'This course investigates and evaluates the ways in which scholars attempt to expand the boundaries of writing history,' I told my juniors and seniors on the first day. In 2002 and again in 2005, I designed an advanced seminar for undergraduate history majors at New York University that I called 'Reading and Writing Experimental History.' Enrollment was self-selective and therefore modest-lucky, since the class worked beautifully in an intimate setting.

McFeely, Sapelo's People: A Long Walk into Freedom for my Civil War course David Farber, Chicago ‘68 and Rosenstone's own Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters in Meiji Japan for a graduate course on methodology. 'Is anybody interested?' Those words resonated for me long after the weekend in Pasadena, especially as I found myself slipping unconventional readings onto my syllabi: John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America for the U.S. Coining the phrase 'experimental history,' Rosenstone went on to organize a workshop at Cal Tech, a weekend filled with inspiration and debate-debates that ranged from where to draw boundaries between history and fiction, to the merits and demerits of writing in first-person, to the question, 'Can anyone but tenured faculty write experimental history?' 1 Rosenstone, professor of history at California Institute of Technology, was putting out a call for scholars interested in innovative forms of historical writing.

Is anybody interested?' So read a headline in the December 1992 issue of Perspectives.

Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus