HIST2110: History and Theory (H)

Essay 1 (35%):
There'll be a list of essay questions to choose from, about lecture topics covered in the first half of the course. IIRC, this includes Structuralism, Herodotus/Thucydides, Historical 'Facts', Marxism etc. 1,500 words, 35%

Essay 2 (55%):
There'll be another list of essay questions to choose from, as well as a list of notable works of history to write on. 3,000 words, 55%.

Class participation: 10%

It's a great survey of the different milestones of the actual discipline of history, beginning from Ancient Greece's Herodotus and Thucydides, through to movements such as feminism, marxism, post-colonialism and ending in today's history wars. You'll be reading lots of primary material, some of which can be hard to digest if you're unfamiliar with that sort of thing. The topics almost inevitably lead to lively tutorials and foster a lot of debate (people tend to disagree vehemently with each other, but strangely in my semester, it was stimulating as opposed to frustrating). This is also a postgrad course (Course code HIST6110), and a compulsory course for History honours. This makes the demographic of students really diverse, and you get a wide range of history students taking this course.

Yes, with screen capture.

Dr Alex Cook, he's brilliant. In my year, the tutorial groups were divided between Alex and Alexis Bergantz, a PhD student. Both are very good, and can facilitate discussion very well.

No exams.

5 of 5

Recommended pre-reading is Curthoys & Docker, Is History Fiction?. Not necessary, though interesting. The weekly readings are mostly introductions/chapters/excerpts from a famous historical work as well as 1-2 journal articles with a critical treatment of the work.

1 lecture (2 hours) and 1 tutorial (1 hour) a week. Will have to spend time completing readings weekly.

2013 Sem 1