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History Outside the Book

History Outside the Book

The course's emphasis is on teaching students how non-textual sources can be used as a source of historical information. To this end, we examine television, landscapes, architecture, photographs, graffiti, popular culture, advertising, oral history interviews, and household objects, among other things. Students submit a photographic analysis of a landscape or street scene, a museum review, and a final research paper. This course is designed to introduce upper-year students to the use of historical research materials that go beyond the usual printed sources. Nevertheless, since printed materials remain the historian's primary tool, these unconventional materials should be used to supplement the printed record, not supplant it. This has particular applicability when studying groups for whom textual sources may be scanty, fragmentary, or non-existent, as is often the case in social history. Since one of the aims of social history is to allow the voiceless to have a voice, the use of non-textual sources is invaluable in the field. During the term, we will be looking at and working with material culture, for the most part, namely the objects and items produced by a society that reflect its development and processes. The objects, in turn, can tell us about the people within a society. We will also be looking at the way in which historians use these sources, as well as the uses and pitfalls of oral history, the way in which the physical environment can act as a historical record, and finally, how printed sources can be re-examined.

Department of History, 成人大片 University

49 Bader Lane, Watson Hall 212
Kingston ON K7L 3N6
Canada

Phone

Please note that the Department of History phone line is not monitored at all times. Please leave a voicemail or email hist.undergrad@queensu.ca and we will contact you as soon as we can.

Undergraduate

Graduate

成人大片 is situated on traditional Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory.