History

Throughout the 18th century, thousands of young British men and women embarked on extensive journeys to continental Europe – an activity known as the Grand Tour.  This course explores who these people were, where they went, and the reasons for their expeditions.  For some, the Tour was the final stage of formal education; to others an opportunity for sexual adventures and pleasure-seeking. The course discusses the practical challenges of 18th-century travel, the political, religious, and cultural contexts of the Tour, as well as the key places to visit and the reasons for their popularity.  It also considers what the Tourists brought back with them: from physical artefacts for public and private collections, to new ways of seeing and understanding the world. The course introduces students to the actual writings of the Tourists, showing how they experienced international travel and shaped the modern tourist industry.

This course explores modern Japan’s twentieth century environmental history, specifically focusing on how, when, and why birds and their habitat have been threatened by hunting, collecting, trade, war, pollution, tourism, and urbanization. How and why did some species become extinct, while others survived? The course is based on discussions about primary and secondary source readings, and occasionally material culture items such as postcards, postage stamps and posters. By the end of the course students should be familiar with important events, issues, and texts related to the environmental history of modern Japan.

In Germany, the field of Intelligence Studies is marginalized in academic curricula. This seminar tries to fill the gap and introduces students to the emerging and complex field of Intelligence Studies. Students will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the academic field and about its main theoretical debates. Emphasis will be put on the development of theories of international intelligence relations. One session will reflect on the methods and methodology in intelligence studies. Students will study the historical origins of intelligence agencies in the Middle East, especially within the Cold War context, and their role up until today (for example, OSINT + AI). Further, students will explore diverse themes such as covert action campaigns, the institutions’ highly bureaucratic set-up and their exercise of repression and violence. Within the course of the seminar, we will give a broad overview of several Middle Eastern intelligence agencies. We will highlight two examples: Iraqi and Syrian intelligence agencies. The examples will serve to illustrate the aforementioned themes. Further, students will be familiarized with the involvement of Western intelligence agencies in the Middle East, with a focus on both Germany's during the Cold War: German foreign intelligence (BND), East German State Security (MfS). Additionally, we will look at the new trends in Intelligence Studies and, for instance, investigate how intelligence is portrayed in literature and films.

This course investigates some of the events and processes which have led to a more integrated world order between the mid-19th century and the later 20th century. For most of that period much of the world was carved up between a number of inter-continental empires centered in Europe. How those empires grew, exerted control and in due course retreated will be the particular focus of the course. But other processes, too, are considered, as are the evolution of such ideologies as imperialism or communism and whether such ideologies impacted upon changing global power relationships.

From the Meiji period onward, literature may be read as double translation of Western modernity and pre-Meiji cultural forms. Literary translation plays a central role in the construction of modern Japanese language and modern national literature. This course considers relations among language, culture, gender, race and ethnicity, power, nation and empire. The class is designed to give a greater understanding of Japanese history, Japanese literature, and postcolonial and gender theory, and to rethink institutions and systems of knowledge created within modernity. 

This course examines transitional justice measures implemented in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to face the grave human rights violations committed during the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, and their relationship with the transition to democracy in these countries between 1983 and 2014. 

This course provides an overview of the history of German literature from the 18th to the 21st century. Starting from the knowledge that the psychological sensitivities of an age are reflected in literature, and supported by reading and discussing representative texts, e.g. from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht or Ferdinand von Schirach, the focus of the seminar is based on the following topics: the desires, demands, and utopias found in the literature; the influence of developments of the history of thought, social upheavals, and technological innovations on literary expression; the interplay between art, music, and literature; the ability of fiction to inspire social changes; and the ways in which respective authors incorporate literary legacies into their own works. A valid and living impression of literary development from the classical period to the present is provided through texts, and also through film clips and field trips. For instance, the course includes a visit to the Deutsches Historisches Museum and students obtain deeper insight into the art of the Romantic period with a tour through the Alte Nationalgalerie.

The course offers a study of the “social question” and popular movement in Chile. Topics include: the concept of popular movement; independence and the formation of the republican state; conservative order and socio-political opposition; formation and expansion of the popular movement during the Portalian regime (1830-1891); liberal order and the discovery of the "social question"; parliamentary republic and the centennial crisis; labor transition and conflict (1880-1910); movement for the "regeneration of the people" and movement for the emancipation of workers; the "social question" and the redefinition of the role of the State; dilemma of the labor movement.

The course is dedicated to the comparison with current themes of the history of women, such as: participation in political and social life, inclusion and exclusion, the role of women in the family, education, and violence against women. Group work and group readings are planned in class to debate different viewpoints. The course investigates the history of women as a fundamental aspect of Ancient History, with special reference to the roman period, with the awareness of the specificities of the female condition in each period and of the transformations carried out over the period under consideration. Issues connected with ancient source analysis do not require knowledge of Greek and Latin, since a translation in Italian is always be provided. A basic knowledge of classical languages is however recommended. The course discusses topics including: gender history and some of the main aspects relevant for classical studies: work, culture, religion, and marriage; the condition of women from the Roman Republic to the Early Imperial period; the legal status of women; women's wealth; the (public?) space of women in roman imperial courts; stereotypes in womens’ stories: the need to identify interpretative categories, structures, and models through the analysis of historical and historiographical sources; inclusion and exclusion: women and work, case study: work at home, work outside; and case studies: women, body and sex, and abortion and the violence on women (from Lucrezia to Metoo).

This course aims to broaden knowledge in Medieval Japanese history. This is not a course that surveys the whole Medieval period in chronological order, based on a textbook with information that students should memorize. Rather, the course aims to think about the history of Medieval Japan from different perspectives; to think about the reasons of important historical developments, and to understand their context and mechanism. The topics of the course and the readings will change every year according to the focus of the class.