GENED 1105 - Can We Know Our Past?

Prof. Jason Ur
M W 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM

In a time when histories are being contested, monuments removed, and alternative facts compete with established orthodoxy, how do we evaluate competing narratives about what really happened in the past?

What happened in the past? How do you know? Even though today we take great pains to document every major event that occurs, more than 99% of human history is not written down. How, then, can we determine with any certainty what people did, let alone thought about, hundreds, thousands, and even millions of years ago? This course addresses these and other fundamental questions: Can we ever really know what happened in the past? If the past is “dead and gone,” how do we know what we (think we) know about it? And what is our degree of certainty about the past societies and cultures that historians, archaeologists and others study today? Through hands-on interaction with artifacts, experiments and other analytical methods you will consider how these approaches relate to different “stakeholders” – groups of people whose understanding of themselves is rooted in a connection to history. By the end of this course, you will have a sense of how your knowledge of the seemingly-distant past is, in fact, intimately tied to your experiences in the contemporary world.

Class Notes

This course has an enrollment cap and is a part of the Gen Ed lottery. To participate in the lottery, you must first submit a petition and then rank your choices through my.harvard by 11:59 p.m. EST Tuesday, April 8, 2025. The Gen Ed lottery will run Wednesday, April 9; if you are successful in the lottery, your course petition in your Crimson Cart will turn to a green check that allows you to enroll. You will have until 11:59 p.m. EST Friday, April 11, to claim your seat. After that time, enrollment will open up to non-lottery petitioners. 

Please note: Only a green checkmark indicates success in the lottery. If you see either “petition pending” or a red X, it means that your petition was unsuccessful. If this is the case and you would still like to try to enroll in the course, please submit a new petition after the lottery.

For timely updates and detailed instructions about entering the Gen Ed lottery, please see https://gened.college.harvard.edu/courses/registration-and-lottery/