History and Social Theory

Catalog description

The course examines the possible use of social theory by historians and explores how theory could inform historical writing. It provides an outline of canonical theoretical perspectives on modernity, class, race, gender, nationalism, totalitarianism, and the public sphere. Students will learn to navigate between theoretical perspectives that differ in the answers they give to fundamental questions, along several continuums: from emphasizing material processes as shaping human history to prioritizing the power of ideas; from accrediting the autonomous free will of humans to ascribing more influence to constraints set by social structures; from considering human history a sphere of endless conflicts to seeing it as a site where consensus and harmony are gradually built; from recognition of the existence of objective social reality to the acceptance of merely various subjective points of view; from the explicit ambition to make theory a tool for advancing certain political goals to an ambition to be politically neutral. Various scholars provide different answers to these questions. While analyzing them the course addresses, in particular, the following questions: What are some of the strengths and weaknesses in each of these positions? How are particular ways of theoretical thinking related to the specific social positions and biographies of the theorists? How have the foundations of each of these views changed over time?