Fachbereich 04: Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften - Durchführung der Veranstaltung: digital - Geschichte

The course will take place in cooperation with the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine) and will be taught in tandem with Dr. Konstiantyn Glomozda. While Dr. Glomozda will offer an overview of the history of historical writing, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe and Ukraine, Dr. Astrouskaya’s focus will lay on the critical assessment of digitalization, the challenges it poses, and the opportunities it offers for historians and historical scholarship. Does digitalization affect our work as historians and the knowledge of the past that we produce and transmit? And if yes, then how exactly? Which new methods can we use, and how can we critically evaluate their heuristic potential? Do new, “digitally born” sources require a particular attitude and evaluation? How has digital media been used to produce, popularize and circulate historical myths? How and to what extent do different agents of memory – governmental and non-governmental alike – employ new digital facilities in their politics, and what does it mean for historians?
We will attempt to answer these and other questions during this course.

Media Matters. Different forms of media shape the way societies see and portray themselves and what contemporaries can know about the world and each other. In the case of Early Modernity (~1500-1800), the printing press and its products had a revolutionary impact.

This course will look at early modern (print) media, from leaflets and periodicals, to newspapers and books, and its various roles in shaping society and knowledge, affecting the history of rulership, colonialism, religion, science, nationalism and much more. Among others, we will read literature on the effects of print as well as theoretical texts on the impact of various forms of print media, on historiography and the contemporaries.

To pass the writing of an essay or the holding of a presentation will be required, as well as regular participation in the discussions of the reading every week. If there is a large enough demand this course can be offered as an hybrid: digitally and in persen.