Study Questions, 300A

Study Questions: History and Historians

Why was Saint Augustine so influential in shaping historical thought in Western civilization?

What is positivism? How has it influenced historical thought?

What does Guilderhus mean by an analytical approach to history? A speculative approach? How do they differ? Give some examples.

What is "methodology"? What is "epistemology"? Why are these so important to historical thought and research?

What is historicism? How is it reflected in current historical debates?

Why is the "objectivity question" so central to current historical debates?

Study Questions: Marx and Thompson

What role does history play in Marx’s theory?
What is dialectical materialism? How does Marx use this general philosophy of history or, as Guilderhus would put it, this speculative approach to history, to explain the development of human civilization, and predict its future?
Why has Marx been so influential to the development of historical thinking, even among non-Marxist historians? What can non-Marxists learn from Marx?
What aspect of Marxist theory is E. P. Thompson testing in the passage you have from The Making of the English Working Class? What are his conclusions?
How does Thompson define class, and why is that definition so important to his book? What do we learn from this about the ways in which historians use theories and models, and about the importance of defining terms?

Study Questions: Anthropology, Ethnohistory, Annales

What, according to David Gaunt, are the main differences in approach, goals, and methodology between history and anthropology? Why have the two drawn closer in recent decades? What are the potential problems in combining them that Gaunt perceives?

What, according to James Axtell, is "ethnohistory"? Why has this field developed? In studying what sorts of historical problems is it especially useful? What kinds of methods have ethnohistorians adoped from anthropologists?

The Annales School is characterized by a unique approach to history that is at once both speculative and analytical (i.e. both a philosophy of historical change and a set of methods for studying that change). Discuss. How do the readings illustrate an Annales approach?

Toynbee is known for his philosophy of history, which has been especially significant in the development of the field of world history. How did Toynbee understand change over time? What did he believe was the engine of that change (i.e., what made change happen) and what was the pattern of that change? Compare and contrast his views with those of Spengler. How were their views shaped by their times?

What were the contributions of Darwin and Freud to the development of historical thought? Why were these non-historians so important to history?

STUDY QUESTIONS, 300A

Manning, Navigating World History, Parts I-II

Why does Manning call this book Navigating World History?
What does Manning mean when he says that world historians should "go beyond dominance to focus on interaction?"
What does Manning mean when he states that in Part I he will discuss "the discourse of world history?" What does he see as the main parameters of that discourse?
Manning states that world history is not the sum total of all history. What is it then, in his view, and how does its nature necessarily change its character compared to other fields of world history?
What does Manning mean by the term historical philosophy? Give some examples of historical philosophies of world history.
Why is "civilization" a problematic term in world history?
What is the problem of narrative in world history?
What is the recent "revolution" in historical studies Manning discusses in Part II? How has that revolution affected world history?

Study Questions, Manning, Navigating World History, Parts III - V

What does Manning see as the research agenda for world political and economic history? What are the major questions and debates?
What is "social history"? Why, according to Manning, has it not been at the forefront of world history? Can social history be done at the world-historical level? What are the main categories of analysis (topics of research)?
What is the research agenda of ecology, technology, and health in world history? What contributions has the research from these fields already made to the study of world history?
What does Manning mean by the terms "macrocultural" and "microcultural" studies, and why does he argue in favor of their application to world cultural history? Why does he argue that these terms relate to "old" and "new" definitions of culture?
What are the main topics of debate that have developed in world history? How does Manning think that debates about world history should differ from other historical debates? How do debates aid in the process of verifying historical interpretations?
Why do historians of necessity have to grapple with frameworks of time and space in teaching and researching world history?
Why must all historical research, including world history, proceed with a framework and strategy? How are the frameworks and strategies of world history related to research agendas? How are they related to interpretations? Why does Manning argue that authors should be clear about their frameworks and strategies, and explicit in stating them?
Why is systems theory important for world history? What are its limitations?
What is verification? How does Manning suggest that a world historian can go about verifying an interpretation? Why does he think verification is important?
Manning argues that there is a characteristic method for analyzing world history consisting of six steps. Explain. Why is finding a language of historical analysis also important?
What does Manning see as some of the problems and priorities in graduate education in world history? In world history research? Explain.

Study Questions, The New Cultural History, Part I

	What is "cultural history"? Why has it developed? What does it study, and how does it differ in methods and goals from other fields of history?
	What do the authors mean when they state in the introduction that "The deciphering of meaning, then, rather than the inference of causal laws of explanation, is taken to be the central task of cultural history"? (p. 12)
	Many of the scholars whose work is featured in this book deal with the "problem of representation." What is the problem of representation and how do historians attempt to grapple with it?
	Patricia O’Brien state (p. 44) that "One of Foucault’s recognized contributions, which a wide variety of the new cultural historians embrace, lies in the importance he attributed to language/discourse as a means of apprehending change." Discuss.
	What happens to causation in history as a way of making sense of the past in Foucault’s methodology? How might this undermine the way in which most historians conceive of the purpose of history?
	What do Natalie Davis and E. P. Thompson have in common in their study of crowds, community, and ritual? How do their methods and interpretations differ?
	According to Aletta Biersak, what can historians learn from anthropologists? Why, in her view, have historians been using the wrong anthropologists as models? Who should they be studying? Why?
	Why does Lloyd Kramer believe that "the literary approach" is "such a potentially rich method for historical research"? What are the potential pitfalls of this approach?

Study Questions, The New Cultural History, Part II.

What, according to Mary Ryan, is the meaning of the parade in American history? How can the parade help to illuminate changes in American cultural attitudes. What makes her study an example of cultural history?
What is the central question Roger Chartier is asking is his essay "Text, Printing, Readings"? Why does he find the concept of "appropriation" useful in answering it? What makes his study an example of cultural history?
What is the central question Thomas W. Laqueur asks in his essay "Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative"? What is the "humanitarian narrative," and how is it central to answering the question Laqueur asks? What makes this study an example of cultural history?
Why, according to Randolph Starn, is art a form of power? How does that insight become apparent in Renaissance painting, and how do we have to change how we see and "read" that painting in order to comprehend the messages of power embedded within it? What makes this study an example of cultural history?

Study Questions, Gender & History

Section I, Theory and Method

Introduction. What is A gender@ ? What is A agency@ ? Why did they grow out of women= s history, and why have they become so central to cultural history overall? What is the essential insight these terms help to clarify in the relationships between sex and culture, and between sex and power?

1. Why does bock see gender as a A constituent factor of all other relations?@ What about the relationship between gender and power? How and why is that reciprocal?

2. Why have historians come to see gender as a > useful category of analysis@ ? What is A useful@ about it?

3. What should historians do with masculinity, according to John Tosh? Why?

4. Why, according to Davidoff, is it important that A Adam Spoke First@ ? How did male control of vocabulary and discourse enhance male power?

General Question for Section I: How do the methodology and the approach of each of these four essays focus on the issue of discourse, and the struggle to differentiate between cultural constructions of gender and the biology of sex? Why has this difference become so important to women= s history especially?

Section II, The Body and Sexuality

5. What does Laqueur argue were the consequences of the scientific discourse of reproductive biology? How did this discourse create a A context in which the articulation of radical difference between the sexes became culturally imperative@ ? Why did this change take place?

6. Why does Roper argue against focusing on gender rather than on sex as a category of historical analysis? Why does she think historians have been so eager to embrace gender? Why does she argue that historians must return to the body?

7. Why, according to Trumbach, was the A queen@ A born@ in 18^th century Europe? Did this A birth@ result from corresponding changes in sexual behavior? If not, why did what he calls the A great transition@ occur?

General Question for Section II: Compare and contrast Roper= s argument with those of Laqueur and Trumbach? Why do they embrace A gender@ in analyzing the historical problems they study? Why does she reject their analysis, and prefer to study A sexuality@ instead?

Section III, Separate Spheres?

8. What, according to Catherine Hall, was the A Victorian domestic ideology@ ? How was it linked to the division between public and private spheres? What were its consequences for society= s view of the proper role of women?

9. Amanda Vickery critiques historians who see a transition of a A golden age@ for women in the pre-modern women to an era of A separate spheres@ which limited women= s options in the modern era, a transition that was largely the result of industrialization (thus she is critiquing, among others, Catherine Hall). What is the basis of her critique, and what does she suggest as a better way to understand the change in the position of women in the 18^th and 19^th centuries?

General Question for Section III: What do historians mean by A separate spheres@ ? What are those separate spheres, and how did they become A separate@ ? Why is this interpretation controversial?

Section IV, Religion

10. When women prophesied during the English Civil War, where did those prophesies come from (in other words, upon what cultural discourse did women draw for the language and metaphors of what they had to say in their prophesies)? How and why did female prophesying differ from that of their male counterparts?

11. According to Pope, was the A Marian Revival@ a result of A feminization@ of religion or culture? Did the Virgin Mother in provided benefit men or women more? Why?

General Question for Section IV: European Christianity was replete with female role models, and female figures of whose words carried powerful spiritual messages. Yet women rarely, if ever, held positions of power, except at Abbesses of all female institutions, within the institutions of either Catholicism or Protestantism. How do you think this dichotomy between discourse (words and images) of female sanctity and practice was resolved? Or was it?

Section V, Politics

12. What was the importance of the image of the A disorderly woman@ in early modern discourse. How, according to Davis, did the conceptualization sometimes work to control women, but at others to permit them greater social and political latitude?

13. Why might we say, following Sian Reynolds, that A Marianne@ was the only A Republican@ woman, or the only woman the Republic acknowledged at deserving of a political role? But was she a woman at all?

14. How and why do Koven and Michel seek to A rehabilitate@ maternalism and the creation of the welfare state as an accomplishment of women, demonstrating their autonomy, agency, and activism despite the male control of the political agenda?

General Question for Section V: Historians studying women and politics are faced with a central dilemma: In the face of the unquestionable male control of political power and institutions, is it possible to discern female agency and activism in politics, and if so, what forms did female political participation take, and how significant was the result of female political participation? How do the authors of the three essays above grapple with this problem?

Section IV, Work

Honeyman and Goodman state that A The central problem in the history of women= s work is to explain the nature of and changes in the lowest paid, least stable, and most unrewarding occupations.= They then discuss the framework of analysis women= s historians have devised to study this problem. What is that framework, and what progress has been made for solving the problem?

Study Questions: Introducing Postmodernism

What is "Modernism"? What is Postmoderism? How are the two related?

What is "Structuralism"? What is Poststructuralism? How are the two related?

Why is much of Postmodernism concerned with representation and language?

What is the historical context for the rise of Postmodernism? Why did it arise in the second half of the twentieth century? In what ways is it rooted in earlier artistic, literary and philosophical movements?

How has Postmodernism affected historical thought and research?

The Return of Martin Guerre

How does Natalie Davis understand the actions of the real and false Martin Guerres? Why does the real Martin leave and why does Arnaud take his place?

According to Davis, did Bertrande know that Arnaud Du Tilh had substituted himself for her husband? Why is this central to her interpretation of Bertrande?

On what grounds does Robert Finlay critique Natalie Davis’ interpretation of the story of Martin Guerre? What is the basis of her rebuttal of that critique? Which argument seems to you to make more sense? Why?

What can we learn from the film, book, and forum about the problems of interpreting the past? How are those problems compounded when the past is interpreted in film?

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