Junior-Year History Colloquium

Intended for the junior year, history majors are required to complete a reading and discussion seminar taught each year by different members of the department faculty. History 298 is intended to help students reach a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of history as a discipline and of the approaches and methods of historians. Faculty typically share a common approach to the course’s structure and its assigned reading (e.g., historical materialism, the Annales School, micro-history, Foucault, etc.), although such convergence is brought about mainly through the informal exchange of syllabi and the maintenance of a department list of previously assigned books and articles. A key component of the course is a visit by a senior historian outside of the Carleton community, which is sponsored by an endowed lectureship. The guest leads a class discussion of their research and approach to history, and offers a public presentation on their recent work. Major assignments have ranged from book reviews and historiographical essays to research papers and local public history projects. Students are often asked to produce at the end of the term a written statement discussing how their burgeoning interests in history might structure their remaining time at Carleton and the development of a senior-year research project required for graduation.