HHIK04921U HIS 2. Global Microhistory

Volume 2024/2025
Education

MA-Area 2: Methodological and Analytical Tools (HHIK03901E) 
[Kandidatuddannelsen i historie, 2022-ordningen]

MA-Area 2: Methodological and Analytical Tools (HHIK03901E)
[Kandidatdelen af sidefaget i historie, 2022-ordningen]

MA-Area 8: Historical Area with Focus on Methodology (HHIK03981E) [kun for studerende, hvis centrale fag hører under et andet hovedområde end humaniora]
[Kandidatdelen af sidefaget i historie, 2022-ordningen]

MA-Area 8: Historical Area with Focus on Methodology (HHIK13981E)
[Kandidattilvalg i historie, 2022-ordningen]

Content

Få overblik på:
- Historie, KA-2022, ét-faglig, lektionskatalog efterår 2024
- Historie, KA-2022, to-faglig, lektionskatalog efterår 2024
- Historie, KA-sidefag-2022, lektionskatalog efterår 2024

HIS 2. Global Microhistory
This course introduces students to a new methodological approach to the writing of history that has become increasingly popular in the last twenty years. The authors we read tell big stories about the world, often through obscure people, small places, and seemingly insignificant events. Global microhistory combines the forensic research techniques, insights, and writing style pioneered by Italian and French historians in the 1980s with historiographical debates and questions raised by global, imperial, social, and gender historians. It uses a micro-level approach and fine-grained archival research techniques to challenge macro-narratives and assumptions while suggesting new insights the human past.

The books we read will cover the globe and several centuries, from Ming Dynasty China to Reformation England, from revolutionary America to WWII-era Poland, from eighteenth-century West Africa to nineteenth-century Mauritius. There will be something for everyone.

Please note the course is reading and discussion intensive and requires you come to class prepared for seminar-style discussions each week. Luckily, we’ll be reading some of the most riveting and exciting history books ever written.

Journal Articles:
- Lepore, Jill. “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography.” Journal of American History 88, no. 1 (2001): 129-144.
- Sue Peabody, “Microhistory, Biography, Fiction.” Transatlantica 2, no. 1 (2012).
- Tonio Andrade, “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory,” Journal of World History, Vol. 21, No. 4 (December 2010), pp. 573-591.
- Trivellato, Francesca, “Is There a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History?” California Italian Studies, vol. 2 (2011).

Monographs:
- Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms
- Jonathan Spence, Death of Woman Wang (Penguin, 1979).
- Sue Peabody, Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom, Secrets, and Lies in France's Indian Ocean Colonies, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Laurel T. Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale. The Life of Martha Ballard, based on her diary, 1785-1812, New York: A Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1990.
- Jan Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2001.
- Linda Colley, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History, New York : Pantheon Books, c2007.
- James Sweet, Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World, Chapel Hill [N.C.]: University of North Carolina Press, c2011.
- Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, New Haven: Yale University Press, c2001.

Seminar
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 56
  • Preparation
  • 203
  • Exam Preparation
  • 129.5
  • Total
  • 388.5
Written
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Other
Type of assessment details
Portfolio Provisions: The students are expected to produce a 6-page essay and a 10-page essay. They will have the option to complete the 6-page essay half-way through the course to get feedback from me and through peer review. Both papers will be based entirely on the course reading.
Exam registration requirements

Aktuelle studieordninger for Historie og Studiehåndbogen.

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