So you think you know what History is. Ha! It’s the past as such, right? You know, things that happened back then—like, events. OK, what’s an event apart from a story that gives it meaning? And who decides what a real event is, anyway? The participants or the archivists? Who creates the documents that let us decide? And what’s an authentic document? Does a table or a tool count? Or a movie? If real events don’t unfold like stories, with beginnings, middles, ends, and morals—if they actually proceed like random sequences—then why is narrative coherence so important in writing history? In other words, why do historians and their readers judge factual accounts of the past according to standards drawn from fiction? In Jim Livingstons Historiography Course 506:390 we aim to answer these questions by reading philosophers and historians, of course, but also by watching movies and discussing our contemporary circumstances. The goal of the course is to see how historical consciousness arises, develops, and gets embodied both inside and outside the pages of books. Sign up today! 506:390 Historiography M/Th2
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:51:54 +0000
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