History – Mediterranean and European History and Historiography

 

 Unique Programs 

 

The focus of the proposed B.A. and B.A. hon. degree programs in Mediterranean and European History and Historiography and their distinctive methodological and structural principles would make them unique in Canada.

The courses that make up these projected programs focus on the major works of a tradition that extends, from Herodotus to Hobsbawm, over two and a half millennia, while the limitation of the corpus to Mediterranean and European historiography provides depth and coherence to the study of this vast field.

The proposed programs would teach History as a liberal art and as one of the core subjects of modern humanities. Students would learn to use primary sources by reading medieval historians on the subject of the Middle-Ages, Renaissance historians on the Renaissance, and so on. In parallel, secondary research materials integrated into coursework and research materials would illustrate the contrasting methods and perspectives of modern and contemporary historians. In this way, students would gain a deep understanding of the different influences which have contributed to shaping contemporary conceptions of History.

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 Bright Prospects 

 

The proposed programs have been developed in consultation with faculty responsible for graduate admissions at some of the world’s top universities. They are specially designed to help students gain admission to M.A. programs including focus on historiography and / or requiring broad reading at the undergraduate level.

Students would also be well prepared for further studies in related and interdisciplinary academic fields, in teaching or in law.

For students seeking to enter the job market directly, the HDDP’s proposed History programs would provide a superior credential for highly skilled positions in the public and private sectors in fields including diplomacy, the military, politics, writing, communication, and curation.

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 More Details 

 

More detailed information, including course descriptions, weekly programs, assignments, and learning outcomes envisioned by the HDDP, is provided in the Course Catalogue.

Following the overview of program courses the offer of which is dependent on ministerial consent, a full list of the primary readings comprising the honours specialization has been included.

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The Honours Degree Program in History

 

First year

 

HIE 1.1 Ancient Historiography I, the Greeks  

HIE 1.2 Ancient Historiography II, the Roman Era 

HIE 1.3 Medieval Historiography  

HIE 1.4 Golden Age Arabic and Italian Renaissance Historiography 

HIE 1.5 Renaissance Spanish Historiography  

 

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Second year

 

HIE 2.1 Ottoman Historiography 

HIE 2.2 Early Modern French Historiography 

HIE 2.3 Enlightenment Historiography I – The Roman Empire 

HIE 2.4 Enlightenment Historiography II – Early Modern Colonization of Asia and the Americas 

HIE 2.5 19th Century Historiography I – Early Modern German History 

 

 

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Third year

 

HIE 3.1 19^th Century Historiography II – Pre-Modern France and Early Modern Europe 

HIE 3.2 19^th Century Historiography III – Renaissance Italy 

HIE 3.3 19^th Century Historiography IV – Russian History 

HIE 3.4 19^th Century Historiography V – Medieval and Early Modern England 

HIE 3.5 20^th Century Historiography I – Material History of the Spanish Golden Age 

  

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Fourth year

 

HIE 4.1 20^th Century Historiography II – Cultural Historiography of the Netherlands in the Late Medieval and Golden Ages 

HIE 4.2 20^th Century Historiography III – Postcolonial History 

HIE 4.3 20^th Century Historiography IV – Genealogical History of Sexuality 

HIE 4.4 20^th Century Historiography V – Neo-Marxist Historiography of European and World Modernity 

HIE 4.5 Historiography of the French Revolution 

 

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Primary Readings Required for the Honours Degree in History

 

Assembled from the bibliographical information for each course, the following list provides a panoptic view of what is to be covered in the program on a year-by-year basis. This list is purely for informational purposes and does not correspond to the type of comprehensive undergraduate exit exam that traditionally characterized humanities programs at universities such as Oxford or Geneva. It may, however, serve as an indication of the depth and breadth of the program proposed by the HDDP, and may also serve as a basis for comparison with programs in similar specializations at other universities.

The dates given in brackets are those of the first publication in the original language. The edition to be used for the course readings will be determined in consultation with the Project’s Head Librarian and the course’s professor. Translations are listed according to the title of the translation to be used. Again, the precise edition to be used will be determined in conjunction with the Head Librarian and the teaching professor.

 

First Year

 

Herodotus, The Histories [c. 430 BC]
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War [c. 410 BC]
Caesar, The Gallic Wars [c. 49 BC]
Livy, History of Rome [c. 9 BC]
Tacitus, Agricola [98 AD]
---. Germania [c. 98 AD]
---. The Annals [c. 100 AD]
Plutarch, Parallel Lives [c. 100 AD]
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars [121 AD]
Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks [664]
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People [731]
Villehardouin, Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade [1213]
Joinville, Life of Saint Louis [1309]
Froissart and Monstrelet, Chronicles [1391; 1444]
Commynes, Memoirs [1498]
Ibn Khaldun, The Prolegoma [1377]
Guicciardini, History of Florence [1509]
---. History of Italy [1561]
Machiavelli, History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy [1532]
Gómara, General History of the Indies [1552]
Las Casas, Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies [1552]
Díaz del Castillo, True History of the Conquest of Mexico [c. 1568]

 

 

Second Year

 

Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, The Reign of Sultan Orchan [1588]
Ḥajjī Khalīfa, History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks [1656]
Mustafa Naima, Annals of the Turkish Empire [1730]
Estienne, A World of Wonders […] taken from the Apologie for Herodotus [1566]
De Thou, Monsieur de Thou’s History of his Own Time [1620]
Spon, The History of the City and State of Geneva [1620]
Bayle, A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical [1697]
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1776-1788]
Raynal, et alia, History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies [1770]
Leopold von Ranke, Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries [1847-1848]

 

 

Third Year

 

Michelet, A Summary of Modern History [1827]
---. History of France [1855]
---. preface to the 1869 edition of the History of France
Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy [1860-1867]
Soloviev, History of Russia from the Earliest Times [1851-1879]
Macaulay, “History” [1828]
---. The History of England from the Accession of James the Second  [1848]
Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development [1873-1878]
Bloch, The Historian’s Craft [1949]
Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II [1949]

 

 

 

Fourth Year

 

Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries [1919]
Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age [1987]
Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism [1950]
Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth [1961]
Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism [1965]
Saïd, Orientalism [1978]
Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present [1999]
Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference [2000]
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. I, The Will to Knowledge [1976]
, vol. II, The Use of Pleasure [1984], vol. III, The Care of the Self [1984], vol. IV, Confessions of the Flesh [2018]
Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 [1962]
---. The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 [1975]
---. The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 [1987]
---. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914—1991 [1994]
Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France [1790]
De Maistre, Considerations on France [1797]
Thiers, The History of the French Revolution [1823-1827]
Carlyle, The French Revolution, A History [1837]
Quinet, Ultramontanism [1845]
Blanc, History of the French Revolution of 1789 [1847-1853]
Michelet, History of the French Revolution [1847-1853]
Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution [1856]
Taine, The Revolution [1875-1893]
Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution [1893]
Lefebvre, The French Revolution: from its Origins to 1793 [1951-1957]
Soboul, The Sans Culottes [1958]
Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution [1978]
Michel Biard and Marisa Linton, Terror: the French Revolution and its Demons [2021]