ΜETHODOLOGY AND HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

The course should be addressed to freshmen. It  aims to make clear that historiography is a serious scholarly activity which has nothing to do with other forms of historical narrative such as “public history”. It comprises two units. The first one is about the historian's tools. In the second we are dealing with the history of historiography from Romanticism up to the most recent historiographical approaches.

The course tries to familirize the students with the idea that scientific -and, therefore, historiographic- knowledge is being “produced” rather than laying in some hidden place -books, sources- waiting to be “discovered”. The students should herefore realize that, after having completed  their undergraduate studies, they are expected to be able to “produce” historiographic knowledge rather than simply know what happened in ancient, medieval or modern times.

In order to attain these aims, in the first part of the syllabus, the material and the tools used by the historian are presented. In the second one, where we deal with the work of some leading historians from the 19^th up to the 21^st century, the students are invited to grasp the idea that the pluralism of approaches does not relegates historiography to the level of “opinion” but that this is something which is inseparable from its subject-matter.

Week 1 Presentation of the course

Week 2 The historian's sources. Categories of sources. The problems its category of sources presents.

Week 3 The archives. Visit to Corfu Public Record Office.

Week 4 Secondary bibliography. The distinction between secondary and primary bibliography. How do we establish a bibliographical list.

Week 5 Working with cards. The File Maker.

Week 6 Writting a scholarly text. A. The hypothesis B. The parts of the text: introduction and commentary on the existing bibliogrpaphy-main argument and the supporting evidence.

Week 7 The writing style

Week 8 Is historical knowledge “subjective” and what does it really mean

Week 9 History of historiography: the romantics

Week 10 History of historiography: 1. The “methodic school”. 2. The “Annales” school

Week 11 Cultural turn. Thick description. The slander of “post-modernism”

Week 12 Conceptual history: the work of R. Koselleck

Week 13 New trends: Global ή connected history. History of Science

Week 14 New trends: History of the sentiments.

―U. Eco, Come si fa una tesi di laurea, gr. gr. M. Kondyli, Athens 2001
―Al. Sfoini (ed.), History of concepts, Athens, 2006
―G. Iggers, Historiography in the 20^th century, gr. tr. P. Matalas, Athens 1999

Other texts,  are also studied. Some of these are not in Greek; therefore students who take this course should be fluent in English.

The course comprises lectures and seminars.

Students are required to write three essays of 1500, 2000 and 2500 words respectively and turn them in the 4^th, 8^th and 14^th week. They also participate in weekly tests. Essays and tests are compulsory. The final evaluation of the students is based upon them.