Undergraduate Course: After Byzantium: An Intellectual History of the Greek world, 15th-19th c. (HIST10520)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores the intellectual history of the post-Byzantine Greek world, from the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and up to the 19th century. Although conventionally considered as the dark ages in the history of the Greeks, the course will show that, in fact, this period was one of great intellectual vitality for the Greeks. We will recover this vitality by focusing on a wide area -- from the Black Sea and the Balkans to the eastern Mediterranean, and central Europe) -- and on figures such as Phanariot princes, Patriarchs (even executed ones), converts, ex-communicated radicals, courtiers in Russian service, and national poets who did not speak their native tongue. |
| Course description |
This course focuses on one of the most underexplored periods in the history of the Greek world: that which followed the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and up to the nineteenth century. In doing so, it explores how intellectual currents that were global in nature played out in this world and that of Eastern Christianity more generally. As we will see, the intellectual vitality of the Greek world was a result of its wide encounters with other cultures and traditions. We will explore these encounters by focusing on the thought and actions of a diverse group of figures, most of whom were multilingual, conversed with Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism, crossed cultures, and led mobile lives. We will also move our gaze in a wide area paying particular attention to the Greek communities under Venetian and Ottoman rule (in the Balkans, the Danube, the Ionian islands, Crete, the Italian peninsula), and later under Russian, Habsburg, British and French rule (in the Black Sea, but also in Vienna, and Paris).
The course will make students aware of the multicultural realities and the intellectual encounters that characterised the Greek world, and offer them the analytical skills with which to understand them. It will also give them a firm grasp on the history of a region where cultures, religions, political communities, and Europe and the extra-European world met and interacted; a region that is currently at the heart of world-wide crises.
Content note: The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: eg. controversial statements about religion and belief systems, ethnic or racial discrimination. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 History courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. Applicants should note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
172 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
50 %,
Coursework
50 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
3000 word essay (50%)
Exam:
2 hour exam (50%) |
| Feedback |
Students are expected to discuss their coursework with the Course Organiser at least once prior to submission, and are encouraged to do so more often. Meetings can take place with the Course Organiser during their published office hours or by appointment. Students will also receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a coherent grasp of key intellectual, religious, social and cultural dynamics in a region that spans from the Black Sea to the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean,
- analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship concerning the social and intellectual interactions of the post-Byzantine Greek world, and upon primary source materials concerning the period in a global and comparative perspective,
- appreciate and assess both regional particularities and interconnected trends in intellectual history of the post-Byzantine Greek world,
- Integrate this knowledge into their broader course of study around historical narratives and change over time,
- develop and sustain original scholarly arguments by independently formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence considered in the course.
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Reading List
Michael Angold (ed.), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 5. Eastern Christianity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
R. Clogg, The movement for Greek independence, 1770-1821: A collection of documents, London: Macmillan, 1976.
A. Delivorias and E. Georgoula (eds), From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Hellenic art in adversity, 1453-1830, New York: Benaki Museum - Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2005
Eric Dursteler (ed.), A companion to Venetian history, 1400-1797, Leiden: Brill, 2013
George Finlay, The history of Greece under Ottoman and Venetian domination, Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons, 1856.
S. Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge history of Turkey, vol. 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
M. Greene, The Edinburgh history of the Greeks: The Ottoman Empire, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
H. T. Karateke, H. Anetshofer (eds), The Ottoman world: A cultural history reader, 1450-1700, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2021.
P. M. Kitromilides, The Enlightenment as Social Criticism. Iosipos Moisiodax and Greek Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992
P. M. Kitromilides, Enlightenment and Revolution. The Making of Modern Greece, Cam. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013
Steven Runciman, The Great Church in captivity: a study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the eve of the Turkish conquest to the Greek War of Independence Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
K. Zanou, Transnational patriotism in the Mediterranean: Stammering the nation, 1800-1850, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Graduates of this course will be able to:
i. approach and analyse a variety of primary and secondary sources, both written evidence and visual material,
ii. learn to reflect and examine critically the history of a world that played a key role in the encounter between Europe and the extra-European world,
iii. learn to appreciate and utilise a number of analytical methods, and to devise independent projects,
iv. navigate through diverse material, and think about how to proceed in analysing this material,
v. identify and adopt the best approaches to complete a task on the basis of the material at hand,
vi. adopt a curious and global outlook in local and regional phenomena |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Michalis Sotiropoulos
Tel:
Email: msotirop@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: Lindsay.Scott@ed.ac.uk |
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