction for the present and the future? The Munich complex and the Cold War. COVID and the Great Plague. Ernest May, The Lessons of History excerpt.
- Fake history and history frauds. When historians lie and cheat. Plagiarism. Invention of sources. The case of Arming America. The case of Undaunted Courage. “Arming America” controversy, in Wikipedia.
- History as propaganda. The Creel Committee during the First World War. The Cold War consensus historians. The National History Standards debate. Gary Nash, et al., History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (2000) excerpt.
- Revisionism. Why historians change their minds. Criticism of revisionism. History and current events politics. The debate over the 1619 Project. “The 1619 Project” Wikipedia.
- Is history an art (a branch of literature) or a science? The ethical implications of this question. Can historians invent scenes, dialogue, and events, if they think that the evidence is sufficient? What is the ethical boundary between the historical narrative and the history novel? The case of the Unredeemed Captive. The case of Killer Angels. John Demos, Unredeemed Captive (1994) excerpt. Michael Shaara, Killer Angels, (1974) excerpt.
- When nations revise their history—for good and for ill. The attempt to sanitize history in post-war Germany and Japan. The resistance to critical race theory in history classrooms.
