HIS32900 Questions in History

Academic Year 2022/2023

This module, as the title suggests, revolves around questions: questions that historians have asked about historical events and phenomena, questions that historians have asked about the aims of their own research, and questions that others have asked—and keep asking—about the work that historians do. Such questions range from abstract musings about the purpose of history-writing to practical questions, like choosing the best methods for researching particular themes. The lectures will draw on examples from different periods—antique, medieval, early modern, and modern—and our discussions will stretch across periods and geographical boundaries. We will of course examine what approaches historians applied to investigating various questions but we will also invite students to raise their own questions and to engage in what historians sometimes call 'problematising', or the practice of challenging received narratives and accepted conventions. We will be asking whether history is a science, how historical periods are constructed (periodisation), whether we can learn from history, to what extent events and phenomena are comparable across places, whether men have a different history from women, how historians work with other disciplines, how scientific the discipline of history is, who owns history, and why should we study history in the first place. Whatever your interest in history is, the module will give you a deeper insight into the historian’s craft and enrich your understanding of the approaches and methods that you may wish to apply. This module significantly reinforces work done in level 3 10-credit modules and dissertations, and also provides a valuable springboard to postgraduate study.