History 83
What Ifs and Might-Have-Beens
Spring 2011
Professor Burke
TTH 11:20am-12:35pm
Tues Jan 18
Introduction
Contingency, counterfactuals, alternate histories: causality and meaning in history
Theoretical debates
Thurs Jan 20
Tetlock and Parker, “Counterfactual History: Its Advocates, Its Critics, & Its Usesâ€, in Unmaking the West
Tues Jan 25
Johannes Bulhof, “What If? Modality and Historyâ€, History and Theory, 38: 2, 1999.
Thurs Jan 27
E.H. Carr, “What Is History?†[pdf]
Eric Hobsbawm, “Can We Write the History of the Russian Revolution?†[pdf]
(I’ll reconstruct E.P. Thompson’s “unhistorical shit†comment in class: it’s way too wrapped up in a convoluted argument about the Marxist theorist Louis Althusser that would take too much backstory for you all to read and digest.)
Tues Feb 1
Randall Collins, “Turning Points, Bottlenecks, and the Fallacies of Counterfactual Historyâ€, Sociological Forum, 22:3 2007
Catherine Gallagher, “When Did the Confederate States of America Free the Slaves?†Representations 98, 2007
Thurs Feb 3
Geoffrey Hawthorn, Plausible Worlds, Chapter 1. [pdf]
Tues Feb 8
Niall Ferguson, Introduction, Virtual History
Thursday Feb 10
Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, “The Uses of Walter: Walter Benjamin and the Counterfactual Imaginationâ€, History and Theory, October 2010. [pdf]
Paper discussion: a statement of principle on the counterfactual or alternate history
The embedded use of counterfactuals in scholarship and everyday life
Counterfactuals in practice
Tuesday Feb 15
Selections from Ferguson, Virtual History: Ch. 5 & 6
Thurs Feb 17
Selections from Ferguson, Virtual History: Ch. 2 & 8
Friday Feb 18
First paper due by 5pm, 5-6 pp.
Tues Feb 22
Selections from Tetlock, Lebow and Parker, Unmaking the West, Ch. 2, 4, 10
Thurs Feb 24
Selections from Tetlock, Lebow and Parker, Unmaking the West, Ch. 6, 7, 9
Tues March 1
James Axtell, “Colonial America Without the Indians: Counterfactual Reflectionsâ€, 73:4 1987, Journal of American History.
Thur March 3
Gary Cornblith, “Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exerciseâ€.
SPRING BREAK
Tues March 15
Cecilia Holland, “Repulse at Hastings†and Caleb Carr, “VE Dayâ€, in What If? 2 [pdf]
Thurs March 17
Surveying the possibility space: what histories produce counterfactuals, which ones don’t, and why?
The recipe book: how to pick and develop a formal counterfactual
Counterfactuals vs. alternate histories
Alternate histories
Tuesday March 22
Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee, pp. 11-54 [pdf]
Floyd Miller, Introduction to Martin Delany, Blake or The Huts of America, pp. xx-xxv [pdf]
Robert Sobel, For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga, pp. 37-54 [pdf]
Thursday March 24
Harry Turtledove, “Must and Shallâ€, in Dozois, ed., Roads Not Taken [pdf]
Discussion of 2nd paper assignment.
Tuesday March 29
Jo Walton, Farthing
Thursday March 31
Film: “Fatherlandâ€
Friday April 1st
Second paper due by 5pm
Tuesday April 5
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt
Thursday April 7
Steven Barnes, Lion’s Blood [pdf]
Working with Digress.it.
Tuesday April 12
Dale Chace, “A Marriage of Choice†and Connie Wilkins, “The Heart of the Storyâ€, in Wilkins, ed., Time Well-Bent: Queer Alternative Histories [pdf]
Thursday April 14
Sesshu Foster, Atomik Aztek
Tuesday April 19
Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan [pdf]
Film: Sliders, episode 1
Thursday April 21
Workshopping the final papers: first session
http://www.alternatehistory.com/
http://www.uchronia.net/
Tuesday April 25
Workshopping the final papers: second session
Thursday April 27
Workshopping the final papers: third session
Final papers due 5pm May 13th