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Regular version of the site
Contacts

Address:
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel, Room 123

Phone:+7 (812)786-92-49 

Postal address: 
190068 Saint Petersburg
123 Griboedov channel

Administration
Department Head Adrian A. Selin
Academic Supervisor Evgeniy Anisimov
Book
Remembering the Neoliberal Turn: Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989

Gökarıksel S., Gontarska O., Hilmar T. et al.

L.: Routledge, 2023.

Article
The Russian Civil War after 100 Years: Within and Beyond the Historiographical Front Lines

Alexander V. Reznik.

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 3. P. 644-658.

Book chapter
The Stolbovo Treaty and Tracing the Border in Ingria in 1617–1618

Adrian Selin.

In bk.: Sweden, Russia, and the 1617 Peace of Stolbovo. Vol. 14. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2024. P. 99-118.

Working paper
The Image of the Past in Ciro Spontone’s ‘Historia Della Transilvania’

Khvalkov E., Levin F., Кузнецова А. Д.

Working Papers of Humanities. WP. Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2021

Gifts of Empire

2022/2023
Academic Year
ENG
Instruction in English
3
ECTS credits
Delivered by:
Department of History
Type:
Elective course
When:
1 year, 2 module

Instructor

Course Syllabus

Abstract

What is gift? What does it mean to give a gift and receive one? What social relations are created by gift giving? Do gifts play a similar role in all societies? Is ‘pure’ or ‘free’ gift possible? These are the questions of the classical gift theory which appeared in anthropology in the early twentieth century as a way to understand traditional or stateless societies. These are the questions that scholars ask today too, but in a new research context. What is the place of gift in societies that are dominated by market exchange? How did gift giving work in assembling tributary and trade empires? How does modernity take gift form — in ‘civilising mission’, ‘development’, ‘modernisation’, aid and humanitarianism? What is imperial on these modalities of governance? What are gifts of this empire? This course focuses on some of the key work in this field of anthropology and history.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • Able to learn and demonstrate skills in the field, other than the major field
  • Work with information: find, define and use the information from different sources which required for solving of research and professional problems (including the system approach)
  • Able to efficiently communicate based on the goals and communication situations
  • Able to efficiently communicate based on the goals and communication situations
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • analysing advanced approaches in gift theory
  • analysing basic approaches in gift theory
  • analysing basic themes of the course
  • analysing concepts of expenditure and voluntarism in the context of gift theory
  • analysing the concepts of contract, free will and force in gift relations
  • analysing the relationships of gifts and warfare
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • A little kingdom in the old regime
  • Gift theory: introduction
  • Indian wars: gifts and poison
  • Expenditure and humanitarian reason
  • Gift and contract (i & ii)
  • Imperial order and diplomacy (i and ii)
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking review essay
  • non-blocking final essay exam
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • 2022/2023 2nd module
    0.5 * final essay exam + 0.5 * review essay
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • Bornstein, Erica. Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012
  • Grant, Bruce. The Captive and the Gift: Cultural Histories of Sovereignty in Russia and the Caucasus. Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 2009

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • Fassin, Didier. Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

Authors

  • SSORINCHAYKOV NIKOLAY VLADIMIROVICH