Scales of History

Every student of history must eventually reckon with questions of scale: What temporal and geographical boundaries are epistemologically defensible in a study? How long or short is the historical arc? How wide or narrow is the geographical scope? Does one approach one’s object of study from above or from below? What are the epistemic implications of working with anecdotes or cases, with planetary time or world-systems, with series, multiples, and sequences? This seminar is structured thematically around the problems of scaling historiography. It brings key texts from the historical disciplines (with special attention to art history and architectural history) to bear on such problematics as: the case study, the period, microhistory, world-systems, the longue durée, the anecdote, global and world history, seriality, and comparison. It is meant to be both a theoretical and a practical resource for those tackling the challenges of writing history. Weekly discussions will be driven by close readings of assigned texts.