Global Intellectual History

Global Intellectual History is a relatively new and broad area of study, without a precise definition. As a matter of fact, it explores the different ways in which the circulation of ideas has become global. The major risk in this field is either to compare what happened, simultaneously, in different and incommensurable cultural contexts or to look for connections that are only the outcome of our imagination and an abstract exercise to satisfy our curiosity.
This course avoids these methodological mistakes by employing a historicist approach. It looks at the history of ideas (Antiquity to the Contemporary Era) considering historiography as a specific form of political thought and political thought as an expression of political identity, generated at different social levels by historiography.
The course aims to offer, therefore, a historical panorama of the principal characteristics of the global history of historiography and the theoretical principles that have animated historiographical production and its global circulation.

The course introduces students to global intellectual history, guiding them towards the knowledge of how to grasp the continuity and peculiarities of modern historical production compared to those of the past. Through the analysis of concrete examples, students will understand the problems and methods of contemporary historiographic reflection, and develop awareness, theory and their own personal historiographical style. At the end of the course, they will be able to critically read primary sources and scientific texts relating to the historical period under consideration and develop autonomous reflections. These skills will be acquired through direct and continuous dialogue with the professor in the classroom, through the analysis of proposed texts for individual study, and thanks to the presentation and joint discussion of mutually agreed-upon readings.