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History at Queens: Culture, Politics, and Identity course

February 4, 2012 in Class Summaries

I started the week with supervisor meeting and my Historical Documents class, which you can read about here. On Thursday, I had the first meeting of my second of the two spring courses: Culture, Politics, and Identity. This is a real, honest to goodness, class on history. Not theory, not practice, actual history. Though I’ve been sufficiently indoctrinated to question what ‘actual history’ is to begin with, we’ll put that aside. C.P.I., as I will probably refer to it for brevity’s sake, will cover ‘the interaction between culture and politics in different sections of Irish society between the sixteenth century and the recent past.’1

Irish history is a fascinating mix of differing views on culture and politics, and it should be much fun to study. For those of you who are unfamiliar with current political boundaries in Ireland, I’d definitely recommend this video summary by CPGray:


(if you want just the explanation of Ireland, skip to about 1:40 and play through 2:20 — I think the whole video is good, however)

I’ll be assessed2 by three papers, though one hardly counts at only 10% of my total marks. That leaves 90% of my marks contingent on two 4,000-5,000 word essays. Oh yay. Best line  from this part of the handbook: ‘It is your responsibility to organize your workload so that your two essays may be completed on time.’ There’s a shock. Anyway, the two essays must be on one of the topics covered in the class, but I can choose that, which is nice. The third essay is really just a short essay over a presentation we must attend, again of our choosing, and relating to the class.

The class topics will be:

  • 9 Feb: ‘More Irish than the Irish themselves’? The debate on culture and identity in early modern Ireland
  • 15 Feb: Anglo-Irish cultural identities in the 18th Century
  • 23 Feb: The culture and politics of O’Connellism 3
  • 1 Mar: Popular culture / language change
  • 8 Mar: Young Ireland and the politics of culture
  • 15 Mar: Cultural nationalism and revolution
  • 22 Mar: Diaspora and identity
  • 29 Mar: Religion and identity, 1800-1914
  • 26 Apr: Protestant politics and Ulster unionism, 1800-1914 4
  • 3 May: Politics, women and identity in Ireland, c. 1922-1972
  • 10 May: The politics of commemoration in modern Ireland

Should be fun, no? Well, I’m excited anyway. Stay tuned for updates along the way!

Read more from History at Queens:

 

  1. From the introduction to the wonderful module handbook ↩
  2. Remember dear American reader, that they say ‘assessed’ and ‘marks’ rather than ‘graded’ and ‘grades’ ↩
  3. I will be doing a presentation on this topic, yay! ↩
  4. If you are perplexed by the rather large gap between the last class and this one, it’s due to a university-wide 3 week break everyone gets. Yay! ↩

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The Second Semester: History at Queens

February 3, 2012 in Class Summaries

I still haven’t posted all of my class summaries from last semester that I intended to do. Never fear, should you have some inner desire to read about historiography, there’s more where that came from! Nevertheless, I have begun my second semester as a Queen’s student. I’ll try to be more proactive in summarizing the history classes, for those of you who find this interesting.

First off, I now have a dissertation supervisor. I was assigned one, I’m assuming based in part on my research interests in the Troubles. Bragging moment, or perhaps moment of fear: he is the chair of the history department at Queens. Yes, I am mildly intimidated. But I met him for the first time Monday (actually, he led the discussion on Archives last semester–I met him for the first time in regards to my dissertation on Monday), and am excited to work with him. He definitely knows a lot, but seems like he’ll be supportive of my work too. He said he liked the general idea I had, and thought there would be plenty to write on (always a good sign!). I have to turn in a rough proposal outline next week, so I am currently skimming books and planing archive visits for the next few days. So much I want to do! Ah, I love academics.

Tuesday marked the first meeting of the ‘Historical Documents’ course. What, you may rightly ask, is historical documents all about? Well, aside from the obvious, the class is targeted at practical research skills. In fact, the ‘class’ is not so much a ‘class’ but a very, very large project. We’ll only meet regularly for about the next month, after which time we’ll be turned loose to produce fantastic original research aids. There are three options for projects in the class:

  1. Calendar. No, not the wall variety with cute puppy photos, or the popular doomsday Mayan calendar, this document is perhaps described as an annotated summary of a body of texts. Or to be more direct, a list of a collection of primary sources (such as newspapers or leters), which includes a transcription (perhaps the full text, or poignient quotations) and annotations (brief biographies, information on places, etc). It could be compared to a critical edition of a text, though a whole collection of material rather than a single text.
    Supposedly about 80% of students choose this route. Oh did I mention length? All projects have a 5,000 word introduction, the Calendar itself must be around 10,000 words. Final product therefore will be about 15,000 words, or approximately 50 pages, give or take.
  2. Finding Aids. Essentially a list of primary sources on a given subject. It aims at directing the reader to everything that might be relievant to a given subject. Fun subjects like ‘Northern Ireland & Canada: A Guide to Northern Ireland Sources for the Study of Canadian History, c.1705-1992.’ (lest you think I’m poking fun at some poor student’s topic, not only will I have to pick an equally narrow field whatever project I choose, but this was actually a book published by PRONI). Just in case you think this is somehow easier than a calendar, it’s not. It requires lots, and lots, and lots of comprehensive research. Remember I said everything? Yup.
    About 18-19% of students go this route. Goal is about 8,000 words, so mercifully a bit shorter than a calendar, though of course by the time you add your 5,000 word introduction, that is a small savings.
  3. Historical Database. This option, chosen by 1% or so of students, is certainly the most challenging of the three. In fact, no one has submitted one for the past several years. Why so few? Presumably because historians are generally afraid of numbers, and the database is essentially a statistical project and wholly devoted to numbers. Therefore the prospect of manipulating large amounts of them is quite terrifying. Equally terrifying is the prospect of using advanced computer databases and software. If this didn’t scare you, the size might. The website ‘London Lives‘ was given as an example. Check it out. The scope of such a project should scare you.
    Ok, in all seriousness, while difficult, this certainly would be interesting. And if you checked that site out, you’ll notice that a database need not be wholly devoted to numbers. It could also be, as in the case of ‘London Lives’, prosopographical (see what fun we historians have??). Also, it need not be as extensively large as the example.

Most likely, I’ll follow the route of 80% students, and produce a calendar. Maybe a collection of newspaper articles during the start of the Troubles, or something like that. The goal is, with any of these projects, to produce something useful to the wider scholarly audience. Some student projects even get published.
All in all, I’m quite excited, in a way, for the course. While I expect it to be a great deal of work, I think it could be quite rewarding.

Read more from History at Queens:

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Research methods — Irish Historical Studies rules

January 23, 2012 in Class Summaries, History at Queens

I’m still playing catch-up on these class summaries from last semester.Oh well. This is from Monday ..2011

One part of being a historian that I am not as wild about is following style rules when writing. I understand why it’s important, but it is rather aggravating nonetheless. Naturally, no one has yet decided on a universal historical style citation guide. Someone should, seriously.

In the States, Chicago style is quite common. On this side of the pond, I believe Oxford—or something called something approximately like Oxford—is common. At Queens? Irish Historical Studies.

Since you probably won’t ever have to follow I.H.S. rules, I’ll spare you the boring details. Basically, they are the rules for contributors to the Irish Historical Studies journal. Some make sense. Some do not. Failure to follow them results in marks being taken away. I’m pretty sure I.H.S. is convinced failure to follow them will result in the collapse of the island.

If you are in the states, here are a few things you might find interesting (not all apply to I.H.S. specifically):

  • This side of the Atlantic prefers single quotation marks to double marks. Thus ‘To be or not to be’ rather that “To be or not to be”. Crazy. Quotations within quotations then become double marks. Logical, really, but confusing as heck when you still use the American system and simultaneously use the British system. My apologies if I switch in my writing here.
  • Capitals, according to I.H.S. are of the devil. Do not use capital letters.
  • Never abbreviate journal titles, except of course, I.H.S. ‘Cause it’s special.
  • Generally place a period after abbreviations, except those abbreviations which you don’t need to 1
  • For example: ‘eds’ is ok. ‘ed’ is not. You’ll get in trouble for just putting ‘ed’ down. 2
  • Never break up a citation with a period. Commas. Commas are your friend.
  • There is a significant difference between ‘p.’ and ‘pp’. And ‘p’ is incorrect while ‘pp’ is correct.

If for some reason you need to know I.H.S. rules, I’d suggest you visit their website: http://www.irishhistoricalstudies.ie/. And you can download the rules for contributors there.

Ok, ok in truth the rules are good to have. I feel like using a pretty specific journal for the rules might be, well, specific. But rules are good. And this class period was quite helpful to me to understand them better.

This is a part of my History at Queens series. I am writing on what I’m learning in my modules and as a part of my own research. Hope you enjoy!

  1. Confused? Yeah, it’s a bit convoluted ↩
  2. In truth, it generally is whether or not the abbreviation is truly an abbreviation or a contraction. Contractions=no punctuation. Abbr.=well, you see :) ↩

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Quantitative History and Statistics — Research Methods 31.10.11

January 14, 2012 in Class Summaries, History at Queens

Historians aren’t generally known for liking numbers, if not for being downright scared of them. Which is probably why we discussed them on a chilly Halloween evening! In all seriousness, this was a good class, numbers and statistics are important in the study of history.

If you don’t believe history has any quantitative elements, go through your nearest history book, article, or whatever text you might have and underline any quantitative words. You’ll probably find a lot, even if they don’t seem directly connected with words. Look for words like growth, many, primarily, for some, increasingly/decreasingly, remote, popular, one of, mass, smaller, and so on. Our lecturer, to make his point, gave us a short excerpt which we underlined those quantitative words.

Some historiographical schools of thought use statistics and economics as as significant part of their analysis. Can you guess which one I’m thinking of at the moment? Yup–Marxism! Still, their use does not have to be confined to Marxists alone. We discussed several advantages to using quantitative history.

Downsides can include:

  • Imposing to rigid categories onto history
  • Loss of detail (summarizing data necessarily involves a loss of data)
How historians might intigrate numbers and statistics into their projects will of course vary by project. Certainly, at the very least, they ought to be aware of the words they use, as mentioned at the beginning. Tables and charts are probably one of the primary ways to present data, and we discussed formatting and uses for different types of charts. It isn’t anything I didn’t learn in my undergraduate stats course, but a good refresher anyway.

As with a lot of things, I think it is important for the historian to use numbers and statistics where appropriate, just as they ought to at least consider the impact of memory, gender, culture, and so forth in their historical analysis.

This is a part of my History at Queens series. I am writing on what I’m learning in my modules and as a part of my own research. Hope you enjoy!

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Research Methods — visiting the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)

January 12, 2012 in Class Summaries, History at Queens

One of the fun, and difficult, challenges of studying here is a rather new lingo experience. Take for instance ‘PRONI’. When I first heard professors talking about ‘PRONI’ I had no idea what they were talking about. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, I’ll save you the learning curve. In short, it is the national archives of Northern Ireland, and stands for ‘Public Records Office of Northern Ireland’. You can visit their website here. In addition to the online catelogue, the website also has some material avaliable online–great for someone researching family history!

Lingo and language difficulties aside, one of the things I really like about the MA programme at Queens is the practical experience we gain. This class was no exception. We were given a guided tour of PRONI. Located in the Titanic Quarter 12, it is in a brand-new building, which just opened in the past couple of years. The records themselves, however, date back to the 1600s. As a repository, PRONI holds both public records, as you might have guessed, but also holds records from individuals and corporations–some of which are public-accessable. All members of the public have access to PRONI and public records. 3 One must register first, however, and get a card to access the facilities. Requesting documents is done via computer, and records are delivered to a reading room for researchers. This process, supposedly, takes around 15-20 minutes.

I will undoubtedly spend many hours at PRONI conducting research. For research in Northern Ireland, it is pretty much inescapable. Not that I have any complaints, it looks like a pretty decent resource and place to spend time.

This is a part of my History at Queens series. I am writing on what I’m learning in my modules and as a part of my own research. Hope you enjoy!

  1. As the name implies, the Titanic Quarter is home to the dock where the Titanic was built, and where it launched ↩
  2. Hmm, just had a thought, perhaps I should write some about the geography of Belfast? ↩
  3. Though some documents have restrictions, often they must be over 30 years old to be open and public-accessible without prior government approval ↩

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