History 547: Revolutionary Lives in the Atlantic World

Fall 2013: Mondays, 1:30 – 4:20 p.m.

Dickinson 207

 

David A. Bell

 

 

 

September 16. Introductory Meeting

 

September 23. The Question of Biography

 

Forum: “Historians and Biography,” American Historical Review, June 2009, pp. 573-661.

Jo Burr Margadant, “The New Biography in Historical Practice,” French Historical Studies, Fall 1996, pp. 1045-58

Jeremy Popkin, “Ego-Histoire and Beyond,” French Historical Studies, Fall 1996, pp. 1139-1167.

Roger Chartier, Jacques Revel and Orest Ranum, “Forms of Privatization,” in A History of Private Life (1989), vol. III,  pp. 161-264.

 

September 30. Selfhood, part I.

 

Jerrold Seigel, The Idea of the Self (2005), pp. 3-44.

Dror Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self (2004).

 

October 7, No Class

 

October 14. Selfhood, part II.

 

Jan Goldstein, The Post-Revolutionary Self (2005), pp. 1-181.

Kathleen Kete, Making Way for Genius  (2012), pp. 1-106.

Charly Coleman, “The Value of Dispossession: Rethinking Discourses of Selfhood in Eighteenth-Century France,” Modern Intellectual History vol. 2, no. 3 (2005), pp. 299-326.

Antoine Lilti, “The Writing of Paranoia: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Paradoxes of Celebrity,” Representations no. 103 (2008), pp. 53-83.

 

October 21. Contemporary  Models, part I

 

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771-88).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions (1782-9) bks. I, II, VII, VIII.  Copy on reserve is preferable to e-book.

 

November 4. Contemporary Models, part II.

 

Mason Locke Weems, Life of George Washington (1800).

François Furstenberg, In the Name of the Father (2006), pp. 105-146.

Emmanuel de Las Cases, Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon [Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène] (1823), vol. I. In this translation, vol. I represents the first quarter of the full text.

Robert Morrissey, Napoleon and the Economy of Glory, pp. to be determined (will be circulated).

 

November 11. The United States, part I.

 

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American  Revolution (1967), pp. 1-229.

Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1976), pp.  1-273.

 

November 18. The United States, part II.

 

Edith B. Gelles, Abigail and John (2010).

Sarah Knott, Sensibility and the American Revolution (2008), pp. 1-194.

 

November 25. France, Part I

 

Dena Goodman, ed., Writings on the Body of the Queen (2003).

Joan Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer (1996), pp. 1-56.

 

December 2. France, Part II

 

Lloyd Kramer, Lafayette in Two Worlds (1996), pp. 1-87.

Peter McPhee, Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life (2012).

David A. Bell, “The Impossible Dictator.” To be circulated.

 

December 9. France, Part III

 

Steven Englund, Napoleon: A Political Life (2005).

David Bell, The First Total War (2007), pp. 186-222.

Philip G. Dwyer, “From Corsican Nationalist to French Revolutionary: Problems of Identity in the Writings of the Young Napoleon, 1785–1793,” French History, vol. 16 (2002), pp. 132–52.

 

December 16. Atlantic Crossings

 

Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

Vincent Carretta, Equiano the African (2005).

 

Course Requirements:

 

1.      Class Discussion. Students are expected to attend all meetings of the course. Students are expected to have done all the readings carefully, and to participate in discussion of them.

 

2.      Background Reading. Students should have a basic familiarity with the events of the American, and French Revolutions. Suggested texts: Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic and The Radicalism of the American Revolution; Colin Jones, The Great Nation; François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, part I.

 

3.      Presentations and Questions. Each week, one student will take charge of starting off class with a 15-20 minute presentation of the week’s readings. The presentation should engage critically with the readings, in the manner of a good book review, rather than summarize them. In addition, each student should be prepared to ask critically-engaged questions of the presenter, in the manner of the Davis Center.

  

4.      Writing requirements: Students in the course have a choice of two different writing assignments. The first is a bibliographical essay surveying the biographical treatment of a particular individual. You should survey and evaluate the most important works, going back to the age of revolutions itself, modeling what you write after the sort of review essays that appear in learned journals (e.g. The Historical Journal, or The Journal of Modern History). It should ask what the “state of play” is in the biography of the individual: what sources, methods and theories have been employed by the biographers; what the deficiencies of current research are, and how these deficiencies might be addressed. Length: 20-30 pages. Alternately, students can write a research paper. It should be focused on a particular individual,. It does not have to be a complete survey of the individual’s life, but should be biographical in its approach. Length: minimum 30 pages. The essay is due Friday, December 20, 2013.

 

5.    Grading. All students will receive standard letter grades. Presentations and class discussion will count for roughly 40% of the grade. The bibliographic essay or research paper will count for roughly 60% of the grade. However, these percentages are only guidelines. The instructor will determine the final grade based on his overall judgment of each student’s performance.

 

6.    Language. Students do not need to read French to take this course.

 

Books:

 

You are not required to purchase any books. All articles will be linked to on the web version of this syllabus, and should be available to anyone trying to access them from a Princeton University computer, or a computer equipped with a Princeton VPN. All books will be on reserve in the History Graduate Student Reading Room on level C of Firestone library. If you have difficulties finding any readings, please contact the instructor immediately by e-mail (dabell@princeton.edu).

 

Students may wish to set up a “scanning cooperative” in which each student is responsible for scanning one week’s worth of readings. In this case the pdf files should be uploaded to a shared Dropbox folder.

 

Instructor:

 

David Bell

Dickinson 303

Office Hours: Mondays, 10-12 or by appointment

E-mail: dabell@princeton.edu

Phone: 609-258-1174

 

 

Web syllabus :

 

http://www.princeton.edu/~dabell/History547.htm