06/03/2022

Reading

J. Tosh, the Pursuit of History, 4th edition (Harlow, 2006), chapters 5 and 8
(Please skip reading the sections on theory as well as gender)

*”..., choice of theme gives a much clearer indication of the actual content of historical enquiry
(araştırma) than does choice of period or country.” (p. 115)
*the three most popular traditional categories:
political history
economic history
social history
*political history: the study of all those aspects of the past that have to do with the formal
organization of power in society, which for the majority of human societies in recorded history means
the state. (p.115)
*intrinsically: özünde, aslen, doğal olarak
*While political history has been written and read continuously since ancient times, other branches
have developed as permanent (kalıcı) additions to the repertory (repertuar) only during the past
hundred years. (p. 116)
*lay readership: readers outside the academic historical profession
*state is much more associated with the writing of history than with any other literary activity.
as a guidance to those who posses political power
as a legitimization of political elites’ positions
*German historicism was closely associated with a school of political thought.
Hegel: state is the main agent of historical change
*Ranke: “the spirit of modern times … operates only by political means.”
*Victorian historian, E. A. Freeman: “History is past politics.”
*The new emphasis on the critical study of primary sources merely confirmed the trend = the state
archives
*One of Ranke’s legacies: highly professional approach to the study of foreign policy
*the problem of biography:
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance many biographies were frankly didactic,
designed to present the subject as a model of Christian conduct or public virtue (rol model, akil insan
gibi). (p. 119)
*warts-and-all: showing the bad points as well as the good.
*posterity: gelecek kuşak
*detractors: kötüleyenler
*reasons to not to dismiss biographies all together:
important to understand the systems where one man has all the political power
a non relevant person’s biography can light an obscure part of the past
the critical use of primary sources requires systematic biographical use
indispensable to the understanding of motive and intention
*prosopography: collective biography
*high politics: the manoeuvring for power and influence among the few dozen individuals who
controlled the political system.
*self-evident: apaçık, kendini belli eden
*During the 20th century, much the most significant enlargement in the scope of historical studies has
been the shift of interest from the individual to the mass - from the drama of public events to the
underlying structural changes which over the centuries have transformed the lot of ordinary men and
women. (p. 125)
*historiography: the study of the writing of history, although sometimes also used to denote the range
of historians' writings on a particular theme

Questions for the week:

1. What are the limits of political history and biography?
Biography is very subjective. the story of the important people. motives and intentions of
people. contextualization.
2. What is social history/history from below?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Marxist theory and Annales School
approach in historical research?

07/03/2022

Lecture Notes

*Medieval:
Bede, Einhard - European?
Al-Tabari, Al-Masudi, Ibn Khaldun - Islamic
Procopius, Anna Komnena - Byzantine
*By showing history, one tries to show the truth.
*Biography is always there, a genre
*Islamic world - aligning Islam’s story as a part of world history. Al-Tabari tells the world history
with a focus of Abbasiler
*What happens when the Middle Ages are over?
Renaissance - reformation, source criticism,
Enlightenment - 18th century - progressive history, secularization, history can be
philosophical (what is time, what is change, etc.)
Romanticism - 19th century - used to create nation, spirit of music, feelings, etc. No state
archives, rather people searching for meaning in music, dance, people. prepares the ground for social
history
Nationalism - 19th century -
Positivism - 19th century - positivism in positive sciences affects social sciences.
Modern history writing - 19th and 20th century - Historicist vs. positivist vs. postmodern
historicism - scientific traditional history - Ranke
positivist - annales school - marxist view - history from below
*Modern history writing
*historicism - scientific traditional history - Ranke
state archives - state cannot lie - diplomatic history, tax records, crime/court records, petitions
from people, military recordings, cadastral and demographic records, monetary records
hermeneutics
commitment to political and diplomatic history
there is a positivist truth. I will find the only truth and show it
personal ideas are not supposed to be there - like a neutral machine - there are no laws
governing the past.
 Rankean people only take a picture, no further explanation about the future.
reconstructing the past - “common sense” is a problem - description of the past - history not
as a tool but only to understand history
*positivist history
constructionist, not reconstructionist
whig history: an example of nationalist history
*social-economic history
start on macroeconomic issues
social issues, like poverty, ignorance, etc.
*Annales School
other disciplines are gaining worth
trying to explain everything, people, culture, food, politics, weather, geography
constructionist, problem-oriented
not diachronic but synchronic
writing the history of a village is more doable
*structure vs. conjuncture:
structure: ?
conjuncture: ?
*Phase 1:
Febvre and Bloch
*Phase 2:
Braudel
*Phase 3:
Le Goff?
*Marxian School
the basic premise: materialistic approach, transforming materials/nature to benefit people,
class conflict

08/03/2022

Lecture Notes

*Marxist approach
relations of production: division of labor, forms of cooperation and subordination
factors of production: labor + forces of production + capital
forces of production: exploit the nature: land, tools, etc.
*The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real
foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond define forms
of social consciousness. (Marx)
*The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and
intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social
existence that determines their consciousness. (Marx)
*Superstructure: law, political institutions, ideology, and religion
*clash between forces of production: characteristics of capitalist and feudal relations of production
*Marxism offers an explanation to the totality of social relations.
it explains past and future.
it also explains tensions in society.
*Althusser vs. Gramsci
 Gramsci: hegemony. more interested in superstructure. how the system sustain itself?
culturalist marxist
indoctrination: bir doktrine doktrinlenme. you are let to believe that doctrine.
“Türküm, doğruyum, çalışkanım” Atatürkçülük vb.
Althusser: less emphasis on role of the individual, more emphasis on the system and its
actors.

14/03/2022

Lecture Notes

*E. Thompson: proto-communism.

*Christopher Hill: culturalist history.
*Perry Anderson: state is not a simple reflection of feudal lords (?)
*Eric Hobsbawn: industrial revolution brought repression. French revolution brought the sense of
nationalism. Nationalism is constructed, it is used and abused for creating violent and efficient
modern states.
*Ömer Lütfi Barkan (1902-1979): early stages of Ottoman Empire. Working with the archives
*Sabri Ülgener (1911-1983): mentality of the Ottoman economy
*Mustafa Akdağ (1913-1973): Annales perspective
*Halil İnalcık (1916-2016): Annales school and benefits from Marxist sociology
*Doğan Avcıoğlu:
*Sencer Divitçioğlu: accused the state in the context of Turkey (maybe also Ottoman?)
*İdris Küçükömer: accused the state in the context of Turkey (maybe also Ottoman?)

*Cultural Term
cultural historians are more interested in how people are perceived, like their positions in a
conflict, how they define themselves, etc.
*contributions to the rise of cultural history
development of psychology, Freudian perspective, the way we process, giving meaning
focusing on the masses and the ordinary people
literary theory, the way images and words are constructed
Marxian approach - culturalist marxism looks at the way material condition -
Annales School - inspecting ordinary people, second degree literature - efemera kültürü -
popular culture
psychoanalysis - “(people are) … buffeted by conflicts, ambivalent in their emotions, intent
on reducing tensions, by defensive strategems, and for the most part dimly, or perhaps not at all,
aware why they feel and act as they do.” (Peter Gay, Freud for Historians) - going back to the
childhood in order to reduce neurosis -
Id, ego, superego: Id wants to do, Superego is the moral voice of society, ego plans to
get away in between
Eros (libido) versus Thanatos: thanatos is destructive
pleasure principle: you might take pleasure from Eros or Thanatos
oedipus complex: childhood complex
*Can you think of works from Annales and Marxian schools that focused on culture?

15/03/2022
Lecture Notes

*contributions to the rise of cultural history (cont’d)

cultural anthropology
anthropoly: structure of the society, meaning making process of individuals, alterity
culture: gives you the framework. a reference point. it is learned. it’s not nature, it’s
nurture. it is very context specific.
enculturation: being part of your culture. children enculturated by their parents.
acculturation: Turkish guy going to Germany and learning German (Almancılar)
*”Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to
be those webs and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of
law but an interpretative one in search of meaning.” (Clifford Geertz)

21/03/2022

Lecture Notes

*Clifford Geertz’ quote did not try to explain everything, rather choose an example like Müslüm
Gürses to explain the rituals of the culture, and its listeners. Significance of the words: the change
from “içki içmek” to “alkol almak”
*thick vs. thin description
thick description: providing a cultural context
thin description: without interpretation
*the great cat massacre - robert darnton
wasn’t a one time event, they told this about the other çıraklar
they judged the cats and decided they were guilty
source: a man’s diary,
cats are associated with females and female sexuality, and cult sciences, such as magic,
witches. cats are tortured
*contributions to the rise of cultural history (cont’d)
literary theory
discourse is considered to be an institutionalized way of thinking that … (REST IN
THE SLIDES)

*postmodernism
challenges to Historian’s craft
traditional doubts -is history science?
postmodern attack -prioritization of language
*the historian’s first duty is to accumulate factual knowledge about the past - facts that are verified by
applying critical methods to the primary sources; those facts will in turn determine how the past
should be explained or interpreted.

22/03/2022

Lecture Notes
*Carl Becker: “History is not the past, nor yet the surviving past. It is a reconstruction of certain parts
of the past (from surviving evidence) which in some way have had relevance for the present
circumstances of the historian who reconstructed them.” (1931)
*Modern history writing:
Historicist: Scientific traditional history
Ranke - RECONSTRUCTING
Positivist: Social-economic history
Marxism and Annales - CONSTRUCTING - causes and effects
Postmodernism
DECONSTRUCTING - it does not try to simply explain what happened, why it
happened. it basically sees in a historical period its inconsistencies or lies.
*postmodernism started with architecture
*characteristics of postmodern approach: (modern vs postmodern)
Individualism
Multiplicity vs simplification
There is no absolute truth
truth vs interpretation and relativism
Real vs representation/images
Contradiction vs difference
universalism vs localness
Meta theories vs multiplicity of perspectives
Politics/ethics vs esthetics
Ideological vs deconstruction
language is prioritized
*We can use language to say what isn’t in the world, as well as what is. And since we come to know
the world through whatever language we have been born into the midst of, it is legitimate to argue that
our language determines reality, rather than reality our language. (Sturrock 1986, Structuralism, 79)
language is not a window, it determines our reality, our perception of the world

28/03/2022

Lecture Notes

*challenge of postmodernism
anti-positivist
distrust of meta-theories and totalities including modernism
relativist-lacking an organizing principle
prioritization of language
the author is dead, the author is just participating in the language structure. the
meaning is determined by the language system that the author participates in. one has to look at the
language culture. a text is drawn from multiple centers.
the triangle of meaning: reader (observer, looker, watcher, viewer, etc. - there are
many viewership) + author (writer) + text (language)
destination is more important than the creator of a text
deconstruction of a text: first, try to open up multiple meanings of a text, unintended
layers, an extreme example İstiklal Marşı in lubunca. Jacques Derrida: let’s do readings that
are dissonant.
look at the tensions of the spirit of the text and letter of the text.
 the receiver of the message revises it all the time.
deconstruction undermines the privileged meaning
-deconstruction and discourse analysis
*discourse is considered to be a institutionalized way of thinking that can be manifested through
language, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic (conceptual categories
and patterns of usage)
*Michel Foucault
two concepts: identity (self) and power (not military or state power. power is everywhere. it is
between all of us. It is a relationship, not a thing. how power works in different institutions?)
madness and civilization: a history of insanity in the age of reason
the archeology of knowledge
discipline and punish: the birth of prison
the history of sexuality
*we cannot access the original meaning. we can interpret interpretations (of interpretations)
*multiple truths and versions
*There are no facts. historians construct their facts
*prefigured emplotment
*H. White: “what is at issue is not what the facts are but rather how the facts are to be described in
order to sanction one mode of explanation over the other.”
*History writing has a lot of literary aspects. historians write in a certain way. medium is the message.
*postmodern invitation to historians
discourse in context
representations/perceptions
reader-oriented
emphasize literary nature of your craft
know your assumptions/make yourself as historian explicit
*Donelly oku sınav için
Alabi’s World
Mirror in the Shrine
Fiction in the Archives
Stories of Scottsboro

29/03/2022

Lecture Notes

*genre - start with the genre of the primary source - what it can give you, what it cannot give you
*non-linear history
*parallel history

*microhistory
*reaction to meta theories
*focuses on the individual
*was born in 1970-80s
*reaction to big stories, crisis,
*is not anti-Marxist
*criticizes Marxism due to missing the human face
*Examples to microhistory texts: Jacques Le Goff - Saint Louis, Peter Burke - Popular Culture in
Early Modern Europe
*Jacques Le Goff - Saint Louis
How many saint louises are there?
examines the way saint louis talks, his religious views
*Approach: attempt to create a new method that would allow historians to rediscover the lived
experience of individuals, with the aim of revealing how those individuals interacted not only with
one another, but also with the broader economic, demographic, and social structures.
*method:
1 (nominative): it follows the names in any kind of archive, and record
2 (evidentiary):

microhistory ve peter burke oku

03/04/2022

Georg Iggers - From Macro- to Microhistory: The History of Everyday Life

*The subject matter of historical studies moved, for the historians of everyday life, from what they
call the “center” of power to the “margins”, to the many, and the many are for them overwhelmingly
the disadvantaged and the exploited.
*Neither the ethnologist nor the historian, according to Geertz and Medick, has immediate access to
the experience of others. Therefore he has to contuniue to depicher these experiences indirectly
through symbolic and ritualistic acts that, proceeding beneath the immediacy of individual intentions
and actions, form a text that makes access to another culture possible.
*

04/04/2022

Lecture Notes

*what is microhistory? (cont’d)

it is still constructionist
it believes that individual stories reflect larger economic, social, political trends
looking at two extremes
*Ginzburg (primary source)
works at a miller
not a slave
he has some ruling power
has power to talk
shared his controversial ideas about religion, Jesus, Mary being not a virgin, Holy Ghost does
not guide the church, church is a money-making machine
there is an accusition
ginzburg is trying to understand the character, read the books he read, such as Martin Luther,
Ibni Sina, Quran, etc.
trends: Islam, competeing religious discourses: protestant discourse, catholic discourse,
anabaptists
*critisicm of microhistory
 focus on individuals
microhistorians are like anthropologists
not diachronic studies but also not synchronic
we can not be sure whether the individual represent the overall community and their general
features, does this individual belong to majority or the minority of the group? (how representative is
your sample)
lack of information which leads to speculation
*”it is difficult to assess the significance or representativity of personal narratives or collective
biographies, however detailed, without an understanding of the overall movements of slaves of which
these individuals’ lives were a part.” (Eltis and Richardson)
*Cemal Kafadar, example of a microhistorian in Turkey

*Alltagsgeschichte/everyday life history

looking at the repetition, and insignificantly regular
focus on routine
still life paintings
rituals are rutinized
Veralltaeghlichung
constructionist
you look at the micro power
Alf Lüdtke, Hans Medick, Paul Veyne, Peter Carr

05/04/2022

Lecture Notes

*types of exchanges
reciprocity (karşılıklılık)
redistribution
market exchange
*theory explains change
*theory can be speculative
*theory generalizes
*theory is presentist
*Burke:
he mentions 4 approaches:
models
methods (comparative, quantitative/qualitative, microscope/telescope)

12/04/2022

Lecture Notes

*essentialist/primordialist view (Renan, Fichte) vs. constructivist view (Karl Deutsch, a group of
people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbors)
*approaches:
 Ernest Gellner: nations are a modern invention that fit the functional requirements of modern
societies. Nations have come into being through modernisation in general and industrialisation in
particular. Modernisation requires the development of a common culture and common language.
Benedict Anderson: nation as an imagined community. It imagined itself as a community of
self-rule, as sovereign. Shared literacy + shared language + shared culture = the conditions for the
emergence of shared national identity (needs printing). It needs to be fought for and defended.
Anthony D. Smith: starts with the concept of an ethnic community. In Europe these
communities began to take shape in the Middle Ages. Before nations we find elements of ethnic
communities (the Welsh with a shared language: the Scots with their allegiance to a feudal state
distinct from the English) which were the raw materials for the creation of the modern nation.
*stratification: through class, Weberian (through class, status, and party),
*ascribed and achieved
*three approaches to social stratification:
structural-functional approach: every institution has a role to play for stability. division of
labor is necessary. Everyone can take part in a race, but the features needed to win are based on the
class.
social-conflict approach: Marxian understanding. Some people want to get the surplus for
themselves. based on class conflict
symbolic-interaction approach: not interested in the causes of stratification, but its impact on
our life.