MLA Practicum: Thinking Like a Historian in Three Different Ways

Catalog description

This course is designed to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how historians think about various kinds of evidence. The past isn't made just off documents, but of all kinds of messy evidence that we need to think about carefully in order to make sound historical arguments. This class focuses on 3 areas that present interesting challenges: material culture (i.e., "things"); slaves and slavery; and environmental and disease history. In each class session, we'll think about the argument that each author is making about their evidence, and also challenge ourselves by looking at some primary sources together. Students should be prepared to tell the class what the argument of the author is for each secondary source reading, and what they think works and doesn't work about their argument. What would you do differently? What methods could you incorporate into your own MLA research, including your thesis? What is the argument of the author?