Postgraduate research training programme - 12pm-1pm, Thursdays, fortnightly-ish.
This is the new postgraduate research training programme in History. All students (and staff!) are welcome.
The programme aims to dove-tail provision with the IHR’s programme of postgraduate training, in order to offer a comprehensive and specialist range of training.
The programme also reminds students to attend the relevant generic graduate training sessions offered by UH. Students should book appropriate sessions via the University Research Office pages on studynet.
The UH History Lab is the social group run by and for History postgraduates. See the website http://hertshistorylab.weebly.com/ and contact Megan Webber for more details.
Session 1. Thursday 3 March - the essentials (R023 - law meeting room ground floor) (followed by History Lab)
This is an introductory session, where we get to know each other and each other's research.
We will discuss some or all of the following. Please consider which elements you need to discuss and which elements you are confident with:
- note taking and organising your notes, including using bibliographic software; avoiding unintentional plagiarism
- time-management and planning for the next year
- referencing – getting into the habit of doing it right
- general dissertation structures – how to plan your chapters
- using catalogues and digital sources
- using archives – what to expect when you get there and how to make the most of your visits
- thinking about ethics – applying for approval from the ethics committee if appropriate
- preparing for the progression report.
seminar activity:
Please prepare:
- a 200 word abstract outlining your research
- a two-sentence summary of your research!
We will also be conducting an audit of our skills - strengths and weaknesses - in the session.
Extra reading:
- Phillips, Estelle M., and Derek Pugh, How to Get a PhD (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 4th ed., 2005).
- Swetnam, Derek, Writing your Dissertation: How to Plan, Prepare and Present Successful Work (London: How To Books, 2000).
- Dunleavy, Patrick, Authoring a PhD: how to plan, draft, write and finish a doctorial thesis or dissertation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
Session 2. Thursday 17 March - Historical models and theories part 1:
(R023 Law meeting room): (followed by History Lab)
This week we will be looking at different schools of history and some theories. This session overlaps with session 3 on historiography, so we will have a good few weeks to think about the big themes.
- overview of different theoretical perspectives and models
- study of and debate about the following theoretical models:
- a) Marxist history
- b) Annales school
- c) Whig history
Suggested reading: Choose a couple of the following (and see the longer bibliography) and look up the different sections relating to the categories of history listed above. Skim read and work out the main definitions and historiographical trends. Why have the different trends in history been prominent at different times in the 20th century?
(R023 Law meeting room): (followed by History Lab)
This week we will be looking at different schools of history and some theories. This session overlaps with session 3 on historiography, so we will have a good few weeks to think about the big themes.
- overview of different theoretical perspectives and models
- study of and debate about the following theoretical models:
- a) Marxist history
- b) Annales school
- c) Whig history
Suggested reading: Choose a couple of the following (and see the longer bibliography) and look up the different sections relating to the categories of history listed above. Skim read and work out the main definitions and historiographical trends. Why have the different trends in history been prominent at different times in the 20th century?
- Writing history: theory & practice, edited by Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner, Kevin Passmore (Arnold, 2003)
- The Institute of Historical Research’s website, Making History, charts the development of the historical profession in Britain. It introduces genres of history (e.g. oral history), outlines trends and covers the history of individual journals, academic biographies etc. http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/index.html
- Peter Lambert and Phillipp Schofield, eds., Making history: an introduction to the history and practices of a discipline (Routledge, 2004), especially chapters 5 and 12.
- John Tosh (with Sean Lang), The Pursuit of History: aims, methods and new directions in the study of modern history (5th ed. 2009)[e-book via Voyager]
- Larry Butler and Anthony Gorst, Modern British History: A Guide to Study and Research (London, 1997), chapter 2: 'History: theory and practice'
- Bentley, Michael, Modern Historiography: An Introduction (Routledge, 1998) e-book via Voyager Link to book (more of a history of historians and how their personal and political circumstances influenced their writings, but chapter 7 on Whig history and 11 on Annales school may be of use).
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Session 3: Thursday 28 April: historical debates and theories part 2
(12pm, R023, law meeting room)
- getting to grips with historiography - see the document attached below
- how to identify historical debates and engage with them
- overview of the following historiographical trends:
- from economic/high political to social/cultural history
- ‘turns’ – linguistic, cultural, spatial
- post-structuralist history
Preparation task: outline in 250-500 words the main historiographical debates in your field of study. What are the main fields of study? The main questions asked? Aspects no longer fashionable? Aspects neglected?
seminar activity: read through some abstracts of historical debates in the historiography listed in the bibliography and identify the currents of debate.
We will also be considering ways in which you can structure your historiography in your thesis.
Suggested reading:
- Gabrielle M. Spiegel, ed., Practicing History: New Directions In Historical Writing After The Linguistic Turn (New York, 2005) - see especially chapter 1, Geoff Eley, 'Is All the World a Text?'
- Peter Lambert and Phillipp Schofield, eds., Making history: an introduction to the history and practices of a discipline (Routledge, 2004), especially part IV.
- John Tosh (with Sean Lang), The Pursuit of History: aims, methods and new directions in the study of modern history (5th ed. 2009)[e-book via Voyager]
- James Vernon, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Linguistic Turn? The Politics of Social History and its Discontents’, Social History (1994)
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Session 4: Thursday 12 May, practical - presenting your first conference paper, 12pm (R141) - open to all Humanities research students and staff.
Lunch provided, with social get-together afterwards
This week is a practical session on how to present your first paper at a conference.
Please prepare an introductory paragraph on a topic related to your research. Perhaps choose a new finding or document that you wish to discuss.
Things to consider:
Think about what sort of structure and material you wish to include in the whole paper.
What is your audience? How might you change your paper if you are speaking to the following:
- a seminar series in your field of history
- a big international conference in all sorts of history
- a general audience from U3A or the Historical Association or local public
- first-year undergraduate students
Useful advice sites:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/carousels/ten-tips-presenting-conference-paper
http://www.cgu.edu/pages/864.asp
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2008/conference-rules-everything-you-need-to-know-about-presenting-a-scholarly-paper-in-public
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/organisations/canadian/general%20documents%20not%20password%20protected/presenting%20a%20conference%20paper.pdf
Please prepare an introductory paragraph on a topic related to your research. Perhaps choose a new finding or document that you wish to discuss.
Things to consider:
Think about what sort of structure and material you wish to include in the whole paper.
What is your audience? How might you change your paper if you are speaking to the following:
- a seminar series in your field of history
- a big international conference in all sorts of history
- a general audience from U3A or the Historical Association or local public
- first-year undergraduate students
Useful advice sites:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/carousels/ten-tips-presenting-conference-paper
http://www.cgu.edu/pages/864.asp
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2008/conference-rules-everything-you-need-to-know-about-presenting-a-scholarly-paper-in-public
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/organisations/canadian/general%20documents%20not%20password%20protected/presenting%20a%20conference%20paper.pdf
Session : Thursday - The History Manifesto?
This week is a book group to discuss the new book that's been getting a lot of press recently -
David Armitage and Jo Guldi, The History Manifesto (Cambridge, 2014) - available free to download or read at http://historymanifesto.cambridge.org/
- what issues does the book raise?
- where does it suggest the academic study of history should go next?
- do you agree?
You may also want to watch Jo Guldi's talk about the book at the Digital History seminar at the IHR: http://ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk/
Read some interesting responses to the book here:
http://historyonics.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/big-data-small-data-and-meaning_9.html
http://mbsbham.wordpress.com/responding-to-the-history-manifesto/
http://mbsbham.wordpress.com/responding-to-the-history-manifesto/matt-houlbrook-big-histories-small-minds/
Session : current themes in primary source research: the material cultural turn
Task 1: choose a material item that you use as a primary source. Consider the different ways in which you use the object/item compared with textual primary sources.
Task 2: read at least one of the works below on the material and the spatial turns. Highlight the main methods, themes, and your questions.
See the handout attached below.
Suggested reading:
Material cultural turn:
RAPPAPORT, Erika Diane, 'Imperial Possessions, Cultural Histories, and the Material Turn', Victorian Studies, 50:2 (2008) 289-296
Ian Woodward, Understanding Material Culture (Sage, 2007)
Christopher Tilley, ‘Interpreting Material Culture’, in I. Hodder, ed., The Meaning of Things: Material Culture and Symbolic Expression (Abingdon, 1989)
WHITE, Jonathan, 'A World of Goods? The 'Consumption Turn and Eighteenth-Century British History', Cultural and Social History - The Journal of the Social History Society, 3:1 (2006) 93-104
A critique by Dan Hicks: http://www.academia.edu/1616110/Material_Culture_Studies_a_reactionary_view
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Session 6: - digital mapping workshop
1. http://urbhist.nls.uk/extmap/ Read the explanatory text at http://geo.nls.uk/urbhist/mapbuilder.html
- what are the possibilities for historical research of laying historic maps and data?
2. Locating London's Past: http://www.locatinglondon.org/ How can the historian map the data and what might it tell us?
Read the methodology for mapping Roque's map: http://www.locatinglondon.org/static/MappingMethodology.html
3. www.mapwarper.net - set up an account in advance if you wish, and If you're really keen, register with Edina Digimap (via voyager/studynet) at least 24 hours in advance to access their historic OS map files. Otherwise, I attach an old map of Hatfield for you to use.
Bring your laptop if you have one. If you use google earth that's a bonus, otherwise we'll be using google maps.
Further reading:
- See how far you can get following the Programming Historian's lesson on mapping with google maps and google earth - http://programminghistorian.org/lessons/googlemaps-googleearth
- If you want to install a free GIS programme, I recommend qgis - http://www.qgis.org/en/site/ Alexander von Lunen, History and GIS (2012, e-book available via voyager/studynet), chapter 1.2, 'GIS and History'. What, according to von Lunen, are the problems with GIS for historians?
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Session 7: digital history
- varieties of digital histories – data mining, GIS, the pitfalls of OCR, xml schema, digitisation and searching
- how to use digital history in my research – digital is not a separate discipline!
Suggested reading:
Tim Hitchcock, 'Academic History Writing and its Disconnects', Digital Humanities Now, January 2013
Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History, chapter 'digitising history'
http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/digitizing/
Ben Schmidt, 'What historians don't know about database design…' blog post, March 2011
http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-historians-dont-know-about.html
Tim Hitchcock and Jason M. Kelly, ' Reinventing the Academic Journal: The ‘Digital Turn’, Open Access, & Peer Review', History Workshop Online, 22 April 2013
Further suggested reading:
IHR digital training - http://ihrprojects.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/text-mining-for-historians/
The Programming Historian - http://programminghistorian.org/contents
Journal of Digital Humanities
http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/
- varieties of digital histories – data mining, GIS, the pitfalls of OCR, xml schema, digitisation and searching
- how to use digital history in my research – digital is not a separate discipline!
Suggested reading:
Tim Hitchcock, 'Academic History Writing and its Disconnects', Digital Humanities Now, January 2013
Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History, chapter 'digitising history'
http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/digitizing/
Ben Schmidt, 'What historians don't know about database design…' blog post, March 2011
http://sappingattention.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-historians-dont-know-about.html
Tim Hitchcock and Jason M. Kelly, ' Reinventing the Academic Journal: The ‘Digital Turn’, Open Access, & Peer Review', History Workshop Online, 22 April 2013
Further suggested reading:
IHR digital training - http://ihrprojects.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/text-mining-for-historians/
The Programming Historian - http://programminghistorian.org/contents
Journal of Digital Humanities
http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/
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Session 8: tbc
Who’s afraid of numbers? Using statistics and quantitative enquiry in your research
This week we will be considering the purpose of quantification in historical research. The main aims are to consider how quantification is useful to analysis, to examine good practice in data collection and storage, to think about how you might use quantification in your own research and to think about how tables and graphs can assist in the presentation of your findings.
Task:
See the document entitled ‘Dataset Exercise’ (attached below). This exercise must be completed prior to the class.
Suggested reading:
On the history and development of economic history:
The Economic History Society at http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/EHS.html
History and Computing at
http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/history_and_computing.html
Interview with Sir Roderick Floud:
http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/interviews/Floud_Roderick.html
On quantification and quantitative methods:
Pat Hudson, History by Numbers: an introduction to quantitative approaches (London, 2000). This remains the best and most accessible guide for historians.
This week we will be considering the purpose of quantification in historical research. The main aims are to consider how quantification is useful to analysis, to examine good practice in data collection and storage, to think about how you might use quantification in your own research and to think about how tables and graphs can assist in the presentation of your findings.
Task:
See the document entitled ‘Dataset Exercise’ (attached below). This exercise must be completed prior to the class.
Suggested reading:
On the history and development of economic history:
The Economic History Society at http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/EHS.html
History and Computing at
http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/history_and_computing.html
Interview with Sir Roderick Floud:
http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/interviews/Floud_Roderick.html
On quantification and quantitative methods:
Pat Hudson, History by Numbers: an introduction to quantitative approaches (London, 2000). This remains the best and most accessible guide for historians.
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documents for data analysis
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