HIEU 508 MODERNITY AND HISTORY

Allan Megill, University of Virginia, Spring 2002

Cabell Hall 335 1:00-3:30 p.m. Mondays c:\wpdocs\0syllabi\38102desyes

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND REQUIREMENTS

INSTRUCTOR CONTACT INFORMATION: Office Location: 221 Randall Hall.

Office Hours: Tu Th 3:40-4:40, and by arrangement. You should not feel confined to my scheduled office hours. An efficient means of arranging appointment times is by e-mailing me, at megill@virginia.edu; it is best to e-mail me a day or two in advance. Often, I can arrange meetings at other times than the official hours. Note: On occasion I will have to cancel office hours because of other obligations. It is very wise, therefore, to contact me ahead of time even if you plan to come during regularly scheduled hours. I cannot guarantee my presence at any particular scheduled office hour unless you alert me in advance..

Telephone Numbers: Office: 924-6414 (voice-mail after several rings if there is no answer). Home: 971-8744 (answering machine after several rings). You should not hesitate to phone me at home: because of the ambiance and company, I generally prefer working there to working in Randall Hall. If we are otherwise occupied we generally do not answer the phone.

E-mail: megill@virginia.edu. Instructor home page: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~adm9e

Course home page: http:/toolkit.virginia.edu/HIEU508-1.

FOCUS AND AIMS OF COURSE: This is a variant of a course that I have taught in one form or another since 1976, HIST 506 Philosophy of History. I have changed the title because I have wanted in this version to put greater emphasis on the notion of modernity than could be accommodated by an attempt to give a general introduction to historical theory, a.k.a. philosophy of history. So: this class is very close to my philosophy of history class, but it is not quite the same.

A GENERAL WARNING: My 500-level courses are very different from my lecture courses. In the latter, there is always an agenda that is clearly laid out, and a set body of material to master. My lectures may sometimes seem wayward and even off-the-wall, but they in fact all head toward a particular destination.

It is not so in my 500-level classes. To profit from this class, you should already have some ideas on the subject (of either modernity or history). In addition, you must be willing and able to contribute intelligently to class discussion, and (most important) you must be able and willing to write a fairly substantial paper on some aspect of the modernity--history relation. Note that I don’t expect you to have a topic in hand right now. But within five weeks or so you will need to have a good idea of what your project is going to be. This will involve your conferring with me, both by e-mail and directly with me either inside or outside of regularly scheduled office hours.

The course might be regarded, then, as a vehicle for your writing of a paper on a topic of interest to you that falls within the general frame of “modernity and history.” Often, undergraduates use my 500-level classes as venues for working up ideas toward a distinguished major thesis. Graduate students typically use the course as an opportunity for writing a paper on a topic, the investigation of which will contribute to their academic progress.

You should not have an unwarrantedly restricted notion as to what I might accept as a topic. Suggest to me a number of possibilities, and I will let you know what I think. Note also that some ideas as to possible topics will undoubtedly arise in the first few weeks of class.

AN ANIMATING QUESTION: One possible animating question is the following: Is history a Western prejudice? Of course, the question is impossibly broad. But perhaps it can somehow guide us, at least in part of our deliberations. A daring person with good conceptualizing abilities might well take this question as the topic of the paper. (I recommend Donald R. Kelley, Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998 D16.8.K37 1998] as perhaps the best introduction to the Western historical tradition before the emergence of professional historiography.)

ANOTHER QUESTION: Another question that can serve as focus is: what role ought “memory” to play in history? This question can be taken in a very broad sense, focusing not only on how history might take up people’s recollections, but on how history might contribute to a “cultural memory” that would then support, or claim to support, a political order.

MODE OF OPERATION: We shall read selectively in the literature on historical theory, and even more selectively in the literature on modernity. Very often I shall assign to one or two students the task of discussing and commenting on a particular reading: sometimes these will be readings that the class in general will not be doing. Do expect frequent assignments to explicate something, and to report back about it by e-mail or in class. In giving a presentation to the class, you must be fully aware of your responsibility for giving a clear and accurate account of those readings that other students have not read.

Characteristically, each week I shall begin by speaking for 10-15 minutes in an attempt to situate the reading for that week and to pose some issues for discussion. We shall then discuss the reading.

Requirements in Brief: The requirements are to do the reading, to participate in discussion, to introduce, on occasion, readings in class, to write several short reaction pieces or class summaries to be posted on the class e-mail list, and, most important, to write a paper. The course is mainly intended to provide an opportunity for students to explore in some depth a topic related to the course theme. I envisage a paper of ca. 20 double-spaced pages.

The nature of the material and level of the course dictate that undergraduate students should have some background in political theory, intellectual history, religious studies, or philosophy.

Requirements in Greater Detail: Because this is an advanced undergraduate/graduate class, significant contributions to class proceedings will be required.

(a) The student will be expected to offer several summative and critical reports over the course of the semester. Very often I will "hand" a student something--a chapter, an article--to be explicated for the benefit of the class in general. The student should seek to clarify the piece of reading, linking it to the more general themes of the course. It is expected that these reports will be (a) clear, (b) accurate, and (c) interesting to the class in general. They should also be short: a characteristic error by students, when making oral reports in particular, is to speak too long, losing sight of the class's wandering attention. But even written reports should be fairly brief. (Another error is to blow off the exercise totally. I suggest not doing this.

(b) Additionally, one or two students will be responsible each week for summarizing in writing what was said in the class for that week (characteristically, one student handles the first half of the class and the other student the second half). Before 6 p.m. on the following Sunday, the student will be expected to have posted a one- or two-page summary of the preceding week's discussion to the class mailing list, hieu508-1@toolkit.virginia.edu.

Each student is expected to consult his or her e-mail regularly. The class toolkit gives automatic access to the class e-mail list and to past e-mails.

(c) A major part of the course requirements is careful completion of the reading. The student is expected to be able to contribute in class to the discussion of the reading. To some extent (to be determined by the size and needs of the class), students will be asked to provide "reading reactions," via e-mail, to fellow class members prior to the session in which that reading will be discussed.

It is expected that students will access their e-mail on Sundays in order to read and think about the summaries of the preceding class meeting and about any other items that have been posted. It is hoped that this will improve the quality of discussion. If they wish, students are welcome to respond to the discussion by making postings after the class meets.

Students should be aware that special care needs to be taken in making e-mail postings. A certain tentativeness of expression may well be advisable in your e-mail correspondence. Remember that irony is easier to miss in electronic statements than in statements made face to face.

(d) The most important single requirement is the writing of a research paper. For the purposes of this course, I define a "research paper" as a paper that advances an original argument concerning some aspect of the material of the class. (Note that this is a wider definition of "research paper" than the one that normally applies in, for example, 800-level graduate seminars in history, where a research paper would usually be a paper that relies in some important measure on the examination of primary sources in the original language.) I should note, by the way, that there is an annotated bibliography in the philosophy of history to be found on my personal Web page; it does, however, have the defect of having not been continued after around 1991.

I give some guidance concerning the search for a paper topic, and the Selective Bibliography itself may give you a start. Note also that, as noted in that handout, it is required that you arrange your work in such a way that by Wednesday, March 6, 2002 you and I will be in agreement that you have a plausible paper proposal. One can imagine a wide variety of possible topics, but the possibilities must be thoroughly discussed with the instructor. The due date is Friday, May 3, by 4 p.m.

(e) Grading protocol: You should assume that quality of class participation (including discussion in class, plus particular presentations you make in class, plus e-mail contributions) counts for about 40% of the grade, and the paper for the remaining 60%. I should say that, in practice, I tend to see the paper as summative of what you have learned in the class.

Books: The following books have been ordered at the University of Virginia Bookstore::

Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History

Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe

R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, revised edited by Jan Van der Dussen

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition

Brian Fay, Philip Pomper, and Richard T. Vann, eds., History and Theory: Contemporary Readings

Harvie Ferguson, Modernity and Subjectivity: Body, Soul, Spirit

Fritz Stern, ed., The Varieties of History from Voltaire to the Present, revised ed.

Additional books to be placed on reserve. Note: All of the above books will also be on reserve.

Frank Ankersmit, Historical Representation D13.A637 2001 (Stanford UP)

Ewa Doma½ska, Encounters: Philosophy of History After Postmodernism D16.8.D635 1998

G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction D16.8 H464 1975

Johann Gottfried von Herder, On Social and Political Culture D16.7.H45 1969

Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History DD86.I34 1983

Louis O. Mink, Historical Understanding D16.8.M675 1987

Leopold von Ranke, The Theory and Practice of History D13.R32

Bonnie G. Smith, The Gender of History D13.S567 1998

Paul Veyne, Writing History D16.V4613 1984

Hayden White, The Content of the Form D13.W564 1987

Hayden White, Figural Realism PN50.W48 1999

Hayden White, Metahistory D13 W565