Lecture: 2 hours per week / semester
Seminar: 2 hours per week / semester
Classroom instruction will include both lectures and seminar discussions. Lectures will provide instruction on weekly topics with opportunities for student inquiry and discussion. Seminars will encourage active class participation in the analysis of assigned primary and secondary readings. Classroom instruction may also include facilitation of student-led projects, student presentations on specific readings and/or topics, and other types of student-led activities. Classroom instruction may also include tutorials and workshops on transferrable skills, including research methods, academic citation practice, and presentation skills.
A sample course outline may include the following topics.
Note: Content may vary according to the instructor’s selection of topics.
- Introductions to History and Film
- Enlightened History? Defining “the Modern”
- A Quick History of Film: From Magic Lanterns to the Digital Age
- Facts and Footnotes: Historical Methodology
- Classical History: The Greek Fathers of History
- Sacred History: Church Scholars and the Reformation
- Political History: Docudramas of Dead White Men?
- Social History: Everyday Life as Storytelling?
- Marxist History: The Proletariat as Movie Star?
- Postmodern History? Killing Cats and the Panopticon
- Edifying Entertainment: Documentary Films and History
- Holocaust History: Moral Truth Beyond the Facts?
- The Filmmaker as Historian? From DW Griffiths to Oliver Stone
- History by Hollywood: Historical Film as Genre?
At the conclusion of the course, successful students will be able to demonstrate historical thinking skills, research skills, critical thinking skills and communication skills appropriate to the level of the course by:
- Locating, examining, assessing, and evaluating a range of primary sources and secondary scholarly literature critically and analytically (reading history).
- Constructing historical arguments, taking historical perspectives, and interpreting historical problems through different types of writing assignments of varying lengths (writing history).
- Participating in active and informed historical debate independently and cooperatively through classroom discussion and presentation (discussing history).
- Independently and cooperatively investigating the ways that history is created, preserved and disseminated through public memory and commemoration, oral history, community engagement, and other forms of popular visual and written expressions about the past (applying history)
Assessment will be in accordance with the Douglas College student evaluation policy. Students may conduct research with human participants as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans.
Students will have opportunities to build and refine their research capacity and historical thinking skills through assessments appropriate to the level of the course. There will be at least three separate assessments, which may include a combination of midterm and final exams; research essays; primary document analysis assignments and essays; quizzes; map tests; in-class and online written assignments; seminar presentations; student assignment portfolios; group projects; creative projects; class participation.
The value of each assessment and evaluation, expressed as a percentage of the final grade, will be listed in the course outline distributed to students at the beginning of the term. Specific evaluation criteria will vary according to the instructor’s assessment of appropriate evaluation methods.
An example of one evaluation scheme:
Class Participation (Quizzes, presentations, discussion) 20%
Abstracts (2x5%) 10%
Historiographic Essay 30%
Analytic Essay 10%
Midterm 15%
Final Exam 15%
Textbooks and Course Readers may be chosen from the following list, to be updated periodically.
An instructor’s custom Course Reader may be required. Additional online resources may also be assigned. Additional reading lists and links to specific resources also may be provided online or in the instructor’s course outline.
Arnold, John. History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Claus, Peter, and John Marriott. History: An Introduction to Theory, Method and Practice. Toronto: Pearson, 2012.
Hoefferle, Caroline. The Essential Historiographical Reader. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011.
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie ed. The History on Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Popkin, Jeremy. From Herodotus to H-Net: The Story of Historiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Rosenstone, Robert. History on Film / Film on History. 3rd ed. New York: Longman, 2017.
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