AMH 5930 – Race and Ethnicity
Dr. Paul Ortiz
Description:
This interdisciplinary seminar explores the invention and reinvention(s) of race and ethnicity keying in on questions of racism, power, resistance, and the regimented fluidity of identities from the Age of Revolution to Black Lives Matter. Scholars have proven that race is a fiction, right? However, like Banquo’s Ghost, “It Will Not Down.” Theories and practices of racism continue to dominate discourses of crime, consumption, war, education and citizenship—among other areas—while shaping unequal relations between individuals and nations.
We will explore a broad array of topics, historical moments, and social relations that can be greatly enriched by using race and ethnicity as a comparative lens of historical analysis. These include: the Enlightenment and modernity; revolution and counter-revolution; racial capitalism; Indigeneity, genocide and settler colonialism; Black Internationalism; Gender and sexuality; Segregation and re-segregation; Immigration, forced migration, and non-citizenship; Critical Latino Studies; social movements and organizing; Neoliberalism, policing and mass incarceration; relational and intercultural approaches to the study of race and ethnicity.
AMH 6199 – Readings in Nineteenth-Century U.S. History
Dr. Jeffrey Adler
Description:
This course is designed to provide an introduction to the scholarly literature on nineteenth- century U.S. history. There are five basic requirements for the course. First, students will be expected to read common assignments and participate in every weekly discussion. Second, each student will be responsible for summarizing the historiographical debates revolving around one of our weekly topics and leading the discussion for that week. Third, each student will prepare three brief book reviews (three to four pages in length) during the course of the semester. In our first meeting, we will discuss the format and make the assignments. Fourth, each student will prepare a historiographical essay (ten pages in length) on a topic in nineteenth-century U.S. history. Students may choose topics that relate to their thesis or dissertation research, and the essay will be due on Monday, December 10, 2018 (in hard copy). And fifth, each student will be required to prepare a syllabus for an undergraduate course on nineteenth-century U.S. history, also due on December 10, 2018—see the final page of this syllabus for details. Thirty percent of your grade will be based on class participation; 20 percent will be based on your contribution as discussion leader; 20 percent will be based on the book reviews; 20 percent will be based on the historiographical essay; and 10 percent of your grade will be based on the syllabus that you prepare.
EUH 5934 – Seminar on Nationalism
Dr. Mitchell Hart
Description:
Nationalism has arguably been the most potent force for identity formation, at the individual and collective levels, over the past three centuries. This seminar on comparative nationalisms introduces students to some of the major works and foundational debates around nations and nationalism. What is a nation? When do nations begin? What is patriotism, and how does it differ from nationalism? What is the relationship between different forms of nationalism and other crucial historical categories such as gender, race, religion, and class?
Each week we will read one of the assigned books and/or articles and meet to discuss it. At least one member of the seminar will be responsible for leading the week’s discussion, though everyone in the seminar will be responsible for reading the assigned work and formulating questions. Grades will be based on level and quality of weekly participation, and on the assigned historiographical essay.
HIS 6061 – Historiography
Dr. Nancy Hunt
Description:
This course offers an introduction to important theoretical debates defining historical writing and practices today. As such, it is a course in historiography: the theory, history, and practice of historical writing.
Academic courses in historiography used to emphasize the professional writing of history, that is, the work of critically examining sources, selecting details from those materials, and synthesizing details into a narrative that also may succeed before critical examination. Some still tend to begin with the development in the West during the late 18th and early 19th centuries of “scientific” history and the emergence of history as an academic profession. This course is different. It is not a survey of historiography, neither in the Western, subalternist, Africanist, or any other tradition. On Canvas, I am mounting a superb Historiography syllabus of this type, but which goes well beyond; it is from the University of Warwick’s Department of History (HISTORIOGRAPHY (HI323), 2016-17, Dr. Charles Walton). It goes back to the 18th century and contains detailed bibliographies and many, many leads on how to find helpful sources. I recommend it to you. Mine it, and mine it well.
In our case, Sara Maza will mention Leopold Von Ranke for a split second (p. 121) in her important book which will conclude the class, while our approach will be to (1) keep history “deprovincialized” (Chakrabarty 2000), (2) explore innovative and enduring approaches since the times of Marc Bloch, and (3) learn how to think and write historiographically for our times. Most of our assigned books are models of superb history: analysis, interpretations, and writing that draw – explicitly or implicitly – on concepts to do so. A few are examples of a “school” or genre. We have no geographic or chronological focus.
The goal is rather to sharpen student awareness of analytical and theoretical tools that cross more than one “field” of history (with the word “field” being wide open to definition). Throughout, students will learn to think, read, and write – historiographically – in relation to a field, defined as such through clarifying a problem or concept(s) and – very important – also in light of practices founds in our common readings.
The course is premised on the idea that historians need to read and converse across fields to be any good at what they do, that fields are best kept porous, and the writing of excellent, sophisticated history develops out of such conversations, readings, and the porosity itself. At the same time, most of you have come to Florida with a field and a subject or theme in mind, and historiographical investigation is essential to developing a topic well. So, the course is designed to help you combine these things: digging deeper in what you already know and like, and stretching out.