6 ECTS credits
170 h study time
Offer 2 with catalog number 4023487ENW for working students in the 1st semester at a (E) Master - advanced level.
This course offers an exploration in ‘deep history’. Deep history (sometimes also ‘big history’) aims to bring an empirically grounded narrative on the entirety of the human past, bridging ‘history’ with ‘prehistory’. This involves working with long-term chronologies, global scales of analysis and interdisciplinary methods, combining insights from biology, anthropology, archaeology, and history. Because of this ambitious scope, this course will zoom in on the research field of environmental history in which explorations in deep history foster new insights and lively debates, inspired by the current crisis of climate change. Throughout the classes, we will debate the empirical and critical merits of opposing worldviews. The deep history course invites reflection on issues of time and chronology, geographical scale, disciplinary boundaries in sciences and humanities, as well as on the fluid relations between what scholars consider as the ‘human’ and the ‘natural’ world.
This course consists of six thematically organized interactive classes in which we discuss reading materials prepared at home. All students enrolled in the course are expected to do the preparatory reading, and to submit a ‘discussion note’ (max. ½ A4) prior to the start of the class through Canvas. All reading materials are available for download on Canvas.
- Students are able to recognize the challenges posed by pursuing historical investigation beyond
the scope of traditional historical inquiry.
- Students can distinguish different models and worldviews for interpreting the ‘deep history’ of humankind.
- Students are able to differentiate between different ways of accounting for long-term change and stability in conflicting schools of deep history writing, and they can analyse narratives of deep history in terms of their theoretical and methodological assumptions.
- Students can reflect critically on issues of time and scale, as well as on the disciplinary boundaries that restrict scientific inquiry into long-term processes of change.
- Students can critically evaluate myths of narratives of human creation and destruction.
- Students can engage in empirically grounded ‘deep history’ writing in a compelling way.
The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Oral Exam determines 50% of the final mark.
SELF Paper determines 50% of the final mark.
Within the Oral Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:
Within the SELF Paper category, the following assignments need to be completed:
The evaluation for this course is based on a written essay (50%) and an oral examination in which you present and orally defend your essay (50%).
This offer is part of the following study plans:
Master of History: default (only offered in Dutch)
Master of Teaching in Arts and Humanities: History (only offered in Dutch)