METHODOLOGY OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH: SOURCES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

Learning the methodology of historical research

Basic knowledge of events and processes of modern and contemporary history.

The course program will be aimed at guiding students in discovering the debate and Italian and international historiographical trends, providing information on the lexicon, bibliography, sources and methodology of historical research, as well as food for thought on the public use of history, on the relationship between history and memory and, more generally, on the relationships between History and other Social Sciences, useful for tracing the coordinates for understanding the roots of current events.

The teaching will be divided into three parts:

1. The first part will provide students with the historian's "toolbox", through some mainly theoretical and methodological themes: the lexicon of the discipline will be analysed; the node of periodizations; the sources and their classification will be studied, but also the tools, phases, objectives of the research and its aims.

2. Connecting to the topics covered in the first part, the second will be dedicated to the study of some recent historiographical trends of particular interest.T this will serve as a prerequisite for a rereading of Italian and international historical events. In this sense, the analysis of some periodizing events (the Risorgimento, the world conflicts, the transition from totalitarianism to democracy, the Resistance, the protests of 1968, the fall of communism, the end of the First Republic in Italy) will be realized through peculiar themes and tools: images and visual culture; toponymy and the civil calendar; the collective memory and the testimonies of the protagonists; anniversary and anniversary celebrations; global trends. Particular attention will be paid to the comparison between the Italian and international perspectives.

3. The last part of the program involves the active participation of the students, who will be guided on a journey of discovery of places and sources of research, both through scheduled visits to local archives and through the "virtual" tour of the numerous archives present on the web, very useful resources for historical reconstruction and dissemination. Students will be involved in the development of a research project on the history of the University of Catania and the Faculty of Political Sciences from its foundation to today, through the analysis of the documentation kept in the University's Historical Archives. The presentation of the research project will be an integral part of the final evaluation and will be accompanied by an oral interview on the theoretical part of the program.

-       Sandro Rogari, La scienza storica. Principi, metodi e percorsi di ricerca, UTET 2013, ISBN 978-88-6008-403-3.