Problems of Historical Knowledge

Semester and Year Offered: Semester Monsoon

Course Coordinator and Team: Dr Dhiraj Kumar Nite (Coordinator) and Dr YogeshSnehi.

Email of course coordinator: dhiraj[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in, yogesh[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim: This course focuses on questions and problems involved in historical research and writing, and it reviews various formulations of historical method. The course familiarises students with seminal ideas of modern philosophy that have influenced the development of the historical science. While the first unit of this course explores theory and philosophy of history, subsequent modules deal with particular examples of the making of historical knowledge and illustrate how an understanding of ‘historical reality’ has changed or been challenged by new discoveries or approaches. Another purpose of these case studies is to illustrate how historical facts and ‘discoveries’ gain different significance over time and are dependent on various social and political contexts of interpretation.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

Unit 1. The historian and her problems: an overview of philosophical-methodological issues (Dr DK Nite: August-September)

Unit 2. ‘Hindus’, ‘Muslims’ and the idea of India (Dr Yogesh Snehi, October-November).

Assessment Details with weights: