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"Social History in Questions :
Practices, Proposals and Debates, 1900-2013"
Jacques Revel
Spring 2013
(March 25 – May 8)
Social history has been under attack on many sides for the last three decades. There is a risk here to forget the crucial roleit has plaid in the renewal of historical knowledge, thinking, and methods throughout the last century.
The course intends to offer a critical approach to some major points of the historiographical debate from the beginning of the 20thcentury to the present. It offers as well a substantial amount of optional, interdisciplinary readings which will be presented and discussed in class.
Requirements : all enrolled students are expected to give brief presentations of one or more of the readings in class, and to write a 15-20 p. final essay on a topic to be worked out together with the instructor. The class will meet twice a week during the second half of the Spring term.
1. General Overview
-H. Stuart Hughes, «The Historian and the Social Scientist», American Historical Review, 66, 1960, p.20-46.
-Lawrence Stone, «History and the Social Sciences in the Twentieth Tentury», in Charles Delzell, ed., The Future of History, Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 1977, p.3-42.
-Jacques Revel, «History and the social sciences», in Theodore M. Porter, Dorothy Ross, eds, The Cambridge History of Science, vol.7, The Modern Social Sciences, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p.391-403.
2. Social science History in America
-Georg G. Iggers, «American Traditions of Social History», in Iggers, Historiography in the Twentyeth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge, Hannover-London, Wesleyan University Press, 1997, p.36-47.
-David Landes, Charles Tilly, eds, History as Social Science, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1971.
-- suggested reading: Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons, New York, Russel Sage Foundation, 1984.
3. The French way: the Annales project
-Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution. The Annales School, 1929-1989, Oxford, Polity Press, 1990.
-Jacques Revel, Lynn Hunt, eds, Histories. French Constructions of the Past, New York, The New Press, 1996, «Introduction», p.1-63.
-Ernest Labrousse, «New Paths Toward a History of the Western Bourgeoisie (1750-1850» (1955), in Revel and Hunt, Histories, p.67-74.
-suggested reading: Fernand Braudel, «History and the Social Sciences: the Longue durée», in Braudel, On History (1972), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 25-54.
4. History vs Sociology: the German debate
-Georg G. Iggers, «Economic and Social History in Germany and the Beginnings of Historical Sociology», in Iggers, Historiography in the twentieth century…, 1997, p.36-40.
-Georg G. Iggers, «Critical Theory and Social History: Historical Social Science in the Federal Republic of Germany», in Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, 1997, p.65-77.
-Geoff Eley, «Labor history, Social History, Alltagsgeschichte: Experience, Culture, and the Politics of Everyday. A New Direction for German Social History?», Journal of Modern History, 61, 1989, p.297-343.
-Alf Lüdtke, ed., «Introduction», The History of Everyday Life:Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995, p.3-40.
5. Measuring the social: Quantitative history
-François Furet, «Quantitative History» (1971), in Furet, The Workshop of History, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1984, p.40-53.
-Robert W. Fogel, «The Limits of Quantitative Methods in History», American Historical Review, 80, 2, 1975, p.329-350.
-Bernard Lepetit, «Quantitative History: Another Approach» (1989), in Revel and Hunt, Histories, p.503-512.
6. The Variety of Marxist approaches
-Georg G. Iggers, «Marxist Historical Science from Historical Materialism to Critical Anthropology», in Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, p. 78-94.
-Eric J. Hobsbawm, «From social history to the history of the society», Daedalus, Winter 1971, p.20-45.
-Eugen D. Genovese, «The politics of class struggle in the history of the society: an appraisal of the work of Eric Hobsbawm», in Pat Thane, Geoffrey Crossick, Roderick Floud, eds, The Power of the Past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm, Cambridge-Paris, Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1984, p.13-36.
-Jim Sharpe, «History From Below», in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Oxford, Polity Press, 1991, p.24-41.
7. The Anthropological turn: E. P. Thompson, context, experience, agency
-E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, London, Victor Gollancz, 1963, «Preface».
-E. P. Thompson, «Eighteenth century English Society: Class Struggle Without Class?», Social History, III, 2, 1978, p.133-165.
-E. P. Thompson, «The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the 18th Century», Past and Present, 50, 1971, p.76-136.
-E. P. Thompson, «Folklore, anthropology and social history», The Indian Historical Review, January 1977.
8. History and anthropology
-Maurice Agulhon, «Working Class and Solidarity in France Before 1848», in Thane, Crossick, Floud, eds, The Power of the Past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm, 1984, p.37-66.
-Suzanne Desan, «Crowds, Community and Ritual in the work of E. P. Thompson and Natalie Davis», in Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History, Berkeley-Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1989, p.46-71.
-suggested reading: Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975.
9. History in context: Microhistory
-Carlo Ginzburg, Carlo Poni, «The Name and the Game: Unequal Exchange and the Historiographic Marketplace» (1979), in Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, eds, Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, Baltimore-London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, p.1-10.
-Giovanni Levi, «On microhistory», in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Oxford, Polity Press, 1991, p.93-113.
-Jacques Revel, «Micro-analyse et construction du social», in Revel, ed., Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience, Paris, Gallimard/Le Seuil, 1996, p.15-36, (partly translated in Revel and Hunt, Histories, p.494-502).
-Suggested reading: Giovanni Levi, Inheriting power. The story of an exorcist (1985), Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1988.
10. The Emergence of women’s history
-Natalie Zemon Davis, «City Women and Religious change», in Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford Univesity Press, 1975, p.65-95.
-Joan W. Scott, «Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis», American Historical Review, 91, 5, 1986, p.1053-1075.
-Joan W. Scott, «Women’s history», in Peter Burke, ed., New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Oxford, Polity Press, 1991, p.42-66.
-Suggested reading: Louis Tilly, Joan W. Scott, Women, Work and Family, New York, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1978.
11. The postmodern turn
- Georg G. Iggers, «The Linguistic Turn: The End of History as a Scholarly Discipline?», in Historiography in the Twentieth Century, p. 118-133, 168-170.
An American debate:
-Joan W. Scott, «The Evidence of Experience», Critical Inquiry, 17, 4, 1991, p.773-797.
-Laura L. Downs, «If ‘Women’ is an Empty Category, Why Am I Afraid to Walk Alone at Night? Identity Politics Meets the Postmodern Subject», Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXXV, 1993, p.414-451.
A British debate:
-Patrick Joyce, «The end of social history?», Social History, XX, 1995, p.81-91.
-G. Eley, K. Neild, «Starting over: the present, the postmodern and the moment of social history», Social History, 1995, p.353-364.
-P. Joyce, «The end of social history? A brief reply to Eley and Nield», Social History, XXI, 1996, p.96-98.
12. Social History and Cultural History
- Lynn Hunt, «Introduction: History, Culture and Text», in Lynn Hunt, ed., The New
Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, &ç89, p. 1-24.
-Paula S. Fass, «Cultural History/Social History: Some Reflections on a Continuing Dialogue», Journal of Social History, Fall 2003, p. 39-46.
-William H. Sewell, «The Concept(s) of Culture», in Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt, eds, Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999, p. 35-61.
13. A proposal: Refiguring the ‘social’?
-William H. Sewell, «Refiguring the ‘social’ in social sciences. An interpretive manifesto», in Sewell, Logics of history. Social theory and social transformation, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2005, p.318-372.
14. Conclusion and discussion on the course