97946 - States, Empires, Nations

Academic Year 2021/2022

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Physics (cod. 9244)

Learning outcomes

In order to launch a reflection enabling us to present history as an instrument for problematization, some skills and knowledge are to be acquired:

1. Understanding of the nature and quality of sources

2. Capacity of analysing texts and reading sources critically

3. Contextualising the texts

4. Perception of chronology

5. Knowledge of the events necessary to contextualisation

6. Awareness of the historiographical debate within the analysis is to be placed

Course contents

 

All classes will take place from 1 October 2021 to 17 December 2021 and will be held every Friday from 3 pm to 5 pm at Aula Magna di Aanatomia comparata, via Francesco Selmi 3, II floor

“History is a shared commonwealth. The knowledge of is a principle of democracy and equality between citizens. It is a critical, inhomogeneous knowledge, which refuses conformism and thrives in dialogue. Historians have their own political opinions but have to submits them to the evidence of documents and debate, comparing them to others’ ideas and committing to their dissemination.” (Giardina, Camilleri, Segre, Appello. La storia è un bene comune). Above all, history is not merely just one discipline amongst many, which explains the meaning of this project, whose intention is to introduce history in those courses that do not provide it in their curricula, as a way to understand the present, the world we live in, by critically comparing it to our past. It is necessary to be aware that all subjects taught in university are rooted, without exception, in a historical flow without which they would no doubt still be able to allow students the acquisition of competence in the field, but not to enable the latter to acquire a critical understanding of the transformation of knowledge and the societies that express it. It is not always clear to all that history has nothing to do with an antiquarian approach to the past, with the learning of by now bygone events, but it is directly linked to understanding the present, to building a mindful citizenship, to acquiring a critical knowledge, a training ground to ‘practice’ dealing with the complexity of social and political dynamics otherwise destined to merely shoot before our eyes like mysterious meteors. Further to this point, the strengthening of social and civic competences, which are typical of historical studies, would represent the indispensable, and furthermore winning element of transversality across all specialist fields, within a formative itinerary aiming at both a high professionalization and its cognizant practice.

Structure of the course:

  • Fulvio Cammarano (Lecture 1) 1-10-21

    Course presentation and meaning


  • Tiziana Lazzari (Lecture 2) 8-10-21

    The barbarian peoples at the origin of the Nation States? Critical notes on a dangerous cliché


  • Berardo Pio (Lecture 3) 15-10-21

    False, interpolated, plausible: historians facing falsification.


  • Francesca Roversi Monaco (Lecture 4) 22-10-21

    The political use of the Middle Ages in contemporary public discourse


  • Vincenzo Lavenia (Lecture 5) 29-10-21

    Empires at the time of the first global connections. Europe and the world (XVI -XVII centuries)


  • Maria Teresa Guerrini (Lecture 6) 5-11-21

    European unity in the era of the nascent modern states? Common matrixes of a contemporary phenomenon.


  • Francesca Sofia (Lecture 7) 12-11-21

    Enlightenment?


  • Roberto Balzani (Lecture 8) 19-11-21

    The magic of dates.


  • Riccardo Brizzi (Lecture 9) 26-11-21

    Media, society and politics in the contemporary age.


  • Michele Marchi (Lecture 10) 3-12-21

    Making political history of the European integration: an interpretative proposal.


  • Patrizia Dogliani (Lecture 11) 10-12-21

War in the contemporary world.

 

Stefano Cavazza (Lecture 12) 17-12-21

Conclusions

 

Readings/Bibliography

Texts: Marc Bloch, Apologia_della_storia o Mestiere di storico, Turin, Einaudi, 1981 (1950), pp.166.

 

Teaching methods

Lectures

The course will be last 24 hours, equalling 3 CFU (Course Credits)

Assessment methods

interview centred on the text and on course work contents.

Type of assessment: Mark out of thirty.

Office hours

See the website of Fulvio Cammarano