Methodology for History
Code
711051068
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
História
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Raquel Pereira Henriques
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
1. Grasp history as a construction obeying its own methodological and theoretical canons
2. Acquire practical information on the implementation of heuristics.
3. Achieve a general overview of historical hermeneutics.
4. Acquire specific knowledge about the key features of historical research
5. Develop a reflective and critical attitude
Prerequisites
None.
Subject matter
1. History between theory and methods: introduction to the study of the discipline, the importance of the historical method.
2. General notions of methodology and historical practices.
3. Heuristics: the conditions and practices of correct identification and selection of sources.
4. The Critical History
5. The historical synthesis
Bibliography
Fernand Braudel, História e Ciências Sociais, Lisboa, Editorial Presença, 1990.
Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World. Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 1-19.
Writing History. Theory and Practice (ed. Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner e Kevin Passmore), New York, Bloomsbury
Academic, 2010, 2ª edição (1ª, 2003)
Teaching method
We seek to sensitize students to the importance of methodology as a guarantee of the scientific nature of historiographical
text, and students are encouraged to discuss texts, to rank the relevance of sources and to write short texts in a critical
perspective. Visits are carried out to monuments and places where important events took place to demonstrate the
importance of linking buildings and landscapes with the facts studied in the documentation. Students are also stimulated to
the importance of sources other than the written, as the images and archaeological artefacts.
Evaluation method
The evaluation is diverse,
promoting the achievement of short works that train different skills:
Conducting a bibliography on a topic given by the teacher;
Conducting an essay of 3,000 characters on \"Being Historian\";
Conducting a report of 10,000 characters on \"Making History\" from two study visits;
A written test.