Course Historiography: Methods and Problems

ECTS: 2

Course leader: Karen-Margrethe Simonsen

Language: English

Graduate school: Faculty of Arts

Course fee: 0.00 DKK

Status: Course is finished

Semester: Spring 2023

Application deadline: 03/03/2023

Cancellation deadline: 03/03/2023

Course type: Blended learning

Start date: 11/04/2023

Administrator: Henriette Jaquet

NB!

All students are placed on a waiting list until we reach application deadline.

NB!

Please note that the registration is binding unless you are prevented by illness.

How do we historicize? How do we delimit a period, how do we select representative works or events? What kind of challenges do we face when we historicize? Is history a narration or a set of fragmented events? How do periods overlap and how do we work with anachronisms or the untimely? Etc.

This course will focus both on theoretical and practical problems related to historicization and contextualization. PhD-students from all fields within Art, literature and culture, who have projects on old or new art, literature and culture, are invited.

The course consists of three workshops, described below.
For each workshop, the participants will hand in a description of a specific problem in their own research that relates to the topic of the workshop (approx. 0,5-1 page for each workshop). Participants will be asked to read all theoretical texts and texts handed in by fellow PhDstudents.

April 11, 10.15-16.30
Intro and Workshop 1: Contextualization
This workshop focuses on how we contextualize. Very often an analysis or a value judgment of an artistic work involves or is based upon contextualization. We analyse the work in its context: that is: the context sets the frame of analysis and the work reinterprets that context. But what is a context? How big or small is it? Is it a political, aesthetic, philosophical etc. context? How is it delimited geographically (city, nation, region, world) and temporally (a year, a decade, a period etc) And how do we make contextualization relevant and interesting? How much do we have to know about the context to contextualize? What is a valid contextual judgment?
Readings
- Catherine Gallagher og Stephen Greenblatt: ”The Touch of the Real”, Practicing New Historicism.
- Walter Benjamin: “Literary History and Literary Studies”, Selected Writings, vol. 2.
- Bruce Robbins: “Cosmopolitanism and the Historical/Contextual Paradigm”

April 7: Deadline for sending description of problem in own phd.project related to topic of workshop 1

April 13, 10.15-16.30
Workshop 2: Temporality and periodization, now and then, narration and anachronism
Historiography does not only provide us with a list of dates of important events. It links the events into a meaningful chain of a ‘before’, a ‘now’, and an ‘after” or a future. It creates narrative structures and causality out of the events that it integrates. But reality is not a narration. Often it can be understood more as a disconnected set of elements. A period can be understood as the simultenaeity of the non-simultaneous, 
Readings
- Margaret-Anne Hutton:” On Writing Literary History of the Contemporary, or What is, or was “the contemporary” and should we keep calling it that?”
- Didi-Hubermann: “Before the Image. Before Time. The Sovereignty of Anachronism”
- Harry Harootian: “Uneven Temporalities/Untimely Pasts”

April 12: Deadline for sending description of problem in own phd.project related to topic of workshop 2

April 17, 9.30-15.00
Workshop 3:  Canon and archive
How are certain works canonized and remembered? What is the relation between the masterpieces and the great unread? How do we historicize on the basis of selected works?
How do we treat marginalized writers and artist.
Readings
- Margaret Cohen: ”Narratology in the Archive of Literature”, især 57-62
- Marco Fomisano and Christina Shuttleworth Kraus, “Marginality, Canonicity, Passion”

April 16: Deadline for sending description of problem in own phd.project related to topic of workshop 3

Please register by sending mail to Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature: litkms@cc.au.dk and Ph.d.Program director Stefan Iversen: norsi@cc.au.dk

If participants have suggestions for theoretical texts or specific historiographical problems that should be addressed, please contact Karen-Margrethe as soon as possible.

Deadline for registration: March 3, 2023

Aim:

The Ph.d.student will acquire a knowledge about core historiographical problems, related to 1. contextualization, 2. Temporality and periodizatoin and 3. Canon and Archive. The course is based on the interests of Ph.d.students and we will address theoretical problems and historiographical methodology in relation to their projects.

Workshop 1: Contextualization
Readings
- Catherine Gallagher og Stephen Greenblatt: ”The Touch of the Real”, Practicing New Historicism.
- Walter Benjamin: “Literary History and Literary Studies”, Selected Writings, vol. 2.
- Bruce Robbins: “Cosmopolitanism and the Historical/Contextual Paradigm”

Literature:

Workshop 2: Temporality and periodization, now and then, narration and anachronism
Historiography does not only provide us with a list of dates of important events. It links the events into a meaningful chain of a ‘before’, a ‘now’, and an ‘after” or a future. It creates narrative structures and causality out of the events that it integrates. But reality is not a narration. Often it can be understood more as a disconnected set of elements. A period can be understood as the simultenaeity of the non-simultaneous, 
Readings
- Margaret-Anne Hutton:” On Writing Literary History of the Contemporary, or What is, or was “the contemporary” and should we keep calling it that?”
- Didi-Hubermann: “Before the Image. Before Time. The Sovereignty of Anachronism”
- Harry Harootian: “Uneven Temporalities/Untimely Pasts”

Workshop 3:  Canon and archive
How are certain works canonized and remembered? What is the relation between the masterpieces and the great unread? How do we historicize on the basis of selected works?
How do we treat marginalized writers and artist.
Readings
- Margaret Cohen: ”Narratology in the Archive of Literature”, især 57-62
- Marco Fomisano and Christina Shuttleworth Kraus, “Marginality, Canonicity, Passion”

Target group:

PhD-students from all fields within Art, literature and culture, who have projects on old or new art, literature and culture, are invited.
Ph.-students in any stage of their study.

Form:

Short lectures and workshop.

Lecturer:

Karen-Margrethe Simonsen: litkms@cc.au.dk

Venue:

Ph.d.House, room 1586-114, Kasernen, Langelandsgade 139, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C.

 

 

Course dates:

  • 11 April 2023 10:15 - 16:30
  • 13 April 2023 10:15 - 16:30
  • 17 April 2023 09:30 - 15:00