79 165 - Freshman Seminar: The Historian as Detective and Storyteller

Institution:

Carnegie Mellon University

Subject:

Description:

Most history courses engage students in what is essentially the consumption of the end-products of other historians' work. The centerpiece of such histories is the presentation of a carefully selected and defined research problem or agenda, and a narrative of the historian's? findings and conclusions, with an explanation of evidence and methods playing an important but subordinate role. This seminar seeks to reverse this order in certain key respects. It places at center stage the fundamental tasks and motivations that historians face at the outset of their research, and of the many issues of research and presentation that pose additional challenges and choices for them along the way. The central ?text? of the seminar will be a typewritten journal kept by four young men during a car trip taken over a 2-week period in late Spring, 1937. We will use this journal as a springboard for some brainstorming and experimentation in creative historical research in an effort to provide this journey with a well-researched historical context. As to presentation, we will attempt to craft it as a story (historical fiction, if you will) vs. a conventional historical narrative. Possible long-term results of this project include a complete piece of historical fiction or screenplay stemming from this story.

Credits:

9.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.cmu.edu/

Phone Number:

(412) 268-2000

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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