History 5581-101: Records and Society
Course Calendar, Spring Semester, 2008


 

Tuesday, January 15

Introductions and Instructions

Lecture: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Records and Society

Tour of Special Collections

 

Thursday, January 17

Lecture: A Brief History of Writing and the Origins of Records

Discussion:  Who is an Archivist?  What is an Archive?

Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp. 21-28; pp. 29-46

 

Tuesday, January 22

Lecture:  Archival History, From Ancient to Modern

CHOOSE TOPIC FOR SHORT PAPER #1

Discussion: Archival History

            Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp. 47-72; pp. 73-97

 

Thursday, January 24

Lecture:  “In the Beginning was the Word:” the Origin of the Book

Discussion: Review the Exhibition, “In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000 at
 www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/ITB/html/introduction.htm

 

Tuesday, January 29

Lecture:  Norman and Angevin England, Politics and Society, Part 1.

Discussion: Changing attitudes to documents and their use in England after the Norman Conquest

Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, pp 1-80.

 

Thursday, January 31

Lecture:  Norman and Angevin England, Politics and Society, Part 2

Discussion: The use of documents and the making of documents

            Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 81-144

 

Tuesday, February 5

SHORT PAPER #1 DUE!!

Lecture:  Collecting Records, Building Archives

Discussion:  Selection and documentation

            Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp. 177-192; 211-241

 

Thursday, February 7

Lecture:  Archival Appraisal

Discussion:  Appraisal, the archivist’s toughest job?  The shaping of collections

            Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp. 244-342

 

Tuesday, February 12

Lecture:  The Processing of Archival Collections

Discussion:  Arrangement and Description

            Keiner, “Finding Aids in a Digital World,” Journal of the Society of North
 Carolina Archivists, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Summer, 2004), pp. 4-22.

PROCESSING PROJECT BEGINS

Thursday, February 14

Lecture:  Norman and Angevin England: Politics and Society, Part 3

Discussion:  Preserving documents and the importance of language

            Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 145-223

 

Tuesday, February 19

Lecture:  Norman and Angevin England: Church and State, Noble and Peasant, Men and Women

Discussion:  The meaning of literacy and the role of records in English medieval society

            Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 224-334

 

Thursday, February 21

Lecture: The Renaissance

Discussion: Printing as “an agent for change”

Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, pp. ix-xiv, and 3-91

 

Tuesday, February 26

PROCESSING PROJECT DUE!!

Lecture:  Gutenberg’s revolution and the mechanics of printing to 1800

Discussion:  Printing and the Renaissance

CHOOSE TOPIC FOR SHORT PAPER #2

Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, 92-147

 

Thursday, February 28

Lecture:  The Reformation

Discussion: Printing and the Reformation

Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, 148-186

 

Tuesday, March 4

Lecture:  Renaissance Astronomy: The Copernican Revolution

Discussion:  Printing and beginnings of Modern Science.

Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, 187-278.

 

Thursday, March 6

SHORT PAPER #2 DUE

SELECT TOPIC FOR RESEARCH PAPER

Discussion:  One Effect of Print Culture: More and Varied Writing

Review the online exhibition, “Technologies of Writing in the age of Print” at  http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=2317, or go to www.folger.com and click on What’s On, the Exhibitions, then past Exhibitions, the title of the exhibition.

 

SPRING BREAK

           
Tuesday, March 18

Lecture:  American Business and their Records in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Discussion:  The communication imperative and technology

            Yates, Control through Communication, pp 1-64

 

Thursday, March 20

Lecture:  American Business, American Records, Late 19th and 20th Centuries

Discussion:  Types of business records and their use

            Yates, Control through Communication, pp. 65-100

 

EASTER HOLIDAY

 

Thursday, March 27

Lecture:  “I’ve been working on the railroad”

Discussion:  Railroads and records

            Yates, Control through Communication, pp. 101-158

 

Tuesday, April 1

Lecture: Connecticut Industrial History

Discussion:  Control through communication at Scovill

            Yates, Control through Communication, pp. 159-200

 

Thursday, April 3

Lecture:  American Business in the era of the Pax Americana

Discussion:  DuPont, modern business methods, and modern business records

            Yates, Control Through Communication, pp. 201-275

 

Tuesday, April 8

Lecture: Practical Preservation

Discussion:  The idea of permanence and the reality of impermanence

            Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp 473-546.

 

Thursday, April 10

Lecture:  The Modern Archives: collecting, Managing, Marketing

Discussion:  Archives and the management of electronic records

           Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp 547-629.

 

Tuesday, April 15

Lecture:  The Modern Archives: collecting, Managing, Marketing

RESEARCH PAPER DUE!!

Lecture:  Archives, History and Post-Modernism

Discussion:  Has the nature of records changed since 1980?

            Levy, Scrolling Forward, pp. xi-xxiii, 1-100.

 

Thursday, April 17

Lecture:  A day in the Reading Room the view from the reader’s chair

Discussion:  Research in archives, the view from the reference desk

            Jimerson, American Archival Studies, pp. 415-471

 

Tuesday, April 22

Lecture:  Historiography: The Historians Craft Today

Discussion:  Scrapbooks and Diaries, Blogs and E-mail

            Levy, Scrolling Forward, 101-202

 

Thursday, April 24

Student presentations of Research Papers

 

Tuesday, April 29

Student Presentations of Research Papers

Preparation for final examination

 

Saturday, May 3

FINAL EXAMINATION, Belk Library, Rhinehart Room, 12:00 – 2:30 pm


RETURN