First year undergraduate courses
| HT51020A | Dictators, War and Revolution |
| HT51019A | Religion, Peace and Conflict |
| HT51023A | Ideas and Identities |
| HT51017A | Concepts and Methods in History |
Dictators, War and Revolution
This course has two broad aims: a) to introduce students to the discipline of political history, by analyzing, in a comparative perspective, key modern political ideologies, developments and political leaders; and b) to provide, in addition to a theoretical foundation, a basic understanding of how the modern world has been shaped by dictators, wars and revolutions. Students will be introduced to key concepts in political history, the different methods and approaches employed by political historians, the limitations of political history, and the interaction between political and other ‘branches’ of history. The course will be divided into four thematic blocks of five weeks each exploring the following main themes:
- Modern political ideologies
- Wars
- Revolutions
- Dictators
The order of the blocks and the particular lecture topics may vary from year to year, but the four-part structure will ensure that students are exposed to a wide array of methodological and empirical issues critical for the study of political history.
Religion, Peace and Conflict
It is often alleged that religion is a major cause of war and dissent. But does the historical record support this claim, or has religion also played a part in achieving peace and reconciliation and in solving interfaith and wider political conflicts? This course explores these questions through a series of case studies focusing on religion in Asia and the West. The studies examine particular historical contexts in which religion has played a part in promoting peace, conflict, or both. The contexts chosen for study may vary from year to year but will normally include examples drawn from the West, the Middle East, and Asia. The course is divided into four blocks of five weeks each. The first comprises an introduction to the nature of religion, the methodological questions surrounding its study, and provides an overview of the traditions featured in the rest of the course. The remaining three blocks are devoted to case studies. Students taking the course should gain an introductory, but insightful, comprehension of religious belief and its role in promoting peace and conflict.
Concepts and Methods in History
This course has two aims. First, it is designed to introduce students to key writers, sources, and theories in historical studies. Second, it is designed to teach students some of the fundamental skills involved in historical study, including research and writing skills, familiarity with major primary and secondary sources, and creating a bibliography.
Part I, History and Historians, begins with a consideration of key historical writers from antiquity to the present. The objective is to provide a foundational overview of Western historical writing and to provide a sketch of the morphology of our discipline. How has history been written and communicated in the Western world? What are the traditions and biases we inherit as historians? The first part of this course will deal with major historians and major trends in historical thought and communication from Antiquity to the present. This first section, which will focus on a close reading of texts, should prepare students to grapple with both sources and the more advanced concepts introduced in Part II and III.
Part II, The Sources of History, considers the sources of historical study: written, visual, oral sources, as well as objects and artifacts and venues such as the internet. Here we will address not only the nature of sources, but how they have been employed by historians, and how they should (and should not) be used in historical research. How does one construct a (hi)story? What is history based upon? This section of the course examines the sources of historical study from paintings to documentary histories and non documentary or oral histories. Key examples will be selected from major texts - both textual and visual.
Part III, Approaches to History, will familiarize students with current theoretical discourses in historical study and will also consider ways in which these discourses have influenced the writing of history. What are the theoretical positions that we take when we write history? How do these positions or schools inform our writings and how do they help (or hinder) us in constructing the past? This section of the course aims to answer some of these questions by looking at key theoretical positions in historical study including feminism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, and some of their major protagonists such as Benjamin and Foucault.