History as a Method - Introduction to Political Science - Notes | POLS 2000, Study notes of Political Science

Download History as a Method - Introduction to Political Science - Notes | POLS 2000 and more Study notes Political Science in PDF only on Docsity! HISTORY AS A METHOD… April 14, 2011 Purpose of Understand History o To understand how we got here o The trajectory Elite or Political History o Very similar to what we experienced in high school  Important leaders, events, battles, etc.  One damn thing after another o It is somewhat limited o Very focused on the records of very important people Social History o The lived experience of everyday people is most important o Important contribution to this…  Cultural history  The history of ideas  As belief systems shift over time  Dialectical Materialism—Marxism  Hegel—ideas are what shift & shape the world  Marx—ideas are just there, not primary, they don’t shape the world  Great Man Theory—in order to understand history, you must understand what that important person did  Ex) Hitler was the manifestation of what was going on in Germany; just the guy who was there and did this; Nature of Narrative  People need to think and express narratives  We need to tell stories  This is how we understand the world o Trope —generalized storyline; all history fits into these basic storylines  Key to limited storylines = Metaphor o Ex) Balinese Cockfight o Ex) The Birth of the Prison—Michel Foucault  Used to understand contemporary Western Society  Old way—more humane because we would just kill them  New way—torture them for the rest of their lives by locking them up in a prison  Every decade, public schools look more like prisons  Processing tracing —tracing the process of a political action o Ex) how do laws get passed?  Trace the process of the history of a bill