HIS4310 – History and the Social Sciences - a Nervous Romance? Themes and Theories of Social History since the 1960s

Course content

Historians have studied the past in different ways and with changing interests. They have tried to assess the importance of 'great figures' and pivotal events and traced the ordinary lives of ordinary people. They have looked for cultures and economies, experience and mentalities, emotions and ideas as key factors in human development. They have focussed on towns, regions and nations, on the West, the East and the connections between them. Historians' questions, objects of study and methods change, because they constantly debate the validity of their interpretations among themselves and take inspiration from other disciplines. This is called historiography and has, as all things human, a history.

The course is looking at social history as a particular episode in the history of historiography. This period began with many historians turning towards workers and social-economic structures and the application of models and methods derived from the social sciences. The course presents major themes, theories and debates of social history since its rise in the 1960s. To this end, it takes Geoff Eley's book A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society (2005) – an intellectual autobiography of a former social historian turned cultural historian – as a starting point to explore the potential and problems of social history and delve into exemplary studies. The first part of the course covers the growth of social history and its subsequent critique from the 1960s into the 1980s, looking at developments in the US, Britain, Germany and Norway. The second part focusses on current research on the history of class, capitalism, consumption, culture and labour to reflect on the opportunities of present-day social history.

Learning outcome

● a critical awareness of the theories, methods and concepts utilised by historians to explain social relations and historical change

● the skills to critically research, read, discuss and write about a set of historiographical arguments and a variety of historical evidence

● knowledge about class, capitalism, consumption, culture and labour as major themes of modern social history

Admission

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

Students enrolled in other Master's Degree Programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Prerequisites

Recommended previous knowledge

A good ability to read and understand English is required for this course.

Overlapping courses

10 credits overlap with HIS2310 – History and the Social Sciences - a Nervou