Candidates will be expected to answer two examination questions, one from each of two sections, in a three hour paper. The sections are: 1. Making Historical Comparisons; 2. Making Historical Arguments.
The intention of Disciplines of History is to encourage students to reflect on the changing nature of the historical discipline, on differing historical methodologies and on comparative history. In all cases they are encouraged to make use of historical material which they studied in other papers in their first year and for the Final Honours School. Colleges will provide a maximum of ten teaching sessions for this paper, mainly in classes.
Making Historical Comparisons
The aim of Comparative History is to learn more about general features of human experience, and about different periods and societies, by the process of comparison. Historical comparison highlights both the similarities and the differences between different periods and societies. It casts light by revealing wider unities and also by drawing attention to the particularities of human and social experience. Historical comparison of this kind is also a most helpful revision tool, in that it calls upon you to bring together the whole range of historical material you have covered in your studies at Oxford, and to consider it in a new light.
Preparation for this paper is thus more a matter of technique than of new information. In the first instance you should concentrate on deploying your pre-existing knowledge in order to make effective comparisons, although once you have started on a comparison it may, of course, draw you into additional reading as gaps in your knowledge appear. The art of comparison lies in identifying both the bases of similar features in the societies under comparison, and the variable factors which produce differences. Choosing your examples is therefore crucial. The societies compared must have sufficient similarities to make comparison worthwhile. No-one is going to waste time comparing Nazi Germany and Northumbria in the age of Bede, since they are so obviously different. The alternative danger, of comparing two identical societies, may be practically dismissed, so long as you are correctly observing the rubric of this section and comparing historically distinct societies, separated by either time or space. Note that two principle subjects of comparison (societies or polities) are perfectly adequate. The basis of good comparison, as of all historical study, is the precise knowledge of particular cases. Adducing more than two or three cases makes precise and careful comparison difficult, if not impossible, and results instead in a general impressionistic haze, like laundry where all the colours have run together.
There will be twenty questions in this section. The following list suggests a range of subject areas which the examiners might address. However, no specific topic is guaranteed to come up in any particular paper.
The Arts: Visual, Drama, Music
Orality & Literacy, Education, Schools, Universities
Crime, Punishment, The Law, Judicial Systems
Intermediate social organizations, Civic Society, Family, Guilds
Gender, Sexuality, Social taboos
Religion, Belief, Conversion, Persecution, Toleration
Aristocracy, Elites
Slavery, Serfdom, Underclasses
Economic systems, Development, Globalisation
Environment, Urbanisation, Town & Country
Identities, Social, Ethnic, Geographical, National
Ritual, Custom, Myths
Political ideas & ideologies
Power, Government, Bureaucracy
Revolutions, Régime change, Riots
Empires, Centre-periphery
Diplomacy, international relations
Making Historical Arguments
The second section of the paper is historiographical. It requires you to reflect upon the question ‘how do historians make history?’ This question can be approached both from below – how are sources used in historical writing? – and from above – what theories are there about the way in which history should be approached? (Indeed both approaches can be considered at the same time, given that particular approaches to history often privilege particular sources.) The focus of this section is therefore on the great variety of ways in which history has been and is written, in terms of different subject-matter, sources, motivation, context and genre. Underlying the question ‘how is history written?’ is that of ‘why?’ The writing of history must itself be historicized. History itself does not display a “whiggish” tendency to perpetual improvement, nor does historiography, and the latter must be considered as the product of a particular historical context. While much of the focus will naturally be on recent work, the questions set in this section of the paper will also enable you to discuss forms of historical writing over the last two-and-a-half millennia.
As with the first section, much of the material for your answer in this section of the paper will originate in the work you have done elsewhere in the course: your experience of deploying sources and approaches in writing a dissertation and extended essay; your observation of how sources have been used by other historians (particularly in Further and Special Subjects); and the range of different approaches in the many articles and books you have read for all your papers. Historiographical awareness is a crucial element of all the papers you take, and you should be reflecting on the nature of historians’ approaches and their sources throughout the Final Honours course.
You will also receive some specific teaching for this section, so as to learn more about different schools of, or approaches to, history: their particular historical context, interests, methods, influences, forms and sources. Note however that serious reflection on historiography is a good deal more than mere generalised reproduction of textbook accounts of (say) the Annales school or “whig” history. Reflection on the writing of history, like reflection on history itself, stems from engagement with specific cases and sources. The basis for success in this section of the paper is to read major works of historical writing for yourself (most obviously as an extension of your work in other papers), whether it be Herodotus or Foucault. In this way your answer can cite and engage with historical writing and/or sources in authentic detail.
Here again there will be twenty questions in this section. The following list suggests a range of subject areas which the examiners might address. However, no specific topic is guaranteed to come up in any particular paper.
Material Culture & Archaeology in historical writing
Geography and Environmental History
Space & Urban History
Economic and Quantitative History
Structural Social History
Cultural History & Historical Anthropology
Literature & Narrative
Gender, Sexuality and the Body
Visual Sources & Methods
Oral History
Sources for the Self
Intellectual History
Political History
Postcolonialism & Ethnicity
Global and International History
Statist and National Traditions
The Classical Tradition
Philosophy of History
Archives
Genres of historical writing
Please note that the standard Oxford rules against overlap do not apply to either section of Disciplines of History. You may use any work you have done, including in your thesis, as sources for your arguments in the examination.
TEACHING
The Faculty will provide lectures on themes from both sections of the paper, usually in the Hilary and Trinity terms of each year. Otherwise, the organization of teaching for Disciplines of History is the responsibility of College Tutors. Colleges will offer a maximum of ten teaching sessions. In most cases this will be class teaching, so that students have an opportunity to exchange information and ideas and to debate with each other in a larger group. However, colleges may also offer a maximum of two conventional tutorial sessions (to be included in the total of ten hours). As is usual in Oxford, there may well be variation between colleges in the precise organization and timetabling of this teaching. Depending on their own commitments, tutors may start work on the course at various points in the second year, and/or continue such teaching later on in the third year. There is no single ‘right’ way to teach the paper. Different tutors have developed different teaching programmes which best reflect their strengths and convey the most benefit to their own students.
