Public History – Thematic Units

DIS 50: INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC HISTORY

Course Unit Code: DIS 50

Credits ECTS: 10

Course Type: Compulsory

Semester: First (1st)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

The course aims at familiarizing students with the scientific field of public history. The course is introductory and, therefore, the first weeks are dedicated to the discussion of the relation between academic and public history and the role of the academic and public historian respectively. The other aim of the course is to familiarize students with concepts and analytic categories that they will further study in the next semesters of their postgraduate studies. Beginning with the difference between past and history, students come to know current debates and discussions regarding tradition, memory and collective identity, that are at the core of the field of public history.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Class Module, students will:

• understand the specificity and the significance of public history and the role of public historian
• comprehend the significance of memory in the formation of collective identities in contemporary societies
• gain expert knowledge in a cutting-edge field of knowledge and be able to develop critical thinking towards science and research
• gain expert skills in problem-solving and the ability to integrate new findings in the research procedure
• to develop the necessary skills in order to adapt to complex challenges and contribute their knowledge in collaborative projects

Subject areas

• Public history as a distinct scientific field
• History between past and present
• History, memory and collective identities
• History in the public sphere and political uses of the past.

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 51: THEORIES OF HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

Course Unit Code: DIS51

Credits ECTS: 10

Course Type:Compulsory

Semester: First (1^st)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

The course aims to offer students an analytical and critical framework of the historiographical currents that have shaped the way history is interpreted and written, from the formation of modern “historiography” which took place from the beginning of 19th century and beyond until the contemporary historical currents that continue to influence the way historians perceive the object of their study and the nature of their profession. Emphasis is placed on the ideological premises of each historiographic current, in order to highlight points of contradiction and/or points of “coincidence” between the scientific and ideological demands of each era and each intellectual trend, with special reference to the historical events of global scope that marked the 19th and 20th century. This course particularly focuses on the history of Greek historiography, from the era of consolidation of the historiographical paradigm of a unified and continuous Greek history (ancient-medieval-modern) until today.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Class Module, students will be able to:

• Gain a general overview of the evolution of historiography
• To understand how social sciences had contributed to the current thinking of history and impacted on its methodological instruments, and, vice versa, how social sciences have accepted the influence of history as a discipline by recognizing the historicity of the phenomena they study.

Subject Areas

• The writing of history in the 19th century: historicism, national historiography, positivist school
• Developments in European historiography during the first half of the twentieth century: the Annales school, economic history, Marxist historiography, etc.
• Modern trends in historical science
• History and the social sciences
• Greek historiography during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 52: HISTORY AND SOURCES

Course Unit Code: DIS52

Credits ECTS: 10

Course Type: Compulsory

Semester: First (1^st)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

The Thematic Module   ‘HISTORY AND SOURCES’ deals with locating, checking and interpreting the sources of history. It examines what a historical source is and how we can approach it. Different types and categories of sources are examined as well as different theoretical of analysis and methodological tools. The world of archives and archival collections is studied. The role of modern technological developments is explored in relation to historical sources. Finally, the methodology of oral history is analyzed as oral sources and testimonies constitute an important field of activity for those active in public history.

Learning Outcomes:

After the end of the Thematic Module, students are expected to:

• have familiarized themselves with a wide range and variety of historical sources and to have investigated their character and specificities.
• have acquired tools and knowledge to locate and study historical sources.
• have studied methods and ways of approach, critical analysis and use of sources in the field of public history, focusing both on modern techno-scientific developments and on types of sources such as audio-visual evidence and oral testimonies in relation to the other historical sources.

Subject areas:

• Kinds and identification of sources
• Approaching and analyzing sources
• Oral history
• Sources and public history

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 53: HISTORY AND EDUCATION

Course Unit Code: DIS 53

Credits ECTS: 10

Course Type: Compulsory

Semester: Second (2^nd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

School history is situated between academic and public history. In general, it follows the advances in historiography and is periodically updated by incorporating as much of the new findings and explanatory schemes as are widely accepted in the field of academic history. At the same time, however, it is forced to adapt to state curricula, which tend to reflect either narrowly the official state ideology or more broadly the dominant assumptions of a society about its past. From this perspective, school history could be seen as the official public history.

The first aim of this course is to demonstrate when, how and why school history produced and disseminated the dominant representations of our national past and how, subsequently, it became itself trapped in the role of reproducing the now dominant representations. To this end, a history of school history will be sketched, it will be shown when and why it was limited to a celebratory biography of the nation, and what the possibilities are today to break away from its moralizing role and become a vehicle for the cultivation of a reflective historical consciousness.

The second, equally central objective is to impart the skills necessary for graduates to construct teaching scenarios that are more readable, multimodal and engaging than those provided by conventional textbooks.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the module, students are expected to:

• present the main continuities and discontinuities in the history of school History.
• present the central controversies about school history textbooks as they unfolded from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day.
• distinguish the differences between narratives of the same historical theme in different school textbooks and propose explanations for these differences by inscribing these narratives in their historical context.
• distinguish the crucial differences in the way a topic is presented and analysed in a history study and in a history textbook and to propose explanations for these differences.
• to compare solemn speeches given by teachers at school festivals and to distinguish the key changes that mark the transition from one era to another. Be able to write a solemn speech more valid, understandable and engaging than existing ones.
• to construct a digital teaching scenario for one of the school history lessons which, compared to a conventional lesson, is more readable and engaging.

Subject areas:

• History curriculum
• Conflicts over history textbooks
• History teaching scenarios
• International associations for historical education

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 54: HISTORY AND THE MEDIA

Course Unit Code: DIS 54

Credits ECTS:10

Type of Unit: Compulsory

Semester: Second (2^nd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

The relationship between history and the media is a complex and dynamic one. The press and electronic media, radio and television, are the most important public history makers: History in political and public discourse in general is produced and expressed through the media, shaping   the political and historical culture of a society. The press and electronic media are the factors in shaping both the relationship of modern societies with their own history and their collective memory.  They also diffuse and produce historical knowledge, perceptions and stereotypes. This course examines the function of the media as factors who form political culture and historical consciousness, as well as their mediating role between politics and history. The press reflects the changes that take place in a society, the expectations of contemporaries but also the ways in which they perceive the reality.

The purpose of this course is both to study the historical dimensions of this relationship and to highlight the ways it works in today’s reality.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Class Module, students will be able to:

• understand the multiple functions of the media in shaping the collective historical culture
• interpret contemporary complex and changing political and social realities.
• develop complex historical thinking and form an open historical culture.

Subject Areas:

• Press and Modernity. History of the European and Greek press (15th-20th c.)
• The press as a historical source.
• Radio and television history issues.
• History of the 20th century and electronic media.
• History in the press and electronic media today (newspaper inserts, documentaries, radio broadcasts).

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 55: HISTORY AND SPACE

Course Unit Code: DIS 55

Credits ECTS: 10

Type of Unit: Compulsory

Semester: Second (2^nd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

The course aims at bringing to the fore the complex and multilevel relationship between memory and urban space through the examination of the politics of memory that render memory visible in public space (sites of memory, memorials, sculptures, street and squares naming, museums, performances, actions of Public History). The key idea of our approach is that public memory is historically constructed and for that reason is always open to new interpretations, replacement and vandalism according to the ideological priorities of successive regimes, the claims of social groups for public memory as well as the undergone social, economic and cultural transformations. We are going to examine the material representations of memory in relation to the kind of each political authority as well as the tropes of representation, the conflicts over the mnemonic construction of space due to the competing interpretations of the past, the spatiality of memory in correlation with everyday individual and collective geographies, the exclusion of social groups from the public representations of memory, and finally the interrelation between memory and space in the construction of national, ethnic, political, gender, race and class identities. We are also interested in the ways Public History could support citizens’ involvement in a dynamic relationship with the urban past, giving to them the opportunity to become producers of memory, in the scale of their neighborhood and town.

Learning Outcomes:

By the completion of the course students are expected to:

• become familiarized with the significance of space in the production of social and collective memory
• look with a critical eye the relationship between space and the politics of memory
• envisage the production of memory in relation to their neighborhood and town
• understand that memory representations in public space, such as monuments which often become contested places of memory
• understand the significance of space in the formation of historical culture

Subject areas:

• Social and cultural history of the city
• Local history and history of “the local”
• Space and oral history
• Space and memory
• Cultural politics, cultural heritage and space

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 60: HISTORY AND STATE INSTITUTIONS

Course Unit Code: DIS60

Credits ECTS: 10

Type of Unit: Compulsory

Semester: Third (3^rd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

History is an important policy area for every state for both external and internal reasons. The legitimisation of its power, the consolidation of its claims on other states, the unification of its populations (national identity politics) are just some of these reasons.

This section focuses on the range of ways in which the state apparatus, the government of a state as well as private institutions produce history through a number of cases from around the world that relate to both the modern and pre-modern period. Particular emphasis is placed on the twentieth century and especially on developments from World War II to the present day.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the Unit, students are expected to:

• be familiar with basic theoretical tools and concepts necessary for the interpretation of state policies on history.
• recognize the different ways in which a state authority can shape the historical narrative.
• distinguish the different state historical policies that have been developed from country to country depending on the different socio-historical contexts and the political situation at the time.
• be able to find a variety of evidence on the Internet and critically comment on it.

Cognitive Objects of the unit:

• Ritual as a means of forging official history
• The museum as a mechanism for the formation of the ideal citizen
• Monuments and naming: the construction of the national landscape
• Legislation and History

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 62: HISTORY AND CINEMA

Course Unit Code: DIS 62

Credits ECTS: 10

Type of unit:Elective

Semester: Third (3^rd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

Works of art, in all their forms, have always been one of the main vehicles for transmitting information, messages and interpretations about History. This observation applies, to an even greater extent, to cinema, one of the newest arts in terms of their origin. Cinema has been linked in various ways to History, among other by the production of films of historical content, as well as through the shaping of historical consciousness in a very broad part of public opinion during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The first part of the Course is dedicated to the negotiation of important theoretical issues, such as the multifaceted connection of history with the cinematic product, as well as the importance of distinguishing fictional and historical elements in films that refer to the past. The second part focuses on the concept of national cinema and analyzes specific examples of particular interest for the ways in which they handle aspects of the recent historical past. The last part refers to the use of films of historical content (fiction or documentary) in the educational process, while reference is made also to the challenges and difficulties faced by their creators.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Module, students will be able:

• to be familiar with the main axes of theoretical discussions on the relationship between History and cinema, through the study of selected Greek and international literature and the preparation of research papers.
• to know the importance and the main aspects of the relationship between History and cinema, with a special emphasis on the capacity to distinguish between historical truth and the cinematic version that falls within the scope – and the limitations – of Public History.
• to be able to decode the cinematic image and, in particular, to trace the fictional elements and the particular viewpoint(s) of the producer and the director in a historical film.
• to be able to produce a short film with historical content
• to be able to understand the function of public history through the important case study of cinema, which could also serve as a guide to the respective dynamics of related channels, such as literature and other forms of visual, performing and contemporary audiovisual arts.

Subject Areas:

• The long and deep-rooted relationship between history and cinema
• The specific power of film as a medium
• Cinema as a vehicle for shaping historical consciousness

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 63: PUBLIC HISTORY IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Course Unit Code: DIS 63

Credits ECTS: 10

Type of unit:Elective

Semester: Third (3^rd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

Digital everyday life constitutes one of the most critical arenas of modern historical culture: The multiple screens of computers and mobile phones, the digital layers of the modern urban landscape or the countless electronic networks that define western everyday life are the par exellance loci where the production and consumption of capital, goods, emotions or meaning takes place. Furthermore, they also constitute the main cultural area where information, knowledge, perceptions, criticisms and narratives about the past are constantly (re)-shaped. In that manner, Digital Public History is a crucial field of production of historical consciousness for modern societies. The aim of this module is to highlight the diverse processes through which contemporary digital historical culture is shaped.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Class Module, students will be able to:

• understand the multiple contributions of digital media in shaping contemporary historical culture
• explain the value and importance of History in everyday digital life
• further develop historical thinking towards an open historical culture and, consequently, effectively analyze contemporary phenomena and make responsible decisions
• become Public History ‘producers’, e.g. contributing to the content of a history blog, writing or editing an entry in a digital encyclopedia, publishing a history-based critical text, etc.

Subject Areas:

• The past in cyberspace
• Digital remediation and Public History
• Social networks, crowdsourcing, open source, creative commons and Public History

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DIS 64: ORAL HISTORY

Course Unit Code: DIS64

Credits ECTS: 10

Unit Type:Compulsory

Semester: Third (3^rd)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

Course Content:

Oral history is a research method focusing on life story interview, and, at the same time, a cultural product: the study of the past “from below”, meaning from the anonymous actors’ point of view. Oral historians study tape or video recorded narrations, arrived from individuals who really experienced the narrated facts. Oral history becomes rapidly an essential part of public history, since the oral testimonies are widely used in public sphere. Moreover, the increasing use of oral history as an educational practice presupposes a specific specialization of the teaching staff in the techniques of oral history. The course introduces students in the central theoretical concepts of oral history, in its research techniques and in the ethical issues which have to be considered in the multiple implementation of oral history in public sphere.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Class Module, students will be able to:

• have understood the meaning of oral history in representing of the experienced past in the public sphere
• have realized the concept of subject and inter-subjectivity in the process of life story narrating through oral history
• have been familiar with the techniques and the methodological and ethical prerequisites of oral history, along with its possibilities for implementation
• have realized the connection between oral and public history

Subject Areas:

• Oral history as a distinct discipline
• Oral history as a research methodology
• Implementations of oral history / oral history in praxis

Evaluation: Completion of written assignments during the academic semester which constitute a 40 percent of each student’s grade, if a pass is obtained in the final written assignment. Final written assignment grades constitute a 60 percent of the students’ final course grade.

Prerequisite courses: None

DISPD: POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA THESIS

Course Unit Code: DISPD

Credits ECTS: 30

Type of Unit: Compulsory

Semester: Fourth (4^th)

Language: Greek

Module Outline

General description:

The Postgraduate Diploma Thesis may be based on primary empirical research or an original critical review of existing literature or a public history project (like the production of a documentary film) and concerns subjects related to the courses of the program and the specific topics they address. The student suggests the subject of his Postgraduate Diploma Thesis and its final form is decided after consultation with his/her supervisor.

For more information regarding the Guidelines – Useful material for writing Postgraduate Thesis and the submission of writing the Postgraduate Diploma Thesis in the portal of HOU, students may consult the site https://courses.eap.gr/course/index.php?categoryid=9  and in particular the section DISPD: Postgraduate Diploma Thesis

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the Postgraduate Diploma Thesis, students will:

• understand the specificity and the significance of public history and the role of public historian
• comprehend the significance of memory in the formation of collective identities in contemporary societies
• gain expert knowledge in a cutting-edge field of knowledge and be able to develop critical thinking towards science and research
• gain expert skills in problem-solving and the ability to integrate new findings in the research procedure
• to develop the necessary skills to adapt to complex challenges and contribute their knowledge in collaborative projects

General Regulation for the Preparation of Master’s Theses in postgraduate programmes with a six-month duration.

For more information regarding the Specifications – Useful Material for writing Master’s Theses and uploading a Thesis at the H.O.U. Repository, you can go to the Digital Training Area http://courses.eap.gr and especially to the Program of Studies section.

Prerequisites: The presentation of the Postgraduate Diploma Thesis takes place after the successful completion of the program’s Modules.