units

APG4301

Faculty of Arts

Monash University

Postgraduate - Unit

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

print version

12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

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LevelPostgraduate
FacultyFaculty of Arts
Organisational UnitHistory
OfferedClayton Second semester 2013 (Day)
Coordinator(s)Professor Bain Attwood

Notes

Previously coded HYM4120

Synopsis

This unit is designed to improve your understanding of the craft of writing history. The emphasis throughout is on reading history across different periods and places in order to appreciate the strategies used in the writing of history. A variety of styles and genres of historical writing will be studied, in order to analyse some of the key elements of historical prose, such as story-telling, scene-setting, characterisation, placing oneself in the text, documentation and the onus of proof. The unit also encourages self-conscious reflection about style, prose and voice, and has workshops designed to improve and extend students own experience of writing history.

Outcomes

  1. To examine issues of historiography and method through a critical reading of selected historians.
  2. To analyse some of the key elements of historical prose, such as story-telling, beginnings and endings, transitions, scene-setting, characterisation, placing oneself in the text, addressing different readerships, documentation and the onus of proof, irony and indirection, the use of different voices and tropes, formal and colloquial prose.
  3. To develop practical skills in reading and writing historical prose.

Assessment

Essays and writing exercises (9000 words): 100%

Chief examiner(s)

Contact hours

2 hour seminar per week

Prohibitions