History
8810
Spring
2006
Intellectual
History: Contemporary Theories
Monday,
11-12:50
Fayerweather
301M
Samuel
Moyn
Assistant
Professor
Fayerweather
616
4-3009
Office
Hours: Monday, 1-3 p.m.
What
does it mean to study ideas historically? This class surveys some past, recent,
and current answers to this question, answers that we shall use discussion to
compare and contrast. The writings are mostly theoretical, but we shall look at
some applications to understand what the theory might look like in historical
practice. All of the applications are about modern Europe, but accidentally so:
no one is expected to know anything -- or care -- about modern Europe in order
to think about rival approaches to studying ideas historically; the approaches
are (presumably) independent of the times and places to which they are
applied. (Or is this wrong?) The working premise of the class is that the
answer to the question of how to study ideas historically is inseparable from
the choice among rival social theories. What then does it mean to be involved
in a brand of history that, presupposing theory like all history, also makes it
an object of research?
All
enrolled students are required to attend and to participate, to give a
ten-minute introduction to one or more of the readings in class, and write a
15-20 pp. final paper on a subject to be worked out together with the
instructor.
An
asterisk below (*) means the reading is to be handed out or is available for
photocopy in Fayerweather Hall, sixth floor; a cross () means the material is
available on JSTOR or a similar database; the remainder of the readings are on
reserve and are available for purchase.
Below
the following abbreviations for journals are used: AHR=American Historical
Review; H&T=History & Theory; JHI=Journal
of the History of Ideas; JMH=Journal of Modern History; MIH=Modern
Intellectual History
0.
Jan. 23: Introduction
1.
Jan. 30: Ideas
A.
Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being
(1936), chaps. 1-3, 6, 9-11
*,
The Historiography of Ideas, in Lovejoy, Essays on the History of Ideas (1948)
*A.T.
Grafton, The History of Ideas: Precept and Practice, 1950-2000 and Beyond, JHI 76, 1 (January 2006): 1-32
for further reading
A. Lovejoy, Reflections on the History of Ideas, JHI 1, 1 (January 1940): 3-23
D.R. Kelley, Horizons of Intellectual History:
Retrospect, Circumspect, Prospect, JHI 48, 1 (January 1987): 143-69
, The Descent of Ideas: The History of Intellectual
History (2002)
2.
Feb. 6: Historicism
Q.R.D.
Skinner, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, H&T 8 (1969): 3-53 (note: you can find a much
shortened and changed version of this essay in Skinner, Visions of Politics [2002], vol. 1, but please read the article
version)
Conquest
and Controversy: Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement Crisis, in Skinner, Visions
of Politics, vol. 3
*L.
Strauss, Natural Right and History
(1953), chap. 1
*J.G.A.
Pocock, The Concept of a Language and the Mtier dhistorien: Some Reflections on Practice, in A. Pagden,
ed., The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe (1986)
for further reading
M. Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas (2002)
A. Brett, What Is Intellectual History Now?, in D.
Cannadine, What Is History Now? (2004)
J.G.A. Pocock, Introduction: The State of the Art, in
Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History (1985)
, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought
and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975)
, Texts as Events: Reflections on the History of
Political Thought, in K. Sharpe and S. Zwicker, eds., Politics of Discourse (1987)
M. Richter, Begriffsgeschichte and the History of
Ideas, JHI
48, 2 (April 1987): 247-63
, The History of Political and Social Concepts: A
Critical Introduction
(1995)
, Reconstructing the History of Political Languages:
Pocock, Skinner, and the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, History & Theory 29, 1 (February 1990): 38-70
J. Tully, ed., Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner
and His Critics
(1988)
3.
Feb. 13: Language
Skinner,
Visions of Politics, vol. 1,
chaps. 5, 6, 9, 10
D.
LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading Texts, H&T 19, 3 (October 1980): 245-76, also in LaCapra, Rethinking
Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (1982)
J.
Toews, Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn, AHR 92, 4 (October 1987): 879-907
for further reading
D. Harlan, Intellectual History and the Return of Literature,
AHR 94, 3
(June 1989): 581-609
M. Jay, Two Cheers for Paraphrase: Confessions of a
Synoptic Intellectual Historian, in Jay, Fin-de-Sicle Socialism and Other
Essays (1988)
, The Textual Approach to Intellectual History, in
Jay, Force Fields: Between Intellectual History and Cultural Critique (1995)
D. LaCapra, History, Language, and Reading: Waiting for
Crillon, AHR
100, 3 (June 1995): 799-828, also in LaCapra, History and Reading:
Tocqueville, Foucault, French Studies (2000)
, Madame Bovary on Trial (1985)
4.
Feb. 20: Life
*H.
S. Hughes, Consciousness and Society (1958), chap. 1
*G.
Izenberg, Text, Context, and Psychology in Intellectual History, in H.
Kozicki, ed., Developments in Modern Historiography (1993)
-,
Kandinsky and the Origins of Abstraction, at Lifetraces site: http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/biography/
*J.
Seigel, The Private Worlds of Marcel Duchamp (1995), extracts tba (to be ordered used)
for further reading
G. Izenberg, Psycho-history and Intellectual History, H&T 14, 2 (May 1975): 139-55
M.S. Roth, Narrative as Enclosure: The Contextual
Histories of H. Stuart Hughes, JHI 51, 3 (October 1990): 505-15, also in Roth, The
Ironists Cage: Memory, Trauma, and the Construction of History (1995)
J. Seigel, Marxs Fate: The Shape of a Life (1985)
, Problematizing the Self, in L. Hunt, ed., Beyond
the Cultural Turn
(1999)
5.
Feb. 27: Culture, 1
*C.
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (1980), chap. 1
*R.
Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre
(1984), chaps. 2 and 6
R.
Chartier, Texts, Symbols, and Frenchness, JMH 57, 4 (December 1985): 682-95
R.
Darnton, The Symbolic Element in History, JMH 58, 1 (March 1986): 218-34
D.
LaCapra, Is Everyone a Mentalit Case?: Transference and the Culture Concept,
H&T 23, 3 (October 1984):
296-311, also in LaCapra, History & Criticism (1986)
D.
LaCapra, Chartier, Darnton, and the Great Symbol Massacre, JMH 60, 1 (March 1988): 95-112, also in LaCapra, Soundings
in Critical Theory (1989)
for further reading
W.J. Bouwsma, From the History of Ideas to the History
of Meaning, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12, 2 (Autumn 1981) 279-91
P. Gay, The Social History of Ideas: Ernst Cassirer and
After, in K.H. Wolff and B. Moore, eds., The Critical Spirit: Essays in
Honor of Herbert Marcuse (1967)
R. Darnton, In Search of the Enlightenment: Recent
Attempts to Create a Social History of Ideas, JMH 43, 1 (March 1971): 113-32
, Intellectual and Cultural History, in M. Kammen,
ed., The Past Before Us (1980), also in Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in
Cultural History
(1990)
, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1982)
6.
March 6: Society, 1
*G.
Lukcs, Studies in European Realism
(1964), chap. 1
F.
Moretti, Graphs, Maps, and Trees
(2005)
SPRING
BREAK
7.
March 20: Culture, 2
C.
Schorske, Fin-de-Sicle Vienna
(1980)
M.S.
Roth, Performing History: Modernist Contextualism in Schorske, in AHR 99, 3 (June 1994): 729-45, also in Roth, The
Ironists Cage
8.
March 27: Society, 2
*P.
Bourdieu, Intellectual Field and Creative Project
*,
The Biographical Illusion
,
The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger
P.
Gordon, Continental Divide: An Allegory of Intellectual History
9.
April 3: Politics
T.
Judt, Past Imperfect
*S.
Moyn, Intellectual History after the Liberal Turn
10.
April 10: The Political
P.
Rosanvallon, Democracy Past and Future, chaps. 1-3, 5-6
11.
April 17: Historical Epistemology
I.
Hacking, Historical Ontology, chaps. 1-2, 5-6
*J.
Goldstein, The Post-Revolutionary Self, excerpts
12.
May 1: Student Presentations
(all
at Labyrinth Books and on reserve; no expectation of purchase)
P.
Bourdieu, The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger
J.
Goldstein, The Post-Revolutionary Self
I.
Hacking, Historical Ontology
T.
Judt, Past Imperfect
A.
Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being
F.
Moretti, Graphs, Maps, and Trees
P.
Rosanvallon, Democracy Past and Future
C.
Schorske, Fin-de-Sicle Vienna
Q.R.D. Skinner, Visions
of Politics, vol. 1, Regarding Method