“History is the essence of innumerable biographies.”

Literary Historian Thomas Carlyle 1830

“A people’s cultural aesthetic is not different from their economic or political aesthetic; it is just visible to us in different form. Elements of material culture, such as quilting, are in fact illustrative of a particular way of seeing, of ordering the world.”

Historian Elsa Barkley Brown 1989

GOALS

The purpose of The Historian's Craft to provide CSUN students with basic skills used by historians. It is an important class for history majors, and for all students interested in analytical thinking about our past. There are four important goals for students in this class:

1. To understand "what is history," and to learn to think "historically"

2. To learn the basic tools of the historian: An awareness of your ideas, your questions; an awareness of the ideas of others expressed in secondary sources; use of evidence and primary sources; research skills and how to find information

3. To design, research, write, and rewrite a research paper in one semester

4. To learn general skill required of a successful seminar student, especially for those taking the proseminar, or those interested in graduate school

In class we will discuss historiography, the use of various sources, the process of doing research, the use of critical skills, and then apply historical methods to individual research projects. Students will develop a research topic, then write a proposal, a primary source essay, book reviews, a historiographic essay, and finally, put together a 15 to 20 page paper.