Course code: BBN-ERA-186

Course title: Comparative microhistory of the 18^th century (in English)

Time: every second Friday, 13.00-16.00

Location: 6-8 Múzeum krt., 268.

szijarto.istvan@btk.elte.hu

Course homepage: www.szijarto.elte.hu/Comparative.htm

Maximum number of students admitted: 7

Educational objectives

The course will present the microhistory of 18th-century Hungary in a comparison with microhistorical works about medieval and early modern Europe, from the classics to the latest books. These will help the participants of the course both to better understand the 18th-century history of Hungary and to have a good overview of the theory and practice of microhistory. As a change to the original programme, instead of discussing theoretical texts on the 7th and 8th classes, we shall make an excursion into the 20th century.

Course content

1-2. 15 September 2023: Introduction

3-4. 29 September 2023: Millers

5-6. 13 October 2023: Women

7-8. 27 October 2023: Modernity

9-10. 17 November 2023: Conscripts

11-12. 1 December 2023: Conflicts

Course requirements

As a minimum, two thirds of the courses are to be attended. For each class, a book in English (or two) is to be read in full. For missed classes, readings should be made up by 20 December 2023 the latest. No essay is to be submitted.

Prescribed reading

3-4. Carlo Ginzburg: The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1980.

5-6. Guðný Hallgrímsdóttir: A Tale of a Fool? A Microhistory of an 18th-Century Peasant Woman. Routledge: London – New York, 2019.

7-8. Fabrice Langrognet: Neighbours of Passage: A Microhistory of Migrants in a Paris Tenement, 1882 - 1932. Routledge: London – New York, 2023; Edith Raim: The Rise of National Socialism in the Bavarian Highlands: A Microhistory of Murnau, 1919 - 1933. Routledge: London – New York, 2023.

9-10. Ilya Berkovich: Conscription in the Habsburg Monarchy 1740-1792, in William D. Godsey – Petr Mat’a (eds): The Habsburg Monarchy as a Fiscal-Military State: Contours and Perspectives, 1648-1815. Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2022. 299-321; Tyge Krogh: The great nightman conspiracy. A tale of the 18th century’s dishonourable underworld. Routledge: London – New York, 2019.

11-12. Andrew Miller: Patronage, Power, and Masculinity in Medieval England: A Microhistory of a Bishop's and Knight's Contest over the Church of Thame. Routledge, London – New York, 2023.