HAM8403 – (PHD course) This course is intended to introduce students to the theory and practice of history. Students will read several different examples of historical writing. They will reflect on the reasons for writing and studying history, the importance of collective and individual memory, and the role of narrative in relation to identity. They will also examine the problems with historical memory, the dangers of historicism, and the transformation in the concept of history with the rise of “scientific” historiography. Students can expect to gain significant conceptual nuance about history, which they can then apply to their own research. As a mode of knowing, history has acquired unparalleled prestige. We now think that to know when, where and under what conditions something arose is to know (about) that thing. Yet, what kind of knowledge is history? In this course, we shall read several examples of historical narrative from antiquity to the Enlightenment. We shall also trace the emergence of scientific historiography from nineteenth-century historicism and ask whether absolute historical objectivity can ever exist.