Introduction to Intellectual History: Approaches and Methods (JMMZ253)

Associate Professor Adrian Brisku, PhD

Department of Russian & East European Studies, Charles University

https://cuni.academia.edu/adrianBrisku

adrian.brisku@fsv.cuni.cz

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Intellectual history is an interdisciplinary subject in historical studies dealing with understanding and reconstructing various ideas, including those in political thought, as emerging and evolving in the texts produced in their various historical contexts. The task of students and scholars of intellectual history is to engage in a reconstructive understanding of these ideas by also considering their contextual strengths and shortcomings. Each session in this course covers a different approach highlighting different underlying questions posed, sources used, and argumentative strategies deployed.

1. Introduction

2. What is Intellectual History?

3. The Idea of History and Historicism

4. Hermeneutics and Hans Georg Gadamer

5. Historical Contextualism and the Cambridge School

6. History of Concepts (Begriffsgeschischte)

7. Comparative History Approach

8. Epistemic Order and Historical Epistemology

9. Martin Jay’s Synoptic Content Analysis

10. Rethinking Intellectual History

11. Global Intellectual History

12. Workshop

Last updated, 4.9.2023