From Theory to Practice

Course goals

This course is concerned with practical skills and theoretical approaches relevant to all fields of Ancient, Medieval, Insular and Renaissance studies.

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

- identify and describe some common theoretical approaches and practical skills which are
important for all premodern fields of research;
- discuss their own research discipline in relation to other premodern areas of research
- assess the significance of a number of dominating theoretical approaches for their own area
of research;
- apply a number of skills in order to carry out research more adequately;
- determine what further training of skills is needed for their own research;
- discuss their ideas in an interdisciplinary setting.
 

Content

Weekly meetings will allow students to acquire theoretical approaches and practical skills. Four modules are on offer in this course:

1.         Interpreting Literary Sources
2.         Interpreting Archaeological Sources
3.         Interpreting Visual Sources
4.         Philology

You will choose a minimum of two of these skills and will be trained by teachers who are experienced practitioners of a specific skill.

Please note that the skills trainings are only meant to introduce students to ways of carrying out a specific research task. Depending, among other things, on your research interests, you may continue your training in the framework of a master-apprentice tutorial or another kind of elective. In the second year of the RMA, you have a lot of options to further improve your skills in a field of your choice, and block 4 is the right time to decide what you intend to do.

In this course we use the History Research Guide (accessible via https://ong.wp.hum.uu.nl/en/), in which you will find information about setting up and conducting academic historical research, preparing and writing an essay about this research and orally presenting your results in class. The instructors of the skills will explain aspects of this manual and the requirements for the portfolio’s in more detail during the meetings.

Additional information

The entrance requirements for Exchange Students will be checked by the International Office and the Programme coordinator. Acceptance is not self-evident.