Lectures and Seminars – Winter Semester 2025/26
Courses by Prof. Dr. Hannes Grandits
Prof Grandits is on research for the winter semester 2025/26
Courses by Dr. Ruža Fotiadis
Einführungskurs 51601 (2 SWS), Group 1: Menschen und Tiere. Eine Beziehungsgeschichte der Moderne
Thu 10-12, FRS 191, Room 5008, Presence, Language: German
Tiere spielen eine entscheidende Rolle in unserer Geschichte und Gegenwart. Sei es als Nutz-, Arbeits-, Haus-, Zoo- oder Labortier – ihr Beitrag für Wirtschaft, Handel, Industrie, Alltag und Gesundheit der Menschen ist bedeutend. Anhand der komplexen Beziehungen von Menschen und Tieren in der neueren und neuesten Geschichte führt die Lehrveranstaltung in die Grundlagen und Arbeitstechniken der Geschichtswissenschaften ein. Dabei werden methodische Fragen, Ansätze und Konzepte historischen Arbeitens am Beispiel eines sich dynamisch entwickelnden Forschungsfeldes vorgestellt und diskutiert.
Übung 51459 (2 SWS): Fährten folgen. Herausforderungen der Tiergeschichte (19.-21. Jahrhundert)
Thu 14-16, FRS 191, Room 5009, Presence, Language: German
Die Beziehung zwischen Mensch und Tier prägt Geschichte und Gegenwart und doch stellt ihre Erforschung die Geschichtswissenschaften weiterhin vor Herausforderungen.
Anhand von Beispielen aus der neueren und neuesten Geschichte werden die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer Tiergeschichte ausgelotet. Dabei werden methodische und theoretische Ansätze, Zugänge und Konzepte im Rahmen der interdisziplinären Human-Animal-Studies mit Blick auf ihre Anwendbarkeit für die historische Forschung diskutiert.
Literatur:
- Mieke Roscher: Darf‘s ein bisschen mehr sein? Ein Forschungsbericht zu den historischen Human-Animal Studies, in: H-Soz-Kult 16.12.2016, http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/forum/2016-12-001.
- Fudge, Erica: A Left-Handed Blow: Writing the History of Animals, in: Nigel Rothfels (Hrsg.), Representing Animals, Bloomington 2002, S. 3-18.
Courses by Dr. Kristóf Gosztonyi
Masterseminar 51430 (2 SWS), Group 1: Humanitarian Intervention, Peacebuilding, and Statebuilding in the Western Balkans in Global and Historical Perspectives
Thu 10-12, FRS 191, Room 4031, Presence, Language: English
The seminar focuses on the international interventions of the 1990s and early 2000s in the Western Balkans (Former Yugoslavia). However, this focus is embedded in a broader historical and geographical context.
We begin with international interventions in the late 19th century noting some remarkable similarities in terms of language, motivation, justification and implementation. From there, we skip ahead a century to examine the immediate antecedents of the 1990s interventions in the Western Balkans — including the peacekeeping missions in Cyprus and the Near East, as well as the short-lived and ill-fated U.S. intervention in Somalia — in order to understand the mindset, toolkit, and institutional architecture of interventionism that was subsequently applied in the region.
The main section of the seminar deals with the actual interventions of the 1990s and early 2000s in the Western Balkans: how they drew on lessons from previous decades and how they evolved in response to context-specific challenges and shifting requirements.
We then turn to simultaneous interventions outside the Balkans (e.g., Rwanda, Liberia, Guatemala) and to subsequent interventions (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor) to see how simultaneous missions influenced each other and how these influenced subsequent missions. In the final session, we return to the Western Balkans to examine the legacy of the 1990s interventions and what remains in place today — particularly the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
In addition to the assigned literature, I will also draw on my personal experience to provide insights into several of the missions discussed over the course of the seminar.
Courses by George Loftus und László Mika
Übung 51450 (2 SWS): Rude Awakenings: (Post)Imperial Biographies in the Habsburg Central European Space, 1880-1960
Thu 10-12, FRS 191, Room 4026, Presence, Language: English
After the First World War, the Habsburg Monarchy collapsed and in its wake, a radical reordering of the Central and Southeast European space took place. For the citizens of the newly emerging nation-states and "little empires", continuities were as fundamental as ruptures. This actor-focused class follows ten lives, from which a wider tableau of the 20th century history of the region will be drawn. All of them were born in one state, but took vastly different things from its legacy. How did imperial understandings shape their relationship to new post-imperial orders? What did the political, social and cultural environments of this space owe to the Habsburg imperial inheritance? Drawing on contemporary scholarship alongside historical sources, students will critically examine the periodisation and caesuras that dominate approaches to modern European history. The actors in question were rarely tied to any one nation or place, living lives across a land of shifting borders and identities. By questioning the validity of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ in the history of the region, students will consider what it meant to live through collapse and to ask what happens in the aftermath.