Course code: BTKD-TÖ-TG-4/2 and BTKD-IR-11

Course title: Microhistory today

Instructor: István Szijártó

Time: every second Wednesday 15.00 CET

Location: -- (on-line course held on zoom.us)

Course homepage: www.szijarto.elte.hu/Online2022a.htm

Maximum number of students admitted: 8, of which 2 places are reserved for PhD students of Eötvös University, Budapest. Those interested please send an e-mail to szijarto@elte.hu. The application deadline is 8 February 2022. PhD students are given priority. The attendance of this course is free of charge.

Educational objectives:

The course is intended as a follow-up to an earlier introductory course into microhistory in English for an international group of students. While designed for Hungarian PhD students as a usual PhD course following the rules and customs valid in Hungary (14 study weeks, 180-minute seminars once in a fortnight, 10 ECTS credits), it is open for other students, too. The language of tuition is English, and classes are held online. In the classes, most recently published works of microhistory will be discussed. Authors of four of the five books to be discussed have accepted my invitation to participate at the seminar when we discuss their books.

Course content:

1. 9 February 2022: Microhistory of everyday religion I: Reformation in London

2. 9 March 2022: Microhistory of everyday religion II: Puritans in America

3. 23 March 2022: The microhistory of opium trade

4. 6 April 2022: The microhistory of a house in Paris

5. 11 May 2022: A conflict in thirteenth-century England over church property and ecclesiastical patronage

Course requirements:

As a minimum, two thirds of the classes are to be attended. Students should read the books or articles prescribed. For missed classes, readings should be made up to by 13 May 2022 the latest.

Prescribed reading:

1. Gary G Gibbs: Five Parishes in Late Medieval and Tudor London: Communities and Reforms. Routledge: London – New York, 2019.

2. Margaret Murányi Manchester: Puritan Family and Community in the English Atlantic World: Being “Much Afflicted with Conscience.” Routledge: London – New York, 2019.

3. Omri Paz: Who Killed Panayot? Reforming Ottoman Legal Culture in the 19th Century. Routledge: London – New York, 2021.

4. Fabrice Langrognet: Neighbours of Passage: A Microhistory of Migrants in a Paris Tenement, 1882–1932. Routledge: London – New York, 2022 (forthcoming).

5. Andrew Miller: Patronage, Power, and Masculinity in Medieval England: A Microhistory of a Bishop's and Knight's Violent Contest over the Church of Thame. Routledge: London – New York, 2022 (forthcoming).