History Workshop: Methods and Practice

The History Workshop trains students in the methodology and practice of history by preparing them for research and reading in advanced seminars and orienting them to the scholarly practice of history. The principal objectives of the History Workshop are twofold: to provide basic “historiographical literacy” (that is, a reasonably comprehensive grasp of the variety of historical approaches, methodologies, and schools of historical analysis) and to teach the “mechanics of doing history” (that is, how to research and write history, including the ethical and practical issues of working with archival materials, how to use the library and the web, the mechanics of citation, and more). Classes center on critical analysis of readings, textual interpretation of primary documents, and library activities.