Our knowledge of the past, of history, depends on a number of things, including the historians, authors, filmmakers, and museum staff who create a narrative about a person, a time, a place, or an event. But ultimately those narratives rest on the evidence available to them – among them, documents, objects, oral histories, and increasingly digitized data. This three-week online class will focus on those sources and raise a number of questions as to how they survive and come to be used.

It is not a simple story, but one resting on the ability to create a source, the serendipity of its survival, the biases and viewpoints that lead to its preservation, and the manner in which individuals choose to interpret it. This is not a simple story, but one that raises many questions: questions about authority, intent, capacity, politics, funding, and changing viewpoints about the past. This course will be both lecture and discussion – indeed, discussion will be critical to debating and understanding how we come to know history.

Note: Readings for this course are suggested but not required. This course will not involve any written assignments.