Learning Outcome:
- Students will get familiar with the major methodological and epistemological principles in historical research through the presentation and discussion of major controversies and research topics.
- Students will become acquainted with top of the art bibliography and research projects in a variety of historical fields.
- Finally, students will be able to plan, present and discuss their own historical projects on topics of their own preference, on the basis of acquired knowledge and skills.
General Competences:
· Individual work.
· Teamwork.
· Learning, understanding, and working within an interdisciplinary environment.
· Work with new , innovative research ideas.
· Respect for diversity and cultural difference.
· Critical and self-critical thinking.
This course focuses on methodological and theoretical issues related to modern historical research. Most particularly, students are invited to read, think, and discuss topics regarding the making of history as a modern discipline, the nature and status of “events’”, historical sources, the scale of historical research, the use the critique of quantitative data and the rise of new research topics and paradigms. Several specialized but interrelated seminars are offered to students with the aim of familiarizing them with the above topics. Faculty staff, with the addition of some members from other Departments, are responsible for the seminars and the supervising of the students.
Course Structure
The course is composed of twelve seminars, divided in three units. Unit one involves four introductory seminars relevant to major topics in history and anthropology. In the second unit students follow six independent seminars each presenting and discussing case studies of major historical importance. In the last unit students present their own research projects in class and discuss with their supervisors and fellow students..
Course Units :
- Introductory course
- Ethnography/ From Malinovsky’s heritage to multiple ethnographies (Venetia Kantsa)
- The making of “scientific history” and the crisis of historical discourse (Haris Exertzoglou)
- Multimedia ethnography and crisis of representation (Panos Panopoulos)
- Digital trauma and oral history (Pothiti Hantzaroula)
- Visual culture and public history ( Haris Exertzoglou)
- Memory and the history of childhood (Pothiti Hantzaroula)
- Microhistory and biography (Rica Benveniste)
- Beyond “National Reconciliation’. Greek Communist politics of Memory on Grammos and Vitsi. ( Yannis Yannitsiotis)
- “Top down” and “Bottom Up” sources. Judicial records and private correspondence ( Demetra Vassiladou)
- Archives of Repression, “archives’ of ethnographic discourse, 16th-18th centuries. Cultural History Perspectives (Giorgo Plakotos).
- Student presentations I
- Student presentations II
Weekly reading :
The making of the modern discipline of history.
Mandatory reading :
- Bentley Michael, “The Turn towards ‘Science’. Historians Delivering Untheorized Truth”, Nancy Partner (επιμ), The Sage Handbook of Historical Theory, 2013, 10-21.
- Lutz Raphael, “The Implications of Empiricism in History, Nancy Partner (επιμ)
The Sagε Handbook of Historical Theory, 2013, 22-40.
- Suggested bibliography
- Gupta, Ranajit, History at the limit of World history, Columbia University Press, 2002.
- Munz Peter, “The Historical Narrative”, Michael Bentley, Companion to Historiography,1997, 883-853
- White Hayden, “The Westernization of World history” John Rusen (επιμ) , Western Historical Thinking, Bergham Books 2001
Digital trauma and oral history
Mandatory reading :
- Pinchevski, Amit, «The Audiovisual Unconscious: Media and Trauma in the Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies», Critical Inquiry (2012), 39, 1: 142-166.
- Bibliography :
- Aleida Assmann, «History, Memory, and the Genre of the Testimony», Poetics Today (2006), 27, 2: 265, https://doi.org/10.1215.03335372-2005-003.
- Sara Jones, «Mediated Immediacy: Constructing Authentic Testimony in Audio-Visual Media», Rethinking History (2017), 21, 2: 143-144, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2017.1305726
- Felman, Soshana, «Education and Crisis, or the Vicissitudes of Teaching». Στο Soshana Felman και Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (Νέα Υόρκη και Λονδίνο: Routledge, 1992), 1–56.
- Hartmann, Geoffrey, «Learning from Survivors: The Yale Testimony Project», Holocaust and Genocide Studies (1995), 9, 2: 192–207.
Visual culture and public history
Mandatory reading:
Εξερτζόγλου Χάρης, Η Δημόσια Ιστορία. Μα Εισαγωγή, Εικοστός Πρώτος 2020.
Suggested bibliography:
- Λεμονίδου, Έλλη Η Ιστορία στη Μεγάλη Οθόνη. Ιστορία Κινηματογράφος και Εθνικές Ταυτότητες, Ταξιδευτής, 2017.
- Rosenstone Robert , History on Film, Film on History, Longman 2006.
Memory and the history of childhood
Mandatory reading:
Ποθητή Χαντζαρούλα, Τα παιδιά θυμούνται το Ολοκαύτωμα: Μαρτυρία, Ιστοριογραφία, Μνήμη, Πλέθρον, 2023. Κεφ. 8.
Suggested Bibliography:
Halbwachs Maurice, Τα κοινωνικά πλαίσια της μνήμης (μτφ. Ε. Ζέη), Νεφέλη 2013.
Microhistory and biography
Mandatory reading:
Μπενβενίστε Ρίκα, Ναυαγοί: ιστορίες οικογενειακές και άλλες μέσα στην Ιστορία του μεταπολεμικού κόσμου, Πόλις 2023.
Suggested reading:
Μπενβενίστε Ρίκα, Αυτοί που επέζησαν: Αντίσταση, εκτόπιση, επιστροφή. Θεσσαλονικείς Εβραίοι στη δεκαετία του 1940. Αθήνα: Πόλις 2014.
Beyond “National Reconciliation”. The Greek Communist Politics of Memory in Gremos and Vitsi.
Suggested Bibliography
- Rafael Curtoni, Axel Lazzari & Marisa Lazzari “Middle of nowhere: A place of war memories, commemoration, and aboriginal re-emergence (La Pampa, Argentina)”, World Archaeology, 35:1 (2003), σ. 61-78.
- Thilo Folkers, “Landscape as memory” Journal of Landscape Architecture 10:1 (2015), σ. 68-77.
- Ραϋμόνδος Αλβανός, Ο ελληνικός εμφύλιος. Μνήμες σε πόλεμο και σύγχρονες πολιτικές ταυτότητες, Επίκεντρο, Θεσσαλονίκη 2022.
- Βίτσι. Πρέσπες-Βαρνούντας-Βάρμπα-Μάλι Μάδι. Στα βήματα του Δημοκρατικού Στρατού Ελλάδας. Ιστορικός – ταξιδιωτικός οδηγός, Σύγχρονη Εποχή, Αθήνα 2018.
- Γράμμος. Στα βήματα του Δημοκρατικού Στρατού Ελλάδας. Ιστορικός – ταξιδιωτικός οδηγός, Σύγχρονη Εποχή, Αθήνα 2018.
“Bottom up” and “Top down” Sources. Judicial records and private correspondence
Suggested reading
- David Barton και Nigel Hall, Letter Writing as a Social Practice (Άμστερνταμ/Φιλαδέλφεια: John Benjamins Publishing, 2000).
- Δήμητρα Βασιλειάδου, «Επίμετρο. Επιστολογραφία: Μια άλλη αφήγηση του πραγματικού», Στον τροπικό της γραφής: Οικογενειακοί δεσμοί και συναισθήματα στην αστική Ελλάδα, 1850-1930 (Αθήνα: Gutenberg, 2018): 211-61.
- Arlette Farge, Η γεύση του αρχείου (Αθήνα: Νεφέλη, 2004).
- Stephen Robertson, ‘What’s Law Got to Do with It? Legal Records and Sexual Histories’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 14, τχ. 1/2 (2005): 161–85.
Archives of repression , archives of ethnographic discourse, 16th-18th centuries. Cultural history perspectives.
Suggested reading
- Η. Benveniste – G. Plakotos, «Converting Bodies, Embodying Conversion: The Production of Religious Identities in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe», στο Yaniv Fox και Yosi Yisraeli (επιμ.),Contesting Inter-Religious Conversion in the Medieval World, Νέα Υόρκη: Routledge, 2017, σελ. 245-267.
- Γ. Πλακωτός, «La nouvelle Cythère: Προνεωτερικό σεξ, αποικιακή επέκταση και πολιτικές της ερμηνείας», στο Δ. Βασιλειάδου και Γ. Γκότση (επιμ.) Ιστορίες για τη σεξουαλικότητα, Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Θεμέλιο, 2020, σελ. 318-336.
