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Historical Controversies

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Historical ControversiesInstructor: Donald Ostrowski Course Assistant: Gail Gardnere-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]: 617-495-4547 phone: 617-492-0618office hours: MTF 2:00–6:00 p.m. open meeting time: TWTh 4:30-5:30 p.m.office:51 Brattle St. #703 office: 51 Brattle St. #721My intent in offering this course and in is to define a number of controversies thatare currently exercising scholarly ingenuity and to analyze each of these controversies bymeans of three criteria of historical study: accurate representation of the evidence, logicalargument, and conceptually elegant interpretation. As the course description says, Iwanted to choose controversies that were clearly dividing scholarship and especiallythose that were generating some emotional heat. Such “hot topics” motivate scholars todig deeper for more evidence and better arguments, but theyalso often expose the weak-nesses of scholarly contention. My thinking is that students would find more interestingscholarly conflicts that remain open than those that have already been resolved. Thus,these treatments are not attempting a historiographical survey ofeach controversy butmore a general introduction to the controversy and an analysis of the “sticking points,”the bones of contention. Nor are these lectures intended necessarily to present thedebates that occurred about the most weighty issue in each area, so-called “great prob-lems.”Real-life controversies evenoverseemingly “unimportant” topics are more inter-esting than artificially contrivedacademic exercises regarding “important” topics. In theprocess of discussing particular controversies, however, I hope to introduce students tothe major issues in that area of study specifically and to the nature of historical researchin general. Iamusing the word “historical” in the broadest possible sense to includewhat some scholars call the “auxiliary historical disciplines” (although there is nothingauxiliary about them) and what other scholars may say is not “history”. In debatingissues of research, historians feel free to move beyond the area of past politics and warsthat manypeople assign to them as their proper area of study into areas that includeanthropology,archaeology,demography, economics, epistemology,literary studies,palaeography, palaeontology,philology,philosophy, religion, sociology,textual criticism,and so forth. If these are not part of historical study,then one may ask howone decideswhat is. The realm of study of the historian, in my view, isunlimited.In presenting controversies for use in the classroom, I am placing myself firmly onthe side of those who find discussing the parameters of scholarly debate a remarkablyeffective method for involving students in the material. Iknowinstructors who say thattheycannot evenget their students to understand one point of view, let alone twoorthreeon a particular topic. “It would just confuse them further,” theysay.The fault, however,2is not with their students. Merely presenting one point of viewisa sure way to dampenwhateverinterest students may have for the subject. There is no way for them to getinvolved with the material when theyhav e only one interpretation to contend with, that ofthe teacher or the textbook. With twoormore viewpoints, students can then test oneagainst the other(s). Theycan get some leverage on the material, which in turn leads tocritical thinking and teaches them to be better citizens. Theylearn to decide between dif-ferent arguments whether among candidates for office in a political campaign or amonglawyers and “expert” witnesses in a jury trial. Trying to teach them only one “correct”opinion does none of these things.“Normal science,”the term used by Thomas Kuhn to designate when a particularparadigm prevails, occurs either when the preponderance of evidence and analysis leadsto one overriding interpretation or when a scholar or group of scholars exercise suchauthority in their field that fewdare challenge them and their views. When such chal-lenges occur,the usual response is to attempt to marginalize the challengers and theirideas. Sometimes these challenges become the next paradigm; more often theydonotbecause theyare not as good at explaining the evidence as the old paradigmIn the course, we will be maintaining a distinction between mystery and controversy.A mystery is something unknown, unexplained, secret, obscure, or puzzling. A contro-versy involves a public dispute, contending views, or conflicting opinions about some per-son, event, object, or idea. There have been a number of recent attempts to surveyunsolved historical mysteries. Most of these, such as Editors of Life, The GreatestUnsolved Mysteries of All Time: Fifty Baffling Cases from the Files,which presents 50crime mysteries, involvemurders or some other crime, which, while significant for thepeople involved and others who are interested in crime stories, do not rise to the levelofwhat I would call a historical controversy.Atleast fivebooks devoted to historical mys-teries are worth considering for a course on historical controversies. Three of them arejournalistic treatments that get mixed reviews when examined under the scrutinyofhis-torical methodology.The first of these, E. Randall Floyd, 100 of the World’sGreatestMysteries (Augusta, GA: Harbor House, 2000), spends twotothree pages on each “mys-tery” Some of the topics treated–such as “Mighty Zimbabwe” and “Lost ColonyofRoanoke”—have potential value for the classroom, but most—such as “The Pharoah’sCurse” and “Judge Crater’sStrange Disappearance”—are just sensational stories thatpeople have heard about. Giventhe brief treatment of each mystery,Floyd’sbook has lit-tle value for anyone who would liketofind out more about anyparticular topic.The second of these books, Paul Aron, Unsolved Mysteries of History: An Eye-Opening Investigation into the Most Baffling Events of All Time (NewYork: John Wiley&Sons, 2000), is a more serious effort. It deals with twenty-fivetopics in 211 pages. Thethird book is also by Paul Aron, Unsolved Mysteries of American History: An Eye-open-ing Journeythrough 500 YearsofDiscoveries, Disappearances, and Baffling Events (NewYork: John Wiley&Sons, 1998), which deal with 30 topics in 218 pages. Manyofthe3topics in both books are, for the most part, well chosen in terms of being pithyhistoricalcontroversies (a number of them I also hope to


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