HIST 102 - Investigating HistorySemester Hours: 4
Fall, Spring
A methodology course intended to introduce students to the practice of history. Students will focus on developing the skills necessary to think and work like historians. Students will learn how to identify historical questions, critique and assess a selection of related secondary and primary sources, and write a short research paper on this topic.
Current Special Topics
Family Matters
Students will complete genealogies of their families and connect them to global historical events. The goal of this course is to introduce students to the process of conducting original research and strengthen their understanding of historical context. When it comes to analyzing the mundane and making sense of the everyday, historians draw upon a wide range of sources including diaries, wills, tax records, census data, photographs, ship logs, newspapers, interviews, and so on. Likewise, we will explore a variety of sources, from family photo albums to census records to local archives.
Radical revolutions, France and Haiti
We will examine points of connection between revolutionary movements in France and the Caribbean. Revolutionary principles like “freedom,” “equality,” and “citizenship” resonated differently in Saint Domingue (Haiti), where leaders struggled to implement them in ways that would endure. We will dive into the growing historical literature on this period, paying special attention to the question of primary sources. How should we read texts produced during the revolutionary period differently from those produced by later scholars? How can we use the surviving primary sources—generated almost exclusively by colonial officials and elites—to access the experiences of the ex-slave revolutionaries?
Prerequisites: HIST 020 , HIST 014F or HIST 014S
View Course Offering(s):
Fall 2025
January 2026
Spring 2026
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