National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
Government of the Russian Federation
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Saint-Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Humanities
Syllabus of the course:
History of Historical Knowledge
Master’s program « Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»»
Author of the syllabus: Evgeny Khvalkov, ekhvalkov@hse.ru
Approved by the manager of Applied and Interdisciplinary History
Programme Office: Maria Kattsova, mkattsova@hse.ru
day/month/year «___»____________ 2015
Head of the program:
Julia Lajus (signature)
Saint Petersburg, 2015
This syllabus cannot be used by other university departments and other higher education
institutions without the explicit permission of the department of History.
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
Аннотация к программе курса «История исторической науки»
Russian Summary/Аннотация
Данный курс предназначен для ознакомления студентов с историей исторической
науки от зарождения основ исторического знания до конца 20 века. Курс покрывает
такие темы как историография античности, средних веков, эпохи Ренессанса, эпохи
Просвещения, а также историографию романтизма, позитивизма и методологический
кризис в истории конца 19 века. Курс состоит из лекций и семинаров и предполагает
активное участие студентов в обсуждении и написание ими эссе по темам
прошедших лекции и семинара. Кроме того, каждый участник курса подготавливает
презентацию масштабной фигуры из истории исторической науки и представляет ее
во время семинара.
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
Syllabus of the course: History of Historical Knowledge
Department of History
Master’s program « Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»»
1
Scope of Use
This syllabus outlines the requirements for students’ knowledge and skills and the content of the
course. It is developed for the department of History, its faculty members, and students of the graduate
program ‘Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»’. This syllabus meets the standards
required by Standards of National Research University Higher School of Economics of Federal
Masters’ Degree Program History (46.04.01). Curriculum of the master’s program ‘Applied and
Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»’ as of 2015.
2
Objectives of the course
●
This basic course is designed to present the development of historical knowledge. In the first
half of the course “History of Historical Knowledge”, the students will learn the evolution of
historiography from the times of Antiquity to the early twentieth century.
●
The course explores a variety of historical writings over time and from different parts of the
world according to their development. This course enables Master’s students to learn how to work with
professional historical literature, and to accumulate and work individually within a rich environment of
historiography.
●
Within this course, students will discuss major developments that have been significant in
history on different stages of the development of scholarship.
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Supposed results.
The students are supposed to adopt the following competences:
System competencies
Code
(RUS)
СК-4
Code (EN)
Competence description
SC-4
СК-6
SC-6
Ability to develop and enhance one’s own intellectual and
cultural levels and to build the trajectory of one’s professional
development and career.
Ability to analyze, verify, and estimate the entirety of
information in one's professional performance, ability to fill
the gaps and synthesize required information when needed.
Professional competencies
Code
Code (EN)
(RUS)
ПК-3
PC-3
Competence description
Ability to read scholarly texts and to epitomize scholarly
literature in Russian and in foreign languages.
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
ПК-5
PC-5
ПК-6
PC-6
ПК-7
PC-7
Ability to present the results of the research in Russian and
foreign languages, to analyze and generalize the results of
the scholarly research based on the contemporary
interdisciplinary approaches.
Ability to search, handle and present information, work with
the databases in the Humanities.
Ability to formulate scholarly problems of current interest
that can enrich historical scholarship through their study,
ability to reach perspective research and applied goals.
Personal and social competencies
Code
Code (EN)
Competence description
(RUS)
Ability to shape the skills of perception of the historical text.
ПК-16
PC-16
Ability to analyze and present a scholarly-grounded
ПК-17
PC-17
interpretation of historical events in their connection and
entanglement.
Ability to set and transmit legal and ethical norms in the
ПК-20
PC-20
professional and ethical activity.
Research tasks
Code
Code (EN)
(RUS)
НИД 1
NID 1
НИД 4
NID 4
Educational tasks
Code
Code (ENG)
(RUS)
ПеД 1
PeD 1
Competence description
Identification and structuring of a research problem in the
sphere of professional activity, independent choice,
justification of the object, matter, final aim, goals and
methods of the research in relevant problem in the
professional field and their implementation – independent
organization of scholarly research in a relevant field, in the
interdisciplinary sphere, preparation and implementation of
the research projects related to the profile of the OOP of the
master’s program.
Analysis and generalization of the scholarly research
according to the requirements of the up-to-date historical
scholarship.
Competence description
Teaching of the course of history on all levels of basic and
professional education.
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
4
Pre-requisites, course type, role of the discipline within the structure of Master
program
This is an introductory mandatory course taught in the first year of the master’s program “Applied
and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”.
The following knowledge and competences are needed to study the discipline:
●
Basic knowledge of cultural history of Europe and the world from the times of Antiquity till
the early twentieth century.
●
Upper-intermediate or advanced reading and speaking skills in English.
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Course Plan
LECTURES
LECTURES 1-2. Introduction to historiography. Antiquity: Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius.
Christianity, St. Augustine and medieval historiography. Renaissance humanist historiography: key
categories. Erudite school: Biondo, Valla. Political rhetorical school: Bruni, Machiavelli, Guicciardini.
Humanism in France and England: Jean Bodin, Francis Bacon. Cartesianism and social physics.
Erudite school of the 17th c.: Tilemont, Mabillon, Montfaucon. Historiography of English revolution.
LECTURES 3-4. British Enlightenment. Hobbes, Locke, school of natural law. Bolingbroke,
Hume. Gibbon. French Enlightenment and Roman-German problem. L’abbé Sieyès, Antoine Barnave.
Italian enlightenment: Vico. German enlightenment: Kant. Herder. American enlightenment.
LECTURES 5-6. Historiography of romanticism. Conservative romanticism. Liberal and
democratic romanticism. British romanticism. German idealism: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. German
historians: Humboldt, German historical school of jurisprudence). Ranke.
LECTURES 7-8. Positivism in France, Britain, America, Germany.
LECTURES 9-10. Attack on history by Nietzsche. Methodological crisis of historical knowledge.
Neo-Kantianism. Weber & Sombart.
SEMINARS
The first nine seminars will be focused on the discussion of the pivotal readings of major historywriters discussed during the lectures (to be announced). In the following nine seminars, students will
present and discuss their own papers.
READINGS FOR SEMINARS 1 AND 2.
 Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The Histories (any translation - Godley, Grene, Rawlinson, de
Sélincourt, Waterfield, or any other).
 Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War (any translation, preferably Crawley, Jowett,
Warner, or Finley).
 Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History (either the edition of 1946 or the one of
1993). Introduction and part 1.
Optional readings:
 Assmann, Jan. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political
Imagination. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”


Halbwachs, Maurice. On collective memory. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Ricœur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. K. Blamey, D. Pellauer. Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 2004.
READINGS FOR SEMINAR 3. Jean Bodin, Descartes
Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Part 2 (1-6).
Machiavelli, Niccolò. Florentine Histories (online: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2464/2464h/2464-h.htm)
Guicciardini, Francesco. The History of Italy (any edition).
Optional readings:
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince (any edition).
Guenée, Bernard. Histoire et culture historique dans l'Occident médiéval. Paris, Aubier, 1980.
READINGS FOR SEMINAR 4. Vico
Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Part 2 (7).
READINGS FOR SEMINAR 5 AND 6. Hobbes, Locke, Enlightenment, Herder
Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Part 2 (8).
READINGS FOR SEMINAR 7. Ranke and other romanticism
Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Part 3.
READINGS FOR SEMINAR 8. Positivism, Buckle
Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Part 4.
READINGS FOR SEMINAR 9. Weber & Sombart
Collingwood, Robin George. The Idea of History. Part 4.
In the remaining seminars students’ presentations will be discussed.
6 Requirements and Grading
Type of
grading
Current
Final
Type of
work
Performanc
e in class
Parameters
Homework
Readings before the seminar, preparing seminar
presentations and writing response papers, which follow
each seminar and summarize the lecture material, readings,
and discussion in the seminar.
Oral exam by the end of the semester.
Exam
Discussion in the seminars.
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
6 Course Evaluation Criteria
Students are expected to attend both lectures and seminars, to regularly do their homework reading
and study according to the lists of sources provided by the lecturer. The resources for this class are the
primary sources (including both published ones and copies of the manuscripts), research literature, lectures,
etc.
On seminars, students are expected to take active part in the discussion and demonstrate knowledge
of the content of lectures and readings. Seminar discussions are based on the previously given readings,
and fragments of sources introduced by the teacher and analyzed collectively by the class. Attendance and
levels of participation in class discussions during the seminars influence the final grade. If the student
misses more than 20% of class meetings, additional assignment can be provided.
Besides the readings mandatory for everybody, each student is assigned to prepare a seminar
presentation based on his/her interests and the readings for the respective seminar. Presentation is prepared
by the students in advance, presented in the class (with a PowerPoint or otherwise) and followed by the
discussion. The order of presentations is established by dice.
The students will be obliged to write response papers after each session (lecture + seminar).
Response papers of about 1-2 pages summarizing the lecture material, readings, presentation and
discussion should be written by all students and sent to the teacher following each seminar and before the
deadline. Each session’s deadline for the response papers’ submission is set as of one week after the
seminar. Response papers have to be written in a form of an essay. On the one hand, a response paper
should summarize in a comprehensive way the material of readings, lecture, and class discussion in the
seminar. On the other hand, a response paper is more than a summary: it has to demonstrate analytical
abilities of the student and reflect his / her personal stance. Students are encouraged to use for the response
papers and the course papers both provided readings (which is mandatory) and research literature otherwise
(which is appreciated). The response papers indicate the level of student’s progress in studying within the
class framework and allow to the teacher(s) to track this progress. The response papers will be graded and
will contribute into the final assessment. Grades for response papers contribute into cumulative grade,
which in turn will contribute into the final one. Grades for single response papers are not disclosed to the
students. Failure to submit timely all the response papers may result in failing the whole course.
On the oral exam by the end of the course the students have to demonstrate their knowledge of:
a. material of the lectures,
b. seminar readings and discussions based on them.
The oral exam will be provided in the form of a conversation of the student with the course instructor
on one of the topics of the course.
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Grading system
The grade will be composed of class attendance, participation in the discussions during the seminars
(based on the readings), response papers, presentation and oral exam.
The final grade is drawn on the 10-grades scale. The final grade’s composition will be the
following: class attendance and participation in the discussions during the seminars based on the readings
(10%), presentations (20%), response papers (20%) and oral exam (50%).
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National Research University – Higher School of Economics
Department of History
Syllabus of the course: “History of Historical Knowledge”
Master’s program “Applied and Interdisciplinary History «Usable Pasts»”
There is also a transitory non-graded (i.e. “pass” / “fail”) exam in the end of the first module. A
prerequisite for passing this exam is submission of all response papers. Failure to pass this exam will result
in failure to be allowed to pass the final oral exam and therefore in failure to secure a positive final grade.
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Guidelines for knowledge assessment
O stands for “grade”. The final grade Ofinal will be formed based on the results of the final oral exam
(Oexam) and accumulated grade (Oacc).
The accumulated grade (Oacc) in its turn is formed of discussion in the seminars and individual
presentations of readings (1), response papers following the seminars and summarizing the lecture
material, readings, and discussion in the seminar (2), and a paper which should be written on a figure
on historiography of student’s choice, ideally linked to their course paper / thesis project (3). The paper
will be discussed on one of the seminars.
Accumulated grade is counted based on participation and activity in the debates – 20%, response
papers – 40%, presentation and its oral discussion on a seminar – 40%.
The formula for the accumulated grade is the following
Oacc = 0,2 Odebate + 0,4 Oresp.papers + 0,4 Opresentation
Accumulated grade contributes 50% of the final grade. The remaining 50% are linked to the oral
exam.
The formula for the final grade is the following
Ofinal = 0,5Oacc + 0,5 Oexam
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