ECU History Education - Literacy Modules |
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The great challenge facing teachers of social studies or history that want to incorporate historiography into their teaching is that they have limited experience in historiographical analysis and writing. This could be due to the fact that their background is in a social science discipline other than history or that historiography did not make up a major portion of their undergraduate preparation. Before a teacher can use a technique, they must first understand the technique from the "student side." Go to this link by Mark Brilliant at U-Cal Berkeley and review the suggested guidelines for reading historiography. Now check out to this presentation by Hakan Özoğlu, Amelia H. Lyons, Amy E. Foster, and Connie L. Lester from UCF for some tips on how to write historiography. After reviewing these two links carefully, go into the scholarly history journals (Journal of American History, American Historical Review, etc.) and find an historiographical essay. What type of historiography was it - thematic (works around a topic) or an oeuvre (all works from one author)? What themes were explored by the author? What was learned about the politics around the topic or about the time period in which the histories were written? Post your response as a comment below.
39 Comments
Ryan Jackson
3/17/2016 01:07:50 pm
The historiography was thematic as it dealt with the history of women from multiple authors. The historiographical essay taught about the history of women during the 1900s. The multiple authors allowed me to see different perspectives about women’s history during the 1900s. This allowed me to get an unbiased view on the history of women. This is important to see multiple perspectives because you can actually learn more about a topic as you see the topic from multiple viewpoints.
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Ann Marie Ballance
3/30/2016 03:28:37 pm
The historiography I looked at was a thematic historiography that focused on the oral histories of the labor movements in the twentieth century. The author explored several themes which included the groups interviewed, the perspectives that changed due to Reagan’s administration, the different locations, and the way of supporting information. The author discussed how some authors focused on the labor movement as a whole, while other authors (typically in the later decades) specifically focused on African-Americans, Latinos, or women in the labor movements. In addition, the author discussed differences between the labor movements in the Northern and Southern parts of the country. Also, the author related how researchers ensured accuracy with oral histories. The author suggested that interviews done by the researchers produced the most reliable evidence. By adding other documentary sources, the researchers could also introduce better arguments. This article gave me insight about the different methods of investigating the labor movement that have been used as well as how changing political views sometimes made the research more challenging.
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Eric Walls
3/30/2016 04:02:21 pm
The historiographical article I chose was “Romanticism and Feminist Historiography” by Greg Kucich. This was a thematic article focusing on the influence of Romantic era female historians, particularly British women such as Catherine Macaulay, Hannah More, and Mary Wollstonecraft, on the shaping of modern revisionist female historians historiographical interpretations. Kucich explored the difficulties that women of the time faced in breaking through the masculine construction of history and the exclusion of women from historical consciousness. He discusses at length how women historians of the time were compelled to try to structure their works in a way that would be acceptable to the male dominated intellectual sphere. He juxtaposes the importance of emotion and sensibility prevalent in the Romantic literature of the times with the tendency of female historians to try to downplay this theme in their own works to avoid the pitfalls of being labeled as too effeminate and therefore somehow intellectually inferior. At the same time, Kucich highlights the Romantic streak that underlies many female historians of the era’s works that seems to act in paradox to their avoidance of the same. He points out, however, that even while trying to fit into the male dominated intellectual sphere, these women were still able to, subversively, couch their works with an anti-masculine historical underpinning that challenged many of the accepted ideas of their day, reoriented the understanding of history in subtle but profound ways, and served as the fore-mothers (so to speak) of the female historians of today.
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Rebekkah Scott
4/1/2016 12:10:01 pm
I chose a historiography from the Journal of American Studies titled Historians and the Civil Rights Movement. This article evaluates how historians have treated the topic of the civil rights movement over time. One specific theme that the author picked up was how history has been segregated by race. He claims that in writing, there are only 'white issues' and 'black issues' and the two rarely converge when people write about it. The author made a point in including sources on local movements, which I thought was very interesting considering that most of the time we only hear about national organizations such as the Black Panthers or the NAACP when we discuss Civil Rights. By reading this historiography, I learned a lot about how social politics played a huge role in the movement while also learning how racial opinions and feelings also tinge how historians treat the Civil Rights Movement in American history.
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Cory Kimball
4/1/2016 03:22:26 pm
My article was a thematic view of the history of women, gender and sexuality throughout the world. In it, the article touched on how women are left out of discussions when depicting great nations in world history. I would not say that it is unbiased, but it does give a compact view of women's role in world politics in both the past and present.
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4/1/2016 06:50:50 pm
I feel like i saw a very unbiased view on women. I got multiple perspectives on the same issue. This is what everything is alluding to. It allows you to see women in the past, and the present.
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Jeanann Woodard
4/1/2016 06:59:25 pm
The article I found was a thematic approach to the Rape of Nanking in 1937. This historiography did a good of portraying the biases that existed when writing about this history, particularly in the post-WWII years. There is a discussion about the clouds surrounding the Communists in China and the effect of the Nazis in Germany. It even investigates the possibility that photos might be staged even to help drive home a point. This is still a somewhat new idea for me because it seems like primary sources should be the most trustworthy, especially in the case of pictures. After all, pictures allow a chance to see what you believe. However this historiography helped dig into the possible biases.
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Abby Fallahee
4/1/2016 07:49:17 pm
I chose an essay from the American Studies Journal about the 70th commemoration of World War Two. It was a thematic piece because it included works from multiple authors. These articles discussed the perspectives of German Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and Jews from around the world. It also addressed why in the United States the Second World War is viewed as “a good war” and the impact that this perspective has had on our portrayal of the war to future generations. The article particularly draws attention to the effect of calling World War Two “the good war” during occasions such as yearly anniversaries.
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Jacob Lyons
4/3/2016 12:59:03 pm
The article I found was thematic. It was about the sudden boom in the 1990's to provide a in depth view into the Founding Fathers. As we all know, it is easy to glorify our founding fathers in a sense that we were always taught of their greatness. However, in the 90's people wanted to read more about the founding of our country, but the same old narrative was not going to sale if authors wrote the same things about Washington that we've always learned. Therefore their became a "explosion" of authors who wrote focusing more on the negative aspects of our Founding Fathers. Their attempt to provide a different narrative perhaps persuaded them to be more biased in their research.
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Robert Lynch
4/6/2016 08:09:34 am
The historiography I read was, "'What's Uncle Sam's Last Name?' Jews and Name Changing in New York City during the World War II Era," by Kirsten Fermaglich. This piece was about as thematic as they get. Her argument is that name changes during the WWII years, is habitually overlooked by historians. The recurring theme is that ethnic minorities, especially Jews, often petitioned to get there surname changed in order to avoid the negative racial bias in the professional sectors. She describes the negative impacts that came with having a Jewish and Slavic sounding last names in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. This led to a large influx of surname change requests entering the courts, per year.
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Ashlyn Moss
4/8/2016 07:17:47 am
The essay I found was about the historiography of African History. The article is African and World Historiography by Patrick Manning. It was written by one author but, cited many other sources. It discussed the different perceptions of African history and the different approaches that were taken since the study of African history really began in 1945. Global phenomenons had a large impact on the study of Africa and the perceptions that historians had of Africa.
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Tracy Moore
4/10/2016 11:38:45 am
I found my article at History Compass and it is entitled "Beyond the American Colonization Society." It is a thematic historiography written by Samantha Seeley. It is a critical review of black emigration and colonization of Liberia founded by upper class, elitest white men in the United States during the early 1800s. The article discussed other failed colonies that failed in the US.
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Caleb Mason
4/11/2016 01:53:08 pm
I also read a piece on the history of women throughout the 1900s. I would have normally feared that there would be bias for the argument of women in these pieces, and I'm not saying that none of them weren't but there were multiple sources and multiple authors that that helped give me an unbiased view of the content.
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Haley Sparrow
4/13/2016 08:02:09 am
The article I chose was from the American Historical Review. The article was about liberal traditions in North and South America. It was a thematic historiography work that discussed the relationship between North and South America, and how many historians believed that North America would begin to treat South America like Europe interacts with Africa and Asia.
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Angela Anskis
4/15/2016 12:22:19 pm
I chose to read an article from the journal Reviews in American History about the Sixties. The article was titled "The Sixties as History" by M.J. Heale and is a thematic historiography. This historiography discussed why this decade is considered so much more important than the others. The author looks at why historians have written about the Sixties the way they do over time, and if the decade was really that much more important. Historians and teachers tend to romanticize the era greatly, and the author thinks this has a lot to do with the music and culture of the time along with politics. The author also explains that historians often look at the era in segments instead of a whole.
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Zachary Dale
4/17/2016 03:56:08 pm
The essay I found was thematic. It focused on Western Masculinity in War and Peace. One major theme that the author is exploring is that societies value militaristic masculinity higher than civic virtues. Another is the permeation of militaristic masculinity into masculine associative life. He compares his methodology for studying masculinity to feminist theory. This was written during the Iraq War, which the U.S. was 5 years deep into. It reflects this idea that masculinity impacts the culture of societies and their ability to function is most definitely related to the Iraq War.
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Connor Wilkins
5/3/2017 12:44:20 pm
The article I chose centered around slavery and forced labor in relation to suicide in North America. It was work with thematic elements that honed in on stories of "martyrs" that became a part of historical narratives because they committed suicide due the stress of working under the system of slavery. He also mentions how it has become a marker of racial differentiation.
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Noah Shuler
5/3/2017 10:41:22 pm
The article I read was thematic, and it discussed the evolution of British Imperial History. The author discussed at length the debate between the Anglo-centric British Imperialist historians and the "New Imperialists" that take a much more modern and global approach to the study of British Imperialism. The article was fascinating, and it explored the effects of decolonization and the Cold War on imperialist revisionism. Overall, I greatly enjoyed this historiography, as it exposes me to new schools of history through the history of history.
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Travis Ambrose
5/4/2017 07:21:13 am
The article i read was thematic, it was about a Saudi Arabia rebuilding its self through religious and medical healing and how it was about to develop a religious state run society based after horrific events.
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Patrick Phillips
5/4/2017 07:35:09 am
The article I read was thematic and about the how North Carolina failed to successfully rebuild their racist culture and society post reconstruction. The article discussed different factors that contributed to North Carolina's fail of reconstruction, as well as explain how the lack of Federal enforcement of reconstruction led to society with laws that directly discriminate against minorities.
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William Hunt
5/4/2017 07:44:24 am
The article I read was thematic, and it discussed the monetary history of America’s early years; from its founding until 1790. The article discussed the practical application of economic theory to “concrete historical events.” Although I do not like economics, the article presented an interesting blend between the field and history.
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Kyle Hunt
5/4/2017 08:03:04 am
The article I read was thematic. I picked an article written about 9/11. This article showed how the United States reacted and developed new social norms. The change in religious tolerance was exemplified in this article.
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Allyson Buck
5/4/2017 08:58:43 am
I read a thematic article about the life after World War II. This showed the economic and social changes after war. The reaction to the soldiers returning in all capacities made this article extremely relative today.
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Tom Bonin
3/31/2020 08:40:19 am
I looked at a thematic examination of the treatment of Lincoln in biographies over the years. It showed how Lincoln's popularity ebbed and flowed over the years, depending on the politics of the times. It was interesting to see how Lincoln would periodically become unpopular as the politics of the day changed.
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Rebekah Glaude
4/2/2020 11:29:25 am
I found a thematic historiography on isolationism in the world. The author explored primary sources, like a journal to express the evidence provided. The emphasis, or major learning point is that isolationism is usually a dead end, and it fails after a certain point every time.
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Victoria Gotthelf
4/3/2020 04:50:56 pm
I found a thematic historiography on African history. It was written by one author but he explored differing views on the history of the history of Africa and moving on from colonial views of Africa and appreciating their history. I found it really interesting how the author compared different views of just African History and then different views of African History not focusing on the colonization of Africa.
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Kevin Ammari
4/4/2020 01:06:10 pm
The scholarly article that I chose was a historiography of the 1920's in America. The article is thematic in nature and discusses the period of 1919-1929 as a unit and topic of study that is unique in of itself. The author explores aspects of the 1920's that can be characterized unlike any other era before. The author covers topics such as progressivism, the New Deal and the Great Depression.
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Natalie Copeland
4/6/2020 12:16:13 pm
The historiography I looked at was thematic in that it explored the historical scholarship on Booker T. Washington. Two themes that were present throughout were the idea that Washington was critiqued as an accomodationist or he was praised as being a black leader. Early on there was a lot of praise for him, especially by white authors. Then, beginning in the 1940s, Washington was critiqued negatively and called an accomodationist. Today, there are mixed reviews about Washington that note that he did have some accomplishments but they also explain that he wasn't the savior of the race.
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Marchell Brown
4/6/2020 10:54:36 pm
The scholarly article that I found was a thematic article discussing slavery in the Mandara Mountains and the effect it has in the present. The reason this is a thematic article is because it includes personal accounts of people being sold in slavery, and it includes residents of the Mandara Mountains perspective of post-colonial politics.
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Leanna Spence
4/7/2020 08:14:21 am
I read a very new article that was thematically based. The article focused on how to engage students in the course of history from an online platform. This article touches on student teacher and student student interactions. How to make interactions meaningful and thoughtful. How to present content that is immersive and thought inducing.
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James Lewis
4/7/2020 08:31:45 am
The article that I found was one about the birth of the Rome and how there are multiple interpretations based on folklore and the events of the time. This is a thematic article because it really focuses on the possible reasons for the founding of Rome no matter the origin. The actual founding of Rome is debated because it is difficult to distinguish the difference between mythical and factual infromation.
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Jesse Corbett
4/7/2020 10:42:40 am
The historiography article that I reviewed was on the life of George Washington. It was very thematic in nature and described in great detail the major events of Washington's life. What made this article great was that the author used multiple different accounts of certain events in Washington's life. Yet, he laid out the most convincing arguments as to why one of the sides was the correct account of Washington's life.
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Johnathan A. Espino
4/7/2020 05:58:34 pm
The article I chose was one based on the Mexican- American war, specifically the Alamo. The article was taught thematically, separated politically, culturally economically and socially from the Alamo to the end of the war. Of the politics I learned that not all Americans were supportive of the war against Mexico, nor the fight at the Alamo. I also learned that not all of the Americans fighting in the Alamo gave their all, as many were rumored to surrender. There was commentary on the discussion of political agenda by the Americans in support of the war by conjuring up a story of the ultimate bravery and legend of The Alamo.
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Allyson Eubanks
4/7/2020 06:26:00 pm
The article I chose was thematic in that centered around slavery. It was very interesting to seeing an unbiased view in the form of multiple accounts that together paint a clearer picture.
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Nick Gozlan
4/8/2020 04:13:33 pm
I found a thematic article that was focused on 9/11. This article showed the tightening on religious tolerance in the country, while also showing how our societal norms shifted to become much more precautionary.
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Jordan Holt
4/19/2020 09:58:09 pm
The article I chose was thematic and discussed the history of gender, and women throughout the world. In the article it discussed how women are left out of decisions when talking about the nations in the world. After reading I would say its unbiased but it does give you somewhat of women's roles in politics in today society and past.
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Taylor Allen
4/20/2020 01:10:14 pm
The article I read was thematic and focused on Vikings and their way of life, and how they really tried to stimulate the "economy".
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Emily Griffin
4/27/2020 12:58:02 pm
I read a thematic article about Peal Harbor, and the Japanese's perspective. This article provides a different perspective to the usual US centered essay.
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Caleb Woolard
5/4/2020 11:41:20 pm
I found an article about september 11th that I would say is thematic. It talked about the ways that tragedy affected political culture and racism in America
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