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 advertising and consumer culture in the Cold War era. We will examine how American
consumerism changed during the period between 1945 and 1989, and explore the connections between mass consumption and civil rights,foreign relations, politics, gender, and economic changes. With your final research paper, you will have made an original contribution to the historiography on this topic.
