This first-year seminar introduces students to the different and exciting ways of studying and interpreting the past. Its first goal is to familiarize students with the tools and techniques that historians use to investigate the past. Students will learn how to differentiate and contextualize primary and secondary sources and how to construct and present an effective historical argument. The second goal is to show the various ways the past can be remembered and interpreted, highlighting the role of power in the making and recording of history and the living connection between past and present. We will discuss interesting cases in different temporal and spatial contexts, such as Columbus' voyage to America, the Boxer Uprising in China, and the drop of the first atom bomb. We will read important scholarly texts on the interpretations of the past, such as Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Open to first year students in all fields, this class helps them understand the historian's craft and apply the historical perspective in their own field and in their daily life.
- Teacher: Lisong Liu