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Regular version of the site

History of Historical Science

2021/2022
Academic Year
ENG
Instruction in English
5
ECTS credits
Course type:
Compulsory course
When:
1 year, 1, 2 module

Instructor


Semyonov, Alexander

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course is intended to introduce students of the graduate program to major turns in historiography of the 20th century that shaped today’s professional understanding of the craft of history. The major thread in the course is how the present-day historical profession came to reflexivity about their narratives, imaginary, and perspectivism. Historiographic turns appear to be the shifting paths of analytical language in as much as factual discoveries and turning to untapped sources. Issues of scales of historical analysis, historicity of key categories of politics and society, approaches to historical subjectivity, problems of representation and explanation are included into the discussion. Finally, the course also takes on the question of modalities of relevance of historical knowledge in the contemporary society, including politically and ideologically contested visions of the future as defined by the interpretation of the past, and the fashioning of the public role of a historian.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • learning the main questions of theoretical debates on the status of historical knowledge
  • understanding the intellectual genealogy of major shifts and turns in historiography of the 20th century
  • familiariation with the issues of narrative, analytical concepts, and perspectivism in history writing
  • analyzing the public role of historical knowledge
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • Can trace the intellectual genealogy of the Global History and the role of Constructivist Turn in it.
  • Knows how to analyse symbolics and semantics of the political and ritual representations and myths.
  • Knows the trends of the emerging field of global history.
  • Student can take part in the discussions about Global Intellectual History with the use of relative historiography and concepts.
  • Student is able to put Russian case in the context of debates on postcoloniality.
  • Student understands the role and responsibility of historian towards society when constructing own historical narratives.
  • Understanding contemporary constructivist approaches to the issue of Identity, and practical outcomes of this understanding for historical research.
  • Understanding of the concept of longue duree, its historical development, and specificity of its usage.
  • Understanding the role of meta-narrative in shaping the paradigms of historical research
  • Understanding the role of the historian as one who forms new models about thinking about the future, not the past only.
  • Understands how semiotics is used in historical research.
  • Understands the role of the Cultural Turn for the Humanities in general and Historical research in particular.
  • Understands the specificity of global history as an approach aimed at restoring the context of historical processes.
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • End of history? History resumed? Debates about meta-narratives of the past.
  • Historical Time, Temporal Scales and the Choice by Historians.
  • Proliferation of Representations and Identities: Historical Memory and National Identity
  • The Problem Colonialism and the Approach of the post-Colonial School. Social History of Imperial Diversity and the Subjectivity of the Subalterns
  • The New Relevance of Empire in Exploration of World History. Questions of Connected Histories, Temporal Scales of Pre-modern and Modern History, and Eurocentrism.
  • Ever Changing Past: Contested Global History.
  • Historical Narratives and their Consequences: Narrative and Re-Narrativization of Russian History
  • Approaches to Global Intellectual History and the Problem of Mimicry and Authenticity in Global History
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking Participation in class discussion 20%
  • non-blocking Questions for discussion 30%
  • non-blocking Term paper 50%
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • 2021/2022 2nd module
    0.3 * Questions for discussion 30% + 0.5 * Term paper 50% + 0.2 * Participation in class discussion 20%
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • Anderson, B. R. O. (2006). Imagined Communities : Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1694834
  • Brubaker, R. (DE-588)113664273, (DE-627)556780426, (DE-576)160448220, aut. (2004). Ethnicity without groups Rogers Brubaker.
  • Conrad, S. (2016). What Is Global History? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1090930
  • Gerasimov, bio), I. (2020). Narrating Russian History after the Imperial Turn. Ab Imperio, 4, N.PAG.
  • GERASIMOV, I., GLEBOV, S., & MOGILNER, M. (2013). The Postimperial Meets the Postcolonial: Russian Historical Experience and the Postcolonial Moment. Ab Imperio, (2), 97–135. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2013.0058
  • Gerasimov, I., Glebov, S., Kaplunovski, A., Mogilner, M., & A. Semyonov. (2015). Time, Forward! Ab Imperio, 1, 15–19. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2015.0013
  • Gerasimov, I., Glebov, S., Kaplunovski, A., Mogilner, M., & Semyonov, A. (2015). “Big Data” and “Small Stories” for the Future. Ab Imperio, 4, 9–25. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2015.0093
  • Gerasimov, I., Glebov, S., Kaplunovski, A., Mogilner, M., & Semyonov, A. (2015). Blinded by the past. Ab Imperio, 3, 9–21.
  • Guldi, J., & Armitage, D. (2014). The History Manifesto. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139923880
  • Mogilner, M. (2007). Russian Physical Anthropology in Search of “Imperial Race”: Liberalism and Modern Scientific Imagination in the Imperial Situation. Ab Imperio, (1), 191–223. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2007.0088
  • Richard S. Wortman. (2006). Scenarios of Power : Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy From Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II - New Abridged One-Volume Edition: Vol. New abridged one-volume paperback edition. Princeton University Press.
  • Semyonov, A. (2003). “We Study Empires as We Do Dinosaurs:” Nations, Nationalism, and Empire in a Critical Perspective. Ab Imperio, 3, 57–73.
  • SEMYONOV, A. (2017). “Global History Is More Than the History of Globalization”: Interview with Sebastian Conrad. Ab Imperio, 1, 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2017.0002
  • SEMYONOV, A. (2017). How Five Empires Shaped the World and How This Process Shaped Those Empires. Ab Imperio, 18(4), 27–51. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=30h&AN=128449757

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • Brubaker, R. V. (DE-588)113664273, (DE-627)556780426, (DE-576)160448220, aut. (1992). Citizenship and nationhood in France and Germany Rogers Brubaker.
  • FUKUYAMA, F., GEDMIN, J., & DAVIDSON, C. (2019). The Last Man and the Future of History. American Interest, 14(6), 4–7.
  • Wortman, R. (2013). Russian Monarchy : Representation and Rule. Academic Studies Press.
  • Wortman, R. (2014). Visual Texts, Ceremonial Texts, Texts of Exploration : Collected Articles on the Representation of Russian Monarchy. Academic Studies Press.