Methods

[JD2PHD]

I am a current JD, and I want to have a legal history paper to present to PhD selection committees as a writing sample. My fear though, is that because I have not yet learned proper history methodology that I may turn out a product that actually hurts my chances rather than helps.

 

Two questions

(1) How much should I worry about using proper methodology when I am of course writing a legal history paper for publication in a law journal, not peer reviewed history. I assume admission departments would be aware of that?

 

(2) Is there a book or lecture you would recommend I get to teach myself proper methods?

 

Thanks!

[dr. t]

I don't think there is a codified "proper methodology" for history. I would check out Herbert Butterfield's The Whig Interpretation of History and David Hackett Fischer's Historians' Fallacies as good reference guides for how to think historically. Be aware the latter was written in the 70s and has some weird racist bits.

Edited November 23, 2014 by telkanuru

[JD2PHD]

I don't think there is a codified "proper methodology" for history. I would check out Herbert Butterfield's The Whig Interpretation of History and David Hackett Fischer's Historians' Fallacies as good reference guides for how to think historically. Be aware the latter was written in the 70s and has some weird racist bits.

 

Very helpful thanks!

[ashiepoo72]

You may want to find some articles on JSTOR to see how historians write and structure arguments. Is your paper based on primary source research? Does it talk about pertinent historical works? That's really what adcomms want to see.

[JD2PHD]

You may want to find some articles on JSTOR to see how historians write and structure arguments. Is your paper based on primary source research? Does it talk about pertinent historical works? That's really what adcomms want to see.

 

Could you elaborate on the "what adcoms want to see" part? Yes, I plan to base my work off of primary source material. (as a side note, do legal cases count as "primary sources" as well?). I do think I will need to beef up my discussion of pertinent historical works. As far as law review articles, you typically only discuss other works of legal scholarship briefly to support or counter your argument (unless of course you are writing a piece entirely for/against a particular body of scholarship/school of thought). I am coming to learn that history pieces focus much more on positioning the argument within the current body of scholarship (not to say law review articles ignore this completely, I just am a starting to think they do so to a lesser extent).

Edited November 23, 2014 by JD2PHD

[TMP]

It sounds fine to me.  Just submit the paper.  They just want to see how well you work with primary sources (legal cases are primary sources, especially the deposition, transcript, legal briefings, etc) and analyze them.  They're used to getting applications from JD people.  There are a dozen of historical methods out there and you'll learn a number of them through your graduate courses in the PhD program.

[scirefaciat]

Aspiring legal historian here: what's your time period, out of curiosity?  My thesis and article were both based entirely upon 14th century legal writs from the Kings Bench and Court of Common Pleas.  As there was no real historiography for what I was examining, there is very little discussion of it in my work that pertains to the documents themselves. 

 

In my case the writs were definitely primary source documents, so yours are too.  I would say that a brief discussion of the historiography at the beginning, structured to highlight the point you will be arguing, should do just fine.

[ashiepoo72]

Listen to TMP, your paper sounds just fine. Historians generally talk about the historiography (it varies, but can be a historiographical review at the beginning, or discussing historical works throughout, or both) but most of the paper should be based on primary sources. That's all I meant by "what adcomms want to see."

[JD2PHD]

What exactly is meant by "historiography?" I have heard the term a bunch, but I can't find a satisfactory answer that seems to match the common way its used in jargon. Does it mean talking about bodies of scholarship relevant to the paper?

 

And Scirefaciat I am interested in early american (18th and 19th century primarily) legal history. Did you already complete your PhD?

[dr. t]

What exactly is meant by "historiography?" I have heard the term a bunch, but I can't find a satisfactory answer that seems to match the common way its used in jargon. Does it mean talking about bodies of scholarship relevant to the paper?

 

Yes, but also the ways in which the understanding of the past has changed over time and why.

Edited November 24, 2014 by telkanuru

[JD2PHD]

Yes, but also the ways in which the understanding of the past has changed over time and why.

 

As in a history of historical thought? For example, if one were to write a piece about environmental conservatism, would historiography describe how society viewed environmental conservatism differently in a given era of time compared to the present? Is the comparison default always the present? Would you trace the history through all the relevant changes (for example colonial > industrial revolution > progressivism > modern) ?

 

Care to provide me with an example, maybe of something you have been working on? It seems like it assumes that the understanding of the past always has changed over time. 

 

Also you have answered a lot of my questions on here recently. So thanks for that

[ashiepoo72]

It's important for students of history to show their awareness of how historical arguments have changed over time, as well as place themselves within that web of historical ideas. The point of outlining the historiography is to give space to the historians who paved the way for your argument and research and to orient yourself within the web. Historiography is essentially the history of the writing of history.

 

It's not that you need to radically break away from the seminal work/s on your topic--at this stage in your career, you probably won't be able to--but you need to be aware of the "big names and works" in your field (as well as some of the less known, but no-less influential works) and where you are situated among the ideas coming from them.

 

If I was you, I'd look for books coming out of conferences in your field, because these usually outline new historiographical trends. I recently purchased a book on new directions in media history, for example.

[ashiepoo72]

Also, look at the bibliographies/footnotes of the secondary works you used in your paper. Do the same names pop up in multiple books? These may be foundational works you should know about.

 

Take note of when authors mention other historians in their book and how they agree/disagree/dialogue with them. This is the author showing you their location in the historiographical web.

[JD2PHD]

Very helpful thank you. Sorry to bring this back to a legal analogy, but would you say it is similar to explaining the legal precedents at the start of a law review article? (It shows how the law got to where it is, and then you contribute your thesis.)

[ashiepoo72]

I'm really not that familiar with law reviews, but my lawyer friend-turned historian says it's a similar process. You should probably look up history articles and books and see how the introduction is constructed--that's generally where the author talks about historiography and their argument/position in relation to it. They won't always bludgeon you over the head with it (i.e. "this is the historiography: blah blah blah. This is my position: blah blah blah) so you will have to scrutinize it carefully--as you should when it comes to introductions anyway. Looking at actual historical works will benefit you more than trying to find an exact replica for what historians do in what lawyers do.

[JD2PHD]

I'm really not that familiar with law reviews, but my lawyer friend-turned historian says it's a similar process. You should probably look up history articles and books and see how the introduction is constructed--that's generally where the author talks about historiography and their argument/position in relation to it. They won't always bludgeon you over the head with it (i.e. "this is the historiography: blah blah blah. This is my position: blah blah blah) so you will have to scrutinize it carefully--as you should when it comes to introductions anyway. Looking at actual historical works will benefit you more than trying to find an exact replica for what historians do in what lawyers do.

Thanks, after exams die down I am going to start reading some pure history articles (as compared to legal history) to really get a feel as you mentioned.

[czesc]

JD - just to add to what others have said, you should definitely be thinking about what you will be doing with your PhD that would add to your ability to analyze case law. As my advisor puts it, "you need to be going beyond what you would write in an opinion/brief/memo for your work to be a work of history". Think about the intellectual contexts of cases and of the contexts of contexts (the background behind the legislative histories of statutes, for example). As such, you're not going to be able to directly analogize all of what you're doing in law school to what you'd be doing in a PhD, but you can state in your application that you do want to get beyond the limits of pure legal analysis. 

[Sigaba]

@JD2PHD

I suggest that you find a copy of Peter Charles Hoffer's cv. Compare pieces he's written for law journals to those he's written for journals geared towards academic historians.