Historical Methods

This Approach introduces students to the work of cultural and social anthropologists, and to the way it has influenced the thinking of historians in recent decades. As with the other Approaches, the aim is to offer students new broader perspectives on the ways in which the past can be studied and to think more carefully about the concepts they use. The four broad subthemes and supporting bibliographies allow students to read some of the classic works of anthropology and thereby appreciate the diversity of ways in which anthropologists have approached the study of humans in the present. Students can consider the extent to which functionalism and field studies at a micro level have influenced historical work, or the possibilities for historians of the cultural anthropology exemplified by the work of Clifford Geertz. Students will also be encouraged to take note of the extent to which there is a two-way interaction between anthropology and history and to consider the implications of the intense self-criticism of anthropology as an agent of colonialism.

Family and kinship

This topic offers students the chance to analyse how anthropological work has sharpened historians’ understanding of the central role of family and kinship structures in societies and of the diversity of forms which these structures may take. As a central topic of much anthropological work it exemplifies the way anthropological approaches have been contested and have developed over the last half century – from the stress on scientific categorization in the mid-twentieth century to the more recent emphasis of Pierre Bourdieu on fluidity and improvisation.

Authority and Power

This topic introduces students to another central interest of anthropologists – to the way authority is constructed and maintained in small face-to-face societies and to the role of rituals in legitimizing power or authority. Areas of particular study might include the strengths and limitations of the functionalist approach to feuds and rebellions, or the way in which historians have learnt from anthropologists’ attempts to analyse how rituals work.

Religion, Magic and Popular Culture

This topic examines an area where the debt of many historians to the work of anthropologists has been extensive and has opened up a number of lively debates. The work of Evans-Pritchard or Clifford Geertz and its influence on historians such as Keith Thomas or Robert Darnton offers a classic example. At a general level the topic encourages students to examine why religion and magic make sense to their participants and to consider the limitations of concepts such as popular culture.

The construction of history

This topic explores the way anthropologists have looked at and thought about the past, be it myths, genealogies, oral histories, or the work of professional historians, as an attempt by participants within a society to explain who they are and to legitimize, contest or make sense of the world as it is. Students are encouraged to consider the applicability of such interpretations to historical testimonies and records from the past or indeed to the work of professional historians and anthropologists in the present.

The aim of this Approach is to introduce history students, very familiar with working with the evidence of words and texts, to a different type of evidence for the human past: mute material remains. The course underlines the very considerable strengths of material objects as evidence, but also their limitations, and how they are subject to varying interpretations. It also offers a chance to show how an archaeological approach has altered historians’ perceptions of the past. The course, while arranged thematically, introduces students to aspects of archaeological methodology (such as how to find and interpret traces of buried landscapes). It is not centred around theoretical debates within ‘Archaeology’ itself, though students may engage with these if they wish. The introductory explanations and attached bibliographies give some idea of how each theme might be studied though each can equally be approached with a different set of examples, chosen from any period. It is also possible to centre a topic on a specific site or group of material (e.g. for ‘Burials’ the Spitalfields crypt, or the Sutton Hoo barrows).

Landscape

This topic will introduce students to many of the different types of surviving evidence for ancient and capes (crop-marks revealed through air photography; pottery-scatters through field-survey; modern topographical features; etc.). It will show how we can read in the landscape changing patterns of economic exploitation, settlement and ideology. Production and exchange This topic explores the evidence for the manufacture and exchange of goods examining both production sites and the distribution patterns of archaeologically identifiable products.

Burial: belief and social status

In this topic students are invited to consider the extent to which the dead, and what is buried with them, can provide evidence of belief and social differentiation.

The built environment: form and function

By looking at both whole townscapes and individual buildings, this topic encourages the student to explore the builders’ intentions and the way that people have used the built environment.

The goal of this Approach is to broaden the historian’s sensitivity to an infinite variety of visual evidence. In most history writing, disproportionate attention is paid to written sources: this course is designed to foster a more balanced approach. However, using visual evidence is far from simple. ‘Art’ in this context is very broadly defined, to include not merely the western canon of ‘high art’, but the entire gamut of material cultural production, and its consumption. The short bibliography can be supplemented with case-studies from different periods and places. Indeed, students should be encouraged to engage in detail with particular images – including any to be found in Oxford’s museums and galleries. While for brevity and convenience it is largely focused on western art traditions, this is not intended as any constraint on the scope of the course. The course is structured around four broad – and overlapping – themes.

Creation and consumption

The first theme relates to the social context of art: how, precisely, are the variety and changes in artistic production (styles of painting, forms of architecture, etc.) related to contemporary social developments? Consideration needs to be given not only to structures of patronage, but also to broader issues of markets and consumption.

Art and politics

The second theme includes, but extends beyond, the use of visual imagery as a form of propaganda. Images have been deployed for subversive, no less than authoritarian, purposes. Analysis often reveals a creative tension in the interpretation of an image, whose ‘true’ meaning is contested.

The power of images: ways of seeing

The third theme explores varieties of visual response. Intense emotional identification with a picture, or a violent desire to destroy a statue, are repeatedly documented phenomena. To study these responses in context is to shed new light on historical societies.

The idea of the history of art: displaying, writing and collecting

The last theme is the particularly western way in which ‘the history of art’ has been conceived. This notion has been profoundly influential (through collecting, the construction of museums, art writing and art history), and rewards study. The post-medieval European idea of ‘fine art’ is a highly particular category: to recognize it as such is to become more fully aware of the richness of a far more inclusive realm of visual culture beyond the ‘fine’ arts, both in European and non-European traditions.

The aim of this Approach is to introduce students to the ways in which economic models and statistical sources can be used to understand history. It encourages students to tackle the central issue of how economic development has changed the character and quality of human life and, to this end, to look at the ways in which economics has tried to define and measure concepts such as character and quality. The course can be approached both by taking a broad perspective on the economic evolution of the globe and by looking at specific thematic issues and case studies in different periods, for example the role of technological change. As with the other Approaches, it is organized around four broad themes. In the course of these students will be introduced to the grand theories of economic development expounded by Adam Smith, Robert Malthus and Karl Marx; the ways in which historians have sought to apply, refine, or refute these grand theories in the light of evidence from different times and places can be closely assessed.

From poverty to mass prosperity

This topic examines questions such as when did mass prosperity originate? When did incomes in developed countries diverge from those in the rest of the world? When did Europe pull ahead of China? Why did some countries prosper while others languished? What evidence can historians use to measure such things and what problems of interpretation does it raise?

The spread of commerce

This topic considers the relationship between markets, incomes and living standards. Has trade always been mutually beneficial as Adam Smith believed or have some countries gained at the expense of others? How can ‘Smithian growth’ be detected and its importance assessed in past societies? What is the role of the state in promoting mass prosperity?

Economics and population change

This topic looks at what determines the rise and fall of population and how population change affects living standards and income distribution. How do Malthusian population dynamics relate to family structure, inheritance, marriage customs, and the roles of men and women? Can long run growth patterns be explained by preventive and positive checks? Does ‘overpopulation’ remain an explanation of poverty and a threat to sustainable development?

Economics and social structure

Can history be divided into stages like feudalism and capitalism as Marx argued? Is capitalism more conducive to economic development than other social structures? Do diminishing returns or class conflict explain the distribution of income? Is culture explained by technology and economic Organisation? How do free market development, government regulation, or state ownership advance or hinder the interests of either the population as a whole or specific groups within the population?

This Approach enables students to look both at the historiography of gender history and at the contribution it has made to other historical agendas. The contributions of women’s history are evaluated alongside the more recent stress on gender as a category of historical analysis, which has demonstrated the degree to which masculinity is a contested social category. The paper allows students to look at the means by which gender hierarchies are maintained and contested. The methodological problems of recovering the histories of women and men are addressed; key concepts like patriarchy are interrogated; some of the most influential models of change (such as ‘the separation of spheres’) are evaluated; and the contribution of other disciplines assessed.

Gender and work

This topic looks at the ways in which men and women’s work has been differentiated, at the relationship between the social and sexual division of labour, and at the determinants of change in male and female roles in the household and workplace.

Gender and political change

This topic examines the contribution of gendered approaches to the stuff of conventional history, such as war, colonialism, and nationalism. In what ways are the languages of colonialism, nationalism, and citizenship gendered? How far does war reinforce or undermine gender stereotypes? By what means have women been excluded from formal political structures, and what varieties of informal power have they exercised?

Gender, religion, and culture

This topic explores the ways in which religious, legal, medical, and scientific discourses have contributed to the construction and subversion of gender roles. The variety of forms of religious expression available to men and women is discussed. The complex relationships between intellectual and religious change and the positions of women and men are assessed.

Family and sexuality

This topic encourages students to look at varying household and family structures, at the determinants of male and female roles within the family, at how and why they vary between cultures, and at how they change. Another rich area of investigation is provided by the history of sexuality, looking at the ways in which the sexual identities (including homosexuality) of men and women are culturally variable. Particular attention is paid to the interdisciplinary insights provided by anthropology, demography, and literary theory.

The aim of this Approach is to introduce students to the discipline of sociology, to explore ways in which sociological method has influenced historians, and to look at ways in which sociology and history over the years have diverged or converged. Students are introduced to the discipline of sociology as the study of man as a social animal, shaped by social institutions but at the same time able to construct or reconstruct them. How much scope different sociologists give to the individual and human agency is discussed. The course is organized around four broad themes.

Sociological techniques

The approach of sociology to sources, concepts, the comparative method and ‘grand theory’ is compared to that of historians, and examples from the hybrid of historical sociology are examined. The traffic is not all one way and the appeal to some sociologists of the narrative and biographical approach is also illustrated.

Social stratification

This topic introduces students to the sociological theories of social stratification, especially those of Marx on class and Weber on social status, and examines how they have set the agenda for much social history. It also explores how such concepts have lost some of their explanatory force and how historians have refined them in new and exciting ways.

Power and authority

This topic examines ways in which sociologists have conceptualized the state and political institutions and at how they have analysed political obedience in terms of power (coercion) and authority (the recognition of legitimacy). It explores different notions of power developed by theorists such as Foucault, and ideas of bureaucracy, social discipline, revolt and revolution. Ways in which historians have used or developed these ideas are discussed.

Sociology and religion

This topic examines ways in which religion has been treated by sociologists. It looks in particular at the concept of the secularization of modern society, both as a debate among sociologists of religion and as a research question for historians who have refined and challenged the theory in the light of empirical evidence.