Who Owns The Past? UN1001: Perspectives on Inquiry Syllabus-- Fall 2003

Abstract

available at the Motherlode Coffee Shop downtown. Course Description: In this class, students explore the various ways the past is remembered, recovered, created, and used. What we know about the past comes from many sources. Scholars in archaeology, paleobiology, history, genetics, ethnography, classics, forensics, religion, oral history, and ecology continuously make discoveries about the history of planet Earth, discarding old ideas and examining new ones. The historical concepts of these scholars are digested and repackaged by the media and popular culture. What is the authority on which scholars base their constructions of the past? Are there fundamental differences in the way that the sciences and humanities contribute to discovery of history? Are the differences real or illusory? Do we discriminate between the contributions of these fields? Should we discriminate? Does it really matter? Course Objectives: 1. Students shall engage current debates about the past as young intellectuals. An intellectual perspective requires one to understand multiple perspectives on an issue (often considered as the ‘sides ’ of an ‘argument’). An intellectual is able to effectively argue any position in a debate because they understand all ‘sides.’