Humanities Circle Fall Term

CAS 210 Humanities Circle
Fall Term 2009
Nicols

IMPORTANT. We will be meeting in the Collaboration Room, 122 of the Knight Library.

For information on how to reach me please go to the klio course site

We will be meeting once per week for an hour in the Collaboration Room of the UO Knight Library, Rm 122 .

I have assigned one book for the term, E. H. Carr's What is History. It is widely recognized as a classic (ok, of 'bourgoise' historiography) and is still regular reading in most graduate programs in history. There are two particular strengths to the book.

First, it approaches the study of history from the literary and humanistic perspective. In other words it sees history as much as an art as a science.
Second, it treats effectively some of the most important issues of academic culture. Namely, what do we actually learn from 'study'? and can we render meaningful judgments about the past?

We will be readying a chapter per week for the first six weeks. We will also be doing a set of practical exercises and interviews to illustrate the points under discussion. I will be distributing these exercises as we proceed.

There are no written assignments. Your grade depends on participation in the discussion.

**Program for CAS 210**
Date	Assignment	Comments
5 Oct	No assignment; but general discussion	Do we assume our world is ordered? or chaotic? or something in between. Implications?
12 Oct	Carr, Chp 1. Historian and His Facts
19 Oct	Carr, Chp 2. Society and the Individual
26 Oct	Carr, Chp 3. History, Science and Morality	The unique and the general; rendering moral judgment on the past.
2 Nov	Carr, Chp 4. Causation in History
9 Nov	Carr, Chp 5. History and Progress
16 Nov	Carr, Chp 6. The Widening Horizon
23 Nov	Exercises in observation and identifying the significant. Let's reconsider Chp. 4.	Based on material in the news. We will look at different accounts of the same event.
30 Nov	What can we learn from study?
Exam Week	No meetings or assignments