History Extension Question Thread!

[theyam]

Basically, what I mean by describing is that a very common structure for a major work is:

Introduction
Paragraph 1 - Context (basically just the history of the event)
Paragraph 2 - Perspective 1
Paragraph 3 - Perspective 2
Conclusion

The person writing the report doesn't engage in the debate itself, or critically analyse the existence of the debate, but rather just outlines each side. Best way to avoid this is to find a thematic or conceptual through line - like the impact of (insert historiographical concept here) on the differing interpretations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I just had a thought - feel free to discount it, but from what I know about the event (which tbh isn't very much), Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains culturally relevant universally for sure, as it ended WWII, but also within the United States and Japan specifically. A great way to understand cultural significance is to look at national history, and how it is taught in schools - ie. through textbooks. Analysing the way that WWII history (in particular the dropping of the A-bomb) through both Japanese and American textbooks could be very interesting, and could provide insight into the significance of national narratives (i'd have a read of "Nations and Nationalism" by Eric Hobsbawm if you want to give this a go)? You could also maybe look at the concept of morality and ethics in history, and how historians have to grapple with these concepts - especially with such a controversial topic as Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Like, a lot of historians of the event focus on whether or not it was ethical or "right" to do so - but is that even something that can be determined given the subjectivity of morality itself?

Hope this helps Just some stuff to think about!

Susie

Hi Susie!

Sorry for this late reply, thank you so much for your ideas, it really helped me clarify my topic.

From theyam

[Jett321]

Thank you so much for all your help and also for your helpful as well as interesting lecture at uts for atar notes

[sudodds]

Thank you so much for all your help and also for your helpful as well as interesting lecture at uts for atar notes

Aww thank you So glad you enjoyed the lecture! Hope to see you round the forums more 

[prickles]

Hi,
Just needing some direction re my topic for my Interest Project. I thought I had finally made up my mind last week, but now I don't think it will interest me for a whole year. I was at a lecture, and one of the speakers was a medical historian. It really interested me, I'd never thought of a historian in a medical area. Has anyone done anything like this? I'm kinda flying blind here, any topics/debates that people could offer?

[sudodds]

Hi,
Just needing some direction re my topic for my Interest Project. I thought I had finally made up my mind last week, but now I don't think it will interest me for a whole year. I was at a lecture, and one of the speakers was a medical historian. It really interested me, I'd never thought of a historian in a medical area. Has anyone done anything like this? I'm kinda flying blind here, any topics/debates that people could offer?

Unfortunately I don't really know anything about medical historians or the medical field of history, however it does sound like a super interesting topic! Do you have any way of getting in contact with the medical historian you saw? After a modern history lecture run by Bruce Dennett (I kind of had already met him before, as he did a talk at my school) I went up and asked if he could have a look over my work, and he did! Provided me with some fantastic feedback (one part of which included him highlighting an entire paragraph and just writing "bollocks" underneath ahaha) - maybe worth a shot if you're keen to know more?

[EmzieRose]

Hey everyone, sorry to be a bother

You're home girl here is doing extension history (obviously) and I have NO IDEA what I want to do for my major work. I was hoping that I could get a couple of suggestions thrown at me for ideas on who/what I could study. I do both Modern History (overall 4th in course) and Ancient History (overall 1st in course) so either time period would suit me.

With modern history I'm not really into wars but very interested in politics and others (tbh anything except wars).

With ancient, I'm really interested in any kind of mythology (Greeks, Norse etc) and Egyptian history. Like low-key obsessed, but I don't know how well I would go with getting resources. 

Thanks for your time!

[sudodds]

Hey everyone, sorry to be a bother

You're home girl here is doing extension history (obviously) and I have NO IDEA what I want to do for my major work. I was hoping that I could get a couple of suggestions thrown at me for ideas on who/what I could study. I do both Modern History (overall 4th in course) and Ancient History (overall 1st in course) so either time period would suit me.

With modern history I'm not really into wars but very interested in politics and others (tbh anything except wars).

With ancient, I'm really interested in any kind of mythology (Greeks, Norse etc) and Egyptian history. Like low-key obsessed, but I don't know how well I would go with getting resources. 

Thanks for your time!

Hey! Great work in both Modern and Ancient! Those are some solid ranks Sooo glad that you picked up history extension! It is such an awesome subject - you won't regret it

In terms of your question, i'd recommend having a look at this guide I wrote for some basic ideas about how to think up an idea

In terms of specifics to your interest, remember that this is meant to be a historiographical essay - not a history essay. That means that you don't want to be just looking at historical events, but the ideas surrounding the construction, validity and legitimacy of the historical discipline, perhaps utilising a historical event or personality as a case study

You mentioned that you found mythology and politics really interesting? Just ideas, but you could potentially look at some of these things (maybe not for the entire question, some of these may only be the focus of a paragraph), all of which are quite historiographical!

- Myths as historical evidence (can mythology provide any concrete evidence about the past? Or is it purely fictional)
- Mythologising historical events/personalities (you could look at Shakespeare as an example, how he mythologises history through his own works, but has almost become a myth himself)
- Politicising history: how history is utilised to justify the present
- National Narratives and Invented Traditions (example: the highland myth)

Hope this helps! Enjoy History Extension, and make sure to come back here any time if you need help

Susie

[owidjaja]

Hey guys,
Quick question, would E.H Carr be classified as a postmodernist?

Thanks!

[sudodds]

Hey guys,
Quick question, would E.H Carr be classified as a postmodernist?

Thanks!

EH Carr is a relativist! So not as extreme as a post modernist - relativists believe that historians write the truth, however it's a subjective truth, rather than writing essentially fiction, as postmodernist believe.

Hope this helps!

Susie

[tay.j]

Hi,
Just a question for my History Project, I know I'm kinda behind because I haven't settled on a topic yet. I'm very much a visual learner, and absolutely hate reading pages of information - I have to read each sentence three times slowly before I get whats going on - not an efficient way to gather research. So I was thinking down the lines of something to do with photographs, and possibly how they document history, or something to do with subjectivity in photos (even though most photos first appear to be objective), I'm really not sure.It just makes me more excited than the prospect of reading page and pages and books and books of information. I do still understand that by doing something to do with photos, that won't completely eradicate reading of any kind, I'm very much aware that I will still have to do reading  Any ideas/direction?
Thanks so much!

[katie,rinos]

Hi,
Just a question for my History Project, I know I'm kinda behind because I haven't settled on a topic yet. I'm very much a visual learner, and absolutely hate reading pages of information - I have to read each sentence three times slowly before I get whats going on - not an efficient way to gather research. So I was thinking down the lines of something to do with photographs, and possibly how they document history, or something to do with subjectivity in photos (even though most photos first appear to be objective), I'm really not sure.It just makes me more excited than the prospect of reading page and pages and books and books of information. I do still understand that by doing something to do with photos, that won't completely eradicate reading of any kind, I'm very much aware that I will still have to do reading  Any ideas/direction?
Thanks so much!

Hey,
Don’t worry, it took me forever to come up with a question (that changed a few times)! I like your idea and it sounds really interesting.

You could talk about the nature of truth within history and photographs (and if a photograph can ever tell the complete truth). The issue of re-colourisation of black and white pictures came up earlier this year in the debate thread which could be interesting to look at.

I spoilered Susie’s debate post here:

Spoiler

Just watched a really interesting video by Vox on the re-colouring of old black and white photos, which brought up a lot of great points and historiographical issues that I think would be great for history extension students to consider and maybe include within their essays!

I think you could really use this as an example when discussing the nature of truth and history, because I found this issue to be quite paradoxical! On the one hand, the 'black and white'-ness of the photos aren't truth - the world did actually have colour prior to the 1960s believe it or not! By adding colour, you could say that these photos are becoming more truthful and realistic, especially considering the amount of time and research many colourists spend assuring the accuracy. HOWEVER, on the other hand, no matter how much time and effort is spent, you can still never 100% be accurate. The colours they select may be close, but they will never be objectively, historically accurate - which may distort our perception of the image and the historical event that is taking place. For example, in the video they bring up a really interesting point that various logos have changed throughout history (they use the example of 7-up!). If you don't realise this (and it would be a really easy thing to not realise) you could really screw up the accuracy of an image.

Another important thing to note is what the video discusses in terms of providing a greater level of engagement with the past. When we look at colorized images, they don't look so "old" anymore - it is way easier to empathise with and see the similarities between ourselves and an individual from 1911 when we can see the colour of the clothes they are wearing, or the "aliveness" so to speak of their skin/eyes etc. It makes them appear not so distant This definitely would have some historiographical implications!

Do you think this re-engagement with the past is worth the potential historical inaccuracies that'll arise through colorisation? Or do you think that colorisation is actually making these photos more accurate? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Susie

(Here's the accompanying article if you'd like to take a read as well!)

You could definitely do subjectivity of photos as all are bias (because they are positioned by the photographer with their different purposes,etc). You could maybe do case studies for this with different photos/photographers and their purposes/methodology to demonstrate their subjectivity.
There's probably heaps more ideas that you could do as well!

If you are a visual learner, you could try looking at documentaries to research as well. I found a really good lecture for my major from one of my historians and it was a lot easier then reading from an historical book.

Hope this helps!! Good luck in finding a question! 

[tay.j]

Hey,
Don’t worry, it took me forever to come up with a question (that changed a few times)! I like your idea and it sounds really interesting.

You could talk about the nature of truth within history and photographs (and if a photograph can ever tell the complete truth). The issue of re-colourisation of black and white pictures came up earlier this year in the debate thread which could be interesting to look at.

I spoilered Susie’s debate post here:

Spoiler

You could definitely do subjectivity of photos as all are bias (because they are positioned by the photographer with their different purposes,etc). You could maybe do case studies for this with different photos/photographers and their purposes/methodology to demonstrate their subjectivity.
There's probably heaps more ideas that you could do as well!

If you are a visual learner, you could try looking at documentaries to research as well. I found a really good lecture for my major from one of my historians and it was a lot easier then reading from an historical book.

Hope this helps!! Good luck in finding a question! 

Yes thanks heaps, that is very useful! Has the recolouring of photographs been done lots before?

[prickles]

Yes thanks heaps, that is very useful! Has the recolouring of photographs been done lots before?

Do you mean has the practice/art/process of recolouring photographs been done lots before, or history projects on photo recolouration been done lots before?

[tay.j]

Yeah the project on the recolouration of photos

[sudodds]

Yeah the project on the recolouration of photos

I highly doubt that it is a topic that is done very often - definitely not to the extent whereby it has become a cliche. Even then, as the project is marked internally, it actually doesn't matter if the project is a popular topic, as long as it appears original within the context of your class Along with this, even if you are doing a topic that has been done before, your take on the topic can still be entirely unique! With any topic, I think its best to try and steer clear of the "obvious" answer. So for example, initially my project was just on Bill O'Reilly, and how he was a terrible historian. Handed it into my teacher, and he made the point that, while yes, what I said was correct, and backed up by evidence, it wasn't very unique, as O'Reilly is universally considered pretty terrible - ie. I hadn't stretched myself enough. So in my final major work, I not only reduced the focus on O'Reilly, and used him as a case study rather than an element of the question, but I also worked out ways to validate his works (basically by saying that he's a shit historian, but he must still be considered a historian because many of the poor practices he employs are also employed by historians who we would say are fantastic eg. EP Thompson!)

Hope this helps,

Susie