History Writing in Antiquity: Herodotus and Thucydides

• • What is History?
  • The Question of Sources
  • History: general or particular. The Portrayal of Women in Herodotus
  • Understanding Causation in History
  • Understanding the historian’s political consciousness
  • The historian’s discourse
  • Unitarian or Analyst’s approach to composition
  • Speeches in historical narrative
  • Treatment of individuals
  • Narratology: study of how narrative works in history
  • Themes, structure and historical composition
  • What is history? Changes in interpretation.

In order to enrol in this subject, you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:

Elective

• MAQ-HIS-MAS-2020

Special requirements

No special requirements

Herodotus and Thucydides are seen as the founding fathers of the discipline of history. Their work has had a profound influence on later historians. This unit examines their different approaches to writing history as well as examining a range of modern historiographical approaches to the reading of these two influential historians. This unit will give students a thorough understanding of the major works by Herodotus and Thucydides, along with a comprehensive overview of the history of the study of these authors. At the same time, it will introduce some of the major historiographical techniques used in the study of these authors, and give the students the opportunity to analyse a range of critical responses to the writing of history. It will teach students to read these authors within their historical and historiographical context, to understand the characteristics of their particular type or genre and to evaluate the historical information gathered from them.

• short paper (12%%)
• short paper (13%%)
• essay (25%%)
• online discussion (25%%)