Archival Methods and Historical Thinking

Course Code

HIST 29806 91

Course Description

Archival Methods & Historical Thinking interrogates the concepts, theories, and practices of the archive from a historical perspective.

In many ways, history is a discipline defined by a set of questions rather than a singular approach. We will begin by analyzing how historians do the work of interpreting sources to construct historical narratives and arguments. Then, examining archival theory, its lapses, and its possibilities, we will determine what characteristics make an archive and how we can historicize it as an object of inquiry in its own right. We will then tackle a representative sample of the types of sources and archives you are most likely to engage as a social science researcher. Looking at how people have archived written ephemera, material culture, photographs, film, music, urban space, and the internet, we will pair the specific theoretical concerns of a given source type’s archiving with practical examples of how social scientists have explicitly mediated, transcended, or succumbed to the experience of the archive: its structure, its customs, its absences, and more.

You will gain an understanding of the mechanics of archival work for a social science researcher as well as an appreciation for the complexity of historical thinking. By the end of the course, you will learn how to reconcile archival theory with the realities and practices of research in order to become a better, more ethical, and more rigorous researchers

Course Criteria

Instructor(s)

Alex Hofmann

¹ UChicago students can self-register.

² Visiting students and pre-college students apply through the same application.