Senior Seminar and Historical Methods
Course Information and Web Links
Professor: Robert W. Brown
HST 4510 and HST 5000 focuse on two separate but closely related topics. They deal first with methods of historical research, the critical evaluation of sources, primary as well as secondary, and the writing of an historical essay. Accordingly, one major course requirement will be a research paper. Because the process of historical research is as important as the research product, this paper will be the culmination of a series of steps (completed both within and outside the classroom) designed to help each student master the basic elements of research and effective written and oral presentation. Required also is an analysis of an historical document (a primary source) and a critical review of a scholarly work (a secondary source) on the topic of the research paper. At the end of the semester, each student will make an oral presentation summarizing the results of his/her research. This presentation should be done using PowerPoint.
The second component of HST 4510 and HST 5000 is a study of the western historiographical tradition. It surveys the writing of History from the earliest time to the present, and it investigates the nature of History, philosophies of History, and the various types of historical writing.
Selected World Wide Web Links
Avalon Project at Yale University
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
The Medieval Source Book
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi
(Catholic Site with Excellent Links)
http://www.christusrex.org/
The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/
Rome Resources Homepage
http://www.dalton.org/groups/rome/
Amiens Cathedral
http://www.learn.columbia.edu/Mcahweb/Amiens.html
The Abbey Church at Conques (Medieval
Pilgrimage Church)
http://www.conques.com/index1.htm
The French Revolution (Multimedia)
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
Library of Congress Homepage
http://www.loc.gov/
The Valley of the Shadow: Two
Communities
in the American Civil War
http://jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU/vshadow2/
The National Gallery of Art
(Washington,
DC)
http://www.nga.gov/home.htm
The Christian Catacombs of Rome
http://www.catacombe.roma.it/index.html
Documenting the American South (UNC
Chapel
Hill Library)
http://docsouth.unc.edu
The Internet Modern History Sourcebook
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
Eurodocs: Western European Primary
Historical
Documents
http://eudocs.lib.byu.ed/index.php/Main_Page
Bund Deutscher Madel
http://www.bdmhistory.com/
World War I (Trenches on the Web)
http://www.worldwar1.com/
The World War I Document Archive
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/
Links are checked frequently; if you find one that does not work,
please
send an email.