iPods

Students, as anticipated, you will need to return your iPods and the iTalks to Dr. Vess during finals week. Unfortunately, a purchase option is not available, since the iPods are university property. Perhaps now that you are interested in iPods, you could purchase your own from the Apple site. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Kathleeen, turn in both of the mikes that you have. We'll take the broken one in for repair. I enjoyed working with all of you.

Biography/Gender

This week we will complete our discussion of course themes. Our discussion will focus on our biography projects. For our class meeting and discussion on our blog, consider the following questions: How does a good biographer approach his or her subject? What special problems does biography pose for the historian, who is often far removed in time from his or her subject? To what extent should the biographer attempt to explore motivations, thoughts, emotions, and other aspects of the subject as an individual that may or may not have influenced their decisions? To what extent can the biographer do this? Consider Robin Collingwood's claim that the biographer should attempt to "get inside the minds" of their subjects. What problems does such an approach create? Please listen to the presentations of your peers via our pod casting channel on biography. Get the link to the biography channel for the course on the left side of the blog main page. We have pod casts from all but two or three of the students.

Oral History

Several of our students presented at the iPod showcase for the Apple Digital Campus Leadership Institute. I am very proud of our projects, and you should be too. For this week, we have Dr. Lee Ann Caldwell with us to discuss oral hisory. Most of you know Dr. Caldwell and I know we will enjoy this session. It gets even better, as Dr. Jesse Hingson has arranged some projects for us to complete in oral history. You will be interviewing members of the Cuban community here. Dr. Hingson has graciously arranged all of this and will be lending his help to you while we work through the project. Once again, we will be pod casting the interviews along with your analysis of the material. If you have not listened to the genealogy projects of your peers, you will want to do that, as they were very interesting. We have lots to discuss about our materials over the last couple of weeks, so I am looking forward to our next class and to discussing these materials on the blog.

Local History

Our topic for 11-1 is local history. This is a wonderful topic for us in Milledgeville, as we have a rich history here. Milledgeville is the former capitol of Georgia and there are living reminders here of Sherman's March to the Sea. You will be amazed what you will learn in your projects for this unit. We are fortunate to have Dr. Bob Wilson with us for a guest lecture. We'll be providing you with assignments to be completed for the following week. You will complete a pod cast on your assignment, explaining what you learned, providing insight into the history of Milledgeville, and also explaining your research methods and materials. These are due BEFORE the next class session (not weeks after!). Also, several students have not posted to the blog in weeks. You are required to do a weekly posting so let's get these done. The genealogy pod casts should be available to you by 11-1 on the genealogy channel. Download those and listen to them, as we'll discuss them the week of 11-8.

Genealogy

It's genealogy week! Tonight we will enjoy a guest lecture by Dr. Stephen Payne, who has joined our blog for the week. If you have any questions about your research, you may ask him or the rest of us on the blog. For your research assignment, trace back your family history five generations. For your pod cast, narrate this history, as well as the resources you used and problems you may have encountered. You may want to consider an enhanced pod cast, where you can hyperlink your discussion to appropriate web sites. If you want to do that, come talk to me about it and your pod cast will need to be completed early in the week. We will have Dr. Bob Wilson with us next week, and we may only get to enjoy the geneaology reports via pod cast. Please turn in your pod casts no later than Monday. For this assignment, timeliness is crucial.

Library Research

Next week, we begin our study of research materials available through the library. We'll be working through several exercises together. Let's discuss any questions you might have about the resources we study here on the blog.

Survey of Ancient and Modern Historians and Their Methods

This week we begin our discussion of famous historians. Please post your thought questions for class discussion here. Listen to the pod casts on the Ancient and Medieval Historians channel, http://podcasting.gcsu.edu/4DCGI/Podcasting/Channel/44.xml. This was originally the Historian's fallacies channel. I will be bringing some text materials to load onto your ipods using the notes function. Please bring your iPod to class starting this evening every week.

Historians' Fallacies

For the next few weeks, we will be working through Historians' Fallacies. Fischer talks about the use of good logic in historical reasoning. What are some of the examples he gives of fallacious historical reasoning? Can you make any connections between what Fischer argues and Carr's comments on the nature of history? Post your chapter summaries and responses to this week's discussion questions by clicking on the comment button. You will also be able to reply to the various postings by the teams here too.

What is History?

Is history an art or a science? Consider where history appears in various college catalogs -- as a social science or a humanities discipline. What are the implications of grouping history with the social sciences? the humanities? What are the differences in methodolgy between these areas? Do they have other differences in terms of disciplinary assumptions about the world?


If history is a science, what would this imply about the world and about "historic fact"? If an art, how would this change our understanding of fact?



E.H. Carr's text What is History? raises a number of important points about the historian and interpretation. In your comments, please find at least two issues that stand out for you in the text and explain what implications these issues have for the study of history. Did reading this text change your view of the nature of history and of the historian's task?

Course Description

HIST 6001 is a study of historical interpretations and the
techniques of historical research and preparation for
publication. This course focuses on developing your
understanding of the nature of history as a discipline. What
exactly do historians do and how do they do it? How does an
inquiry using the historical method differ from a literary
investigation or a scientific experiment? What exactly counts as
a “fact”? What issues arise when interpreting one’s evidence and
what kinds of evidence is there? History is a truly vibrant and
exciting discipline. During our initial sessions, we will
discover that the nature of history as a discipline has evolved,
and we will trace out various types of historical inquiry
beginning in antiquity and continuing through the modern era. We
will expose ourselves to various methodologies and attempt to
explore various archives, tools, and other resources for
researching historical topics. Among the topics to be covered
are:
* Analytical techniques
* Use of Internet sources and other primary and secondary sources
* Researching social history
* Oral History techniques
* Biographical strategies
* Researching census records
* Writing Fundamentals

Does anyone have any questions after our first week about the course, our use of iPods, and BLOGS?