First i respect historians completely. It doesn't have to answer to any other field. So i know that all serious historians use serious and considered methodology with a great emphasis on understanding the quality and potential explanatory value of their sources! My question is not so much about that, as about existing resources that i and others could find and consume (like online university classes, books and others) and what to call them and how to find them.
In all history classes i've taken, methodology and specific historical narratives where taught separately. When you learned the "histories" themselves, it was simply on the assumption that the methodology was properly used, other than of course there was sources you could go through (mind you, i understand this choice, because i think most people much prefer a narrative, and it remembers much more easily).
That being said, is there a type of "history class/product" taught, where the narrative is less in the driving seat, and the focus is instead mainly on the evidence, without much conclusive narrative spun around it? So forexample saying:
"Look at this assyrian pottery, these are systematically found in such and such places, often near this and this, in these conditions and so on - and these are the 2-3 theories about history, thought to best explain this type of finding..."
This ends up sounding a bit like archeology, but i also mean in the approach to purely written sources.
I work in the sciences, and didn't appreciate history enough as a kid, which i now deeply regret. And i've sometimes online found history lessons (Occasionally on like Khanacademy, a few off Yale's youtube channel, etc.) that completely gripped me, because i felt "close" to the evidence in a different way.
I just want to be able to find more of this, and i'm not sure whether i have the vocabulary and understanding to really search for it.
DISCLAIMER: I want to say i'm real sorry if this isn't appropriate for this subreddit! I tried to read through the rules and the faq, and although i can see this is kind of a meta question, i couldn't see it being disallowed.
(Sorry for broken english grammar. English is my 2nd language)
Well, while this is a great question, and very relevant IMO, I'm afraid the right answer is hard to find.
First of all, how History and historical methology is taught, depends a lot on 1: where in the world you find yourself. 2: The given university/colleges vision/guidelines on the syllabus, and 3: How the lecturer/teacher themselves are taught.
The thing is, to me and my schooling at least, that History often times finds itself somewhere between humanities and natural science. History is an old field, and depending on what you study, the methology differs slightly.
You say that you're interested in the more source based history. I get you - its really exciting stuff! But when working with written sources, the more narrative part is sometimes hard to avoid. Very old (say, medieval) written sources are scarce and filled with holes. We humans like to form a comprehensive picture of the past, and so we tend to fill these holes with narrative and contextual knowledge. This is where methological knowledge is important. We need to always be alert and critical of the narrative given to us. We cannot completely discard narrative, but we can learn why it is there, and how to use it to still stay true to the source. Historical methology is a tool every historian should learn to use IMO. I can reccomend some of these books: A Guide to Historical Method (Gilbert J. Garraghan), The Idea of History (R. G. Collongwood, 1946), Going to the Sources (Anthony Brundage, 1989).
That spiel aside. You say that you would like to find some more 'close to the source' material/classes. As I said before, in working with old written sources I'm afraid we cannot completely avoid some sort of narrative. Narrative can be used as a great tool to get the point across and keep students engaged, as long as you are alert and critical to how it might be spinned. Again, we humans like to fill the holes and paint a picture. We didn't exist at the time of the given history. We actually don't know how it 'really' was, bu we can guess.
But! text/source-close lectures can be done.
For example I recently had a lecturer that started out the lecture with context building 'narrative'. That narrative was heavily based on existing research and source material. Then he would present a primary written source fitting the time period of the established context, and then we would read, analyse and then discuss the primary source. Those primary sources were often letters between kings and the pope of the time, or logs on gift-giving to monestaries and such. Then we would discuss what the sources could mean to the 'narrative'/context of the time, who wrote the original source, what were the idiologies that we can trace, and so on.
I dont know if this is helpful at all. And I admit that I do not know alot about american history lectures. Maybe you could search for lectures that discuss written sources. Keyword being discussions, analysis etc. But I think it is quite influenced by what the lecturer/university/college is teaching.
Good luck!