HST 290: The Practice of History
This is a course in the historian’s craft; its goals are to help you develop the skills necessary to produce high quality upper level research papers that conform to the requirements of the historical field. We cover concepts like historiography, methodology, and historical ethics. We also practice question framing, conducting primary and secondary source research, documenting sources, writing effective prose, revising, and presenting your research.
The theme of this seminar is the history of American tourism, both domestic and international. We will examine how tourism changed from the Early Republic through the end of the Cold War era and explore the connections between tourism and work, politics, civil rights, foreign relations, gender, class, and economics. With your final research paper, you will have made an original contribution to the historiography on this topic.