From Huge Comparisons to Thick Descriptions: Historical Research and Interpretation

The conference will include presentations and workshops. It aims at discussing current research by history undergraduate and graduate students from the Moscow, Perm and Saint Petersburg campuses of the National Research University Higher School of Economics and providing them with experience and training of participation in academic events. This year’s conference’s theme is From Huge Comparisons to Thick Descriptions: Historical Research and Interpretation. Focusing on a broad variety of historical research questions from social history to cultural and intellectual history, it will devote special attention to methods of analysis of different type of historical sources and agendas of transdisciplinary dialogue, global, comparative and transnational history. The conference will bring together eighteen undergraduate and graduate students who will give 30-minute presentations of their current research in English and take part in roundtable discussions.

The conference will be accompanied by two workshops organized by the HSE faculty and devoted to academic writing in English, publishing research papers and working with digital historical resources. Although the hegemony of English in other disciplines (economics, for instance) is more complete than in history, still proficiency in English is one of the key conditions for global academic competitiveness in international historical field. The participants of the conference will have a great opportunity to test and improve their academic English language skills.