The Betty Behrens Seminar on Classics of Historiography

Date / time: 16 February - 9 March, 1:45 pm - 4:00 pm

The seminar offers a unique opportunity for students and scholars to reflect on great historical works and engage in discussion with renowned experts. It will endeavour to underline the importance of classics of historiography for their relevant intellectual function in creating critical political thought. 

Click on image to download pamphlet

Programme

Thursday, 16 February 2023

1.45 pm | Registration | Clare Hall, Richard Eden Suite

2 pm | Anabasis (IV c. BC) by Xenophon | TIMOTHY ROOD, Professor of Greek Literature, University of Oxford

Thursday, 23 February 2023

1.45 pm | Registration | Clare Hall, Richard Eden Suite

2 pm | Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1751) by Voltaire | DAVID WOOTTON, Emeritus Professor of History, University of York

Thursday, 2 March 2023

1.45 pm | Registration | Clare Hall, Richard Eden Suite

2 pm |  Historia novorum in Anglia (c. 1115) by Eadmer | GEORGE GARNETT, Professor of Medieval History, University of Oxford

Thursday, 9 March 2023

1.45 pm | Registration | Clare Hall, Richard Eden Suite

2 pm | The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire (XX c.) by Eric Hobsbawm | RICHARD J. EVANS, Regius Professor Emeritus of History, University of Cambridge

 

Click here to download a pamphlet for this series.


Purpose

The seminar offers a unique opportunity for students and scholars to reflect on great historical works and engage in discussion with renowned experts.

As we know, a classic is recognized as such insofar as it retains its value as an intellectual and cognitive tool, helping us to gain an understanding of the past as well as the present from a particular cultural viewpoint. Classics still have the capacity to resonate and speak to us about current problems. They produce perspectives that are implicitly comparative and dynamic, thanks to the historical dimension passing through both them and us.

These considerations are even more relevant when we speak about the classics of historiography because the same historical dimension is present on several more levels. These classics challenge us to contemplate some historical problems, which are only fully understood when properly contextualised. In the same way, even the classic itself can fruitfully produce its own intellectually provocative value only when it is read through the eyes of the present but interpreted with a historicist approach.

The seminar will endeavour to underline the importance of the classics of historiography for their relevant intellectual function in creating critical political thought.

To sign up with Eventbrite: https://the-betty-behrens-seminar-tickets.eventbrite.com