Methodology in History II

This is a graduate seminar on how historians actually build arguments from messy primary evidence, objects, images, coins, ceramics, texts, rather than a survey of what happened in the past. You'll pick a piece of material evidence early on, work it into a research proposal, and spend the semester reading methodological articles (Mediterranean material culture, spolia, gift economies, Peter Burke on images) alongside producing your own paper and presentation. It pairs with Methodology I to give you the source-criticism toolkit you'll lean on for the rest of your MA or PhD, where the question is rarely "what is the source" but "what can it legitimately be made to say."