In this course, we will examine the craft of writing history. We’ll look at examples from a range of scales (monographs, trade books, articles, experimental projects) to think about how what we say is deeply tangled up in how we say it. This course will be built around a series of short-form experimental writing assignments where we will play with voice, tone, style, and argument, building toward a longer final project. We’ll write with primary documents and with scholarly texts, all the while thinking through the ways that writers engaged with the past position themselves in relation to it. We’ll examine speculative moves made by writers working to center people whose words we rarely find in the archive, as well as those working to bring new ideas and framing to well-trodden ground. And throughout, we’ll be engaging in critical reflection about our ongoing experimentation with the craft of writing history.