Unit information: Approaches to History in 2012/13

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Unit name Approaches to History
Unit code HISTM2009
Credit points 20
Level of study M/7
Teaching block(s) Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director Professor. McLellan
Open unit status Not open
Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

School/department Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

What is history and how should we study it? Do historians reconstruct or invent the past? What is the relationship between history and the $�facts&�? Why do historians ask some questions and not others, and how does that affect their choice of sources? How do different ideas about narrative style (the need, for instance, for a history with a beginning, a middle and an end) affect our approaches to, and understandings of, the past? This unit invites students to explore these and related questions by introducing them to a series of contemporary debates about reading, researching and writing history. Through lecture and seminar discussions we will examine a series of themes including: history and narrative, postmodernism and history, cultural history, and gender, feminism and history.