‘Introduction to the Study of History’
Week 1
Lecture clip ‘Explanation to the course’:
The academic discipline of history is hard to define. All kind of different historians require different
skills. Main question of this course: ‘What is the academic discipline of history?’ Historians should
provide their texts in a language that is accessible to the general public. History is an empirical
science, but how are you an empirical science while everything has already happened?
Academic discipline of history:
- Compare to other forms of engaging with the past
- Overview of approaches (Maza, Thinking about history)
Lecture clip ‘Pieter Geyl’:
Historian from UU itself. Very interested by historiography. Three important points:
1. Historiography is important. It is the starting point for every research I will do.
2. History is always a result from a certain perspective, a result from a personal choice.
3. History is ‘an argument without end’.
This last quote has a certain timelessness: all history is situated; all situations lead to new histories.
History will be (re)written time and time again. This timeless quote itself is situated.
Pieter Geyl promoted a lot of Dutch history (and propaganda) in Britain. He combined history and
politics. The Flemish question: ‘It was officially a Francophile state but had a bilingual population. It
was a divide in language, but also in culture’. The Flemish movement tried to emancipate Flemish
people: they tried to get the country to be bilingual, so not only French speaking (Dutch higher
education for example). Geyl became attached to this movement in an anti-Belgium way. He
believed the Flemish people also belonged to the same culture as the Dutch people did: the idea of
the Great Netherlands (De groot Nederlandse gedachte). They believed all native Dutch speakers
belong to one people and that they should be reunited. This fueled Geyl his political commitment.
Geyl wrote a lot of reviews on other historians’ political work, such as on Henri Pirenne, a man who
was for the state of Belgium. The same criticism was given by Geyl to P.J. Blok. Blok did not want a
great Netherlands, so Geyl turned against him. Pirenne and Blok both looked at the past and based
their opinions on that, but Geyl refused that. He looked at their opinions and criticized those. Geyl
only looked back on the Dutch revolt as the reason of the break between ‘the north’ and ‘the
south’. He practiced history with his political ideas influencing him.
,Back on the quote ‘an argument without end’. It is a historiographical remark, and it has a political
stance: ant totalitarianism.
Reader ‘Geyl’ P. 15-16:
‘History can reach no unchallengeable conclusions on so many-sided a character, on a life so
dominated, so profoundly agitated, by the circumstances of the time.’
‘Every historical narrative is dependent upon explanation, interpretation, appreciation.’ In other
words, a historian always sees history from a point of view, which implies a choice, a personal
perspective. Its truth will be relative, it will always be partial. History is an argument without end.
Lecture clip ‘Glossary: historiography’:
Meanings of historiography are:
1. Writing history
2. History of history – ‘history in the second degree’
Geyl his book on Napoleon is not technically about Napoleon himself, but about other historians
that have also written about Napoleon. He does not study Napoleon, but he studies leading
historians that have studied Napoleon. This is history in the second degree. Small historiography: on
one specific topic. Large historiography: history of the discipline of history. Historiography gives you
an overview of what history has to offer. It determines your position, and it also offers inspiration
and modesty. It also gives a view on past cultures (their point of views on the past).
History of the past (historiography)/history in the past (History).
Lecture clip ‘Glossary: empirical science’:
Empirical: sensory perception. Empirical science entails that sensory experiences are the source of
reliable knowledge. History is not theoretical (which is not empirical), so yes, it is an empirical
discipline. It does not focus on theories and concepts too much. You could also argue no, because
the past no longer exists and can no longer be perceived or experienced. You can test history
against sources of the past, but not the past itself. Sources are an account of the past, because the
past is simply over. A reconstruction will never be the real past.
Lecture clip ‘Glossary: history and the past’:
What is history? It has two meanings. It can be things that have happened; the past. It can also be
the story/study on things that have happened. Basically, past & history vs history, but not the past.
Questions from week 1:
, Q1: History has a lack of overarching structure or definition. History does not have specific technical
methods. There is just simply no historical canon, which makes it hard to define the discipline of
history. Broad field of study.
Q2: The past is everything that has already happened, so technically also me writing this sentence.
History is the event itself and the study of the sources that explain what has happened.
Historiography is the study of how history is history. This can be changed as well.
Q3: Yes, because it does not focus on theories and concepts. But also no, because the past no
longer exists and cannot longer be perceived or experienced.
Q4: Pieter Geyl writes that ‘every historical narrative is dependent upon explanation,
interpretation, appreciation’. Everything comes from a personal perspective, a choice. So, history is
what the present needs to know about the past, because it always comes from a point of view that
is relevant to that specific time. History has no fixed story, its everchanging. History always leads to
discussion; ‘discussion without an end’ – Pieter Geyl.
Q5: The point is to sort out complex ideas in settings vastly different from our own. To think about
how we study history, not why or what. It is about positioning yourself as a historian, so you can
come up with new sources and perspectives. It also helps with inspiration and modesty.
Historiography is also an element of culture. Our culture drives the way we do historiography.
Q6: She is more interested in social and cultural history than military or political. She is also
specialized in European and western history. These things influence her choice of literature for this
book. This choice colors the book by her background specifically (by her interests and
specializations).
Week 2-a
Lecture clip ‘Whose history? Gerda Lerner’:
Gerda Lerner was a very important historian in women’s and gender history. She looked at history
and identity and she made a connection called politically committed history. She became a
historian, because looking back at the past for women was painful. Women were made forgettable
and invisible. They only learned about their absence. She wanted to add a new perspective to
history.
She grew up in Vienna during a fierce political struggle and she grew up during the Anschluss, she
experienced exile and oppression as a left-winged Jewish woman. She was imprisoned as well in
secondary school. She fled Austria with her family, and it taught her that social definitions can turn
privileged citizens into outcasts. She also experiences oppression in the US, because she was a
