Informations du cours

The first semester of this year-long seminar will seek to introduce students to some of the major historiographical debates within a range of subfields of the literature of twentieth-century US history. Our readings will be drawn from high impact works of historical scholarship; class discussions each week will take shape around a consideration of the historiographical, theoretical, methodological, and political stakes of these works. One of our main objectives will be to historicize the present—that is to say, to excavate the structures and subterranean histories that help to determine the political possibilities of our time. Another will be to investigate the methodologies and theoretical tools available to historians working on twentieth-century US history. Students in the seminar will be expected to contribute their thoughts each week to an online forum and to participate actively in class.

The second semester will be organized around methodological and theoretical issues related to research in the social sciences. A selection of readings to be determined collectively (at the conclusion of the first semester) will be used to offer examples of how scholars develop theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches for exploring a range of social, political, and cultural issues in the contemporary United States. Students will examine the relevance of such works to their own research projects, which they will present to the class in a workshop setting.