Modernity and Backwardness in Comparative Perspective

doc. PhDr. Luďa Klusáková, CSc. / PhDr. Michal Pullmann, Ph.D.

Seminar description

Seminar combines presentation of problems with discussions supported by individual reading. Seminar is offered to BA and MA students of history in both semesters as an introduction to principal issues of modernisation focussing on innovations, cultural transfers and resistances. History students are mostly coming for two semesters to prepare their MA or look for an interesting research topic, and the seminar is designed to support these aims. It is focused on European history, mainly on European peripheries, with particular interest in East Central Europe, which is provisionally defined as a region east of Germany and west of Russia, and north of the Danube up to the Baltic see. Southeastern Europe is generally coterminous with Balkans. One of the goals of the seminar is to open the research field to BA students and to give support to MA students to their individual research.

Issues in focus

Frontiers/Borders/Boundaries and Identities/Alterities
Modern states and nations – nation formation, nationalism,
Cities - Urban Culture, Urban Space and Identity
Civilization - Regions
History and memory
Social and political movements
Innovations and technologies

Seminar in both semesters combines several types of activities: 1.) Lectures on issues in focus, 2.) Lectures offered by guests focussed on their research with discussions supported by individual reading, 3.) Presentation of results of individual research started in the first semester, 4.) Excursions.

Seminar in the first semester will focus on introduction of issues of research, and of comparative approach to analysis and interpretation of history.

Seminar in the second semester follows two paths. First it will offer students in their second semester space for presentation of the issues of their research interests and second it will focus on the landscape of current research issues of Czech, Central European and International historiography.

Guest speakers

Mgr. Eva Kalivodová, CUNI Praha
Mgr. Martina Krocová, CUNI Praha – Freie Uni. Berlin – NUI Galway
Mgr. Jaroslav Ira, CUNI Praha
Mgr. Jiří Janáč, CUNI Praha – TU Eindhoven
Mgr. Božena Radiměřská, CUNI Praha
Dr. Béatrice Maalouf

Objectives

To address the issues which characterize modernization of East-Central Europe.
To display a wide spectrum of problems of history of East Central Europe in European framework through the optics of research projects.
To provide a comprehensive overview of contemporary understanding of comparative approach to the research in history.
To develop critical understanding of the strength and weaknesses of comparative method.
To offer an opportunity for students, to practice the debate and to discuss also variety of their research interests.

Course format

Lectures/presentations will introduce particular problems in a seminar setting. Discussion of the particular research will follow.
The latter will be based on:
a) participant's projects executed as assignments for this seminar
b) selected readings.
1 seminar meeting weekly represents 2 contact hours. 1 contact hour represents 45 minutes.

Evaluation cumulative principle

Mandatory:

Attendance (means participation in the work – reading the texts and participation in class discussions), reflexion of the seminar, 3 pages (2000 words) per semester, 4 ECTS (2 per semester).

Optional written examinations:

Individual research project – 10 pages essay – 4 ECTS
Case study paper (5 pages) based on selected theme from a given list – 2 ECTS

Written texts may be delivered either in English, French, German or Czech, Slovak, Polish and Russian language.

Provisional course schedule 2008 (will be adjusted after the first meeting according to the number of students)

19.02. Second semester begins – introduction – orientation week
26.02. Modern historiography - East Central Europe in transnational perspective I.
04.03. Modern historiography - East Central Europe in transnational perspective II
11.03. Prague: Borders and Identities
18.03. Prague: Places of Memory
25.03. Individual projects of students, discussion of suggested texts.

01.04. Borders and Identities: Discrimination and Tolerance in Early Modern Europe with Eva Kalivodová
08.04 Discussions of selected themes emblematic for our programme
15.04. Discussions of selected themes emblematic for our programme
22.04. Discussions of selected themes emblematic for our programme

29.04. Discussions of selected themes emblematic for our programme
06.05 Reserve – evaluation of individual projects
13.05. Reserve – evaluation of individual projects

Reading list

Collection of selected texts for this course will be available on a CD, in reader or on a bookshelve.

Contemporary historiography – comparative history

Heinz-Gerhard HAUPT: European History as Comparative History, Ab Imperio, 1/2004, p. 111-125.

Jürgen KOCKA: Comparison and Beyond, in History and Theory 42/2003

Jürgen KOCKA: The uses of comparative history in Societies made up of history, 1996

Marc Bloch aujourd'hui. Histoire comparée et sciences sociales. Paris: Éditions de l'EHESS 1990.

Hartmut KAELBLE: Der historische Vergleich. Eine Einführung zum 19. Und 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt/New York 1999.

Borders and identities within the cities

Michel de CERTEAU, The Practice of Everyday Life, UCLA Press 1984, Paperback ed. 1988, p. 91-110 (chpt. "Walking in the City")

Kevin LYNCH, The Image of the City, 1960 (The City-image and its elements)

Rob KROES American Empire and Cultural Imperialism A View From the receiving end.

Central, East-Central Europe

Demetz, Rippellino, on Prague, Mumford on European historical city – general basics and specifically:

Jane PAVITT: From the garden to the factory: urban visions in Czechoslovakia between the wars, in Malcolm GEE, Tim KIRK, Jill STEWARD eds.: The City in Central Europe., p. 27-45.

Peter CLARK, European cities, culture and innovation in regional perspective, in Marjaana NIEMI & Ville VUOLANTO eds.: Reclaiming the City. Innovation, Culture, Experience. Studia Fennica, Historica 6, Helsinki 2003, p. 121–134.

Luďa KLUSÁKOVÁ, Spread of cultural innovations. Towns in East-Central Europe 1750–1900, in Marjaana NIEMI & Ville VUOLANTO eds.: Reclaiming the City. Innovation, Culture, Experience. Studia Fennica, Historica 6, Helsinki 2003, p. 135-147.

Jana RATAJOVÁ, "Czech California". The creation of the image of Kladno in the end of 19th and in the earlier 20th century in Luďa KLUSÁKOVÁ ed.: "We" and "the Others": Modern European Societies in search of Identity, AUC Philosophica et historica 1-2000, Studia historica LIII, Praha 2004, p. 221-228.

Central and South-Eastern Europe

Ioana AGACHI, Roumiana PRESHLENOVA, Boriana STANEVA, Hana SOBOTKOVA and Luda KLUSAKOVA on Balkan cities in Luďa KLUSÁKOVÁ ed.: "We" and "the Others": Modern European Societies in search of Identity, AUC Philosophica et historica 1-2000, Studia historica LIII, Praha 2004.

Multinational states - citizenship

S.G. ELLIS, G. HÁLFDANARSON, A. K. ISAACS (edS.). Citizenship in Historical Perspective. Pisa: Edizioni Plus, Pisa University Press 2006.

Social movements

Harold MAH (Queen's University): Phantasies of the Public Sphere: Rethinking the Habermas of Historians*, The Journal of Modern History 72 (March 2000): 153-182

Habermas Forum

You can use also electronic textbooks and research articles on CLIOHRES.net - open access, free of charge.

Poslední aktualizace: 2008-02-16 21:21