Personal Histories of Global Events: Microhistorical Approaches to the Writing of Global…

Catalog description

In this course we will read some of the most influential micro-history writers and explore examples of different subgenres of microhistory, such as individual biographies, family histories, social histories of towns, city, and village histories, histories of singular events and the impact they have on a family or a community, a history of an object, and fictional narratives of individual experiences of global events. The course aims to explore how seemingly a limited-scale of analysis can illuminate the experience of much larger events. The course will draw on examples that focus on a wide range of experiences from around the world, with special attention paid to the the Middle East and Africa. The final research project will build on the student's own family's history, or the history of one individual, or an object (such as an inherited jewelry, a document, a painting, or a photograph etc) and research to situate that person/object/family's history in the context of an event of global important (such as a war, colonialism, mass violence, environmental history, empire, etc). (HIST-HTR)