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| GEOG0208-1 | Elements of Historical Criticism for the use of Geographers
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| Duration : | 30h Th |
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| Credits/ECTS : |
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| Holder(s) : | Pierre Alexandre |
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| Language : | French language |
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| Course contents : | A. ELEMENTS OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM
1. Notions of historical truth, historical fact, and historical source.
2. Different kinds of sources: material, oral and written sources.
3. Searching and reading the past written sources.
4. Criticism of the written sources: external and internal criticism of the document.
5. Glimpse at the main chronological customs of the past.
6. Auxiliary Sciences of History.
B. CONCRETE APPLICATION OF THE METHODS OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM
An overview of the methods of historical criticism - in particular those of the external and internal criticism of the written sources - will be highlight in the field of the History of natural phenomena and environment. On the one hand it will be shown how neglecting these methods led some climatologists and seismologists to produce worthless compilations of data about past meteorological and seismological events; and on the other hand how elaborating new catalogues of data, according to the rules of the criticism of sources, can contribute to the knowledge of long-term climatic variations, floods in the past, evolution of vegetation and crops, assessment of seismical risk, etc.
C. SOURCES OF THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
From the perspective of the criticism of sources, some main sources of historical geography will be presented:
1. Toponyms: formation and transformation of place names and choronyms.
2. Greek and Roman geographers and cartographers (Strabon, Ptolemy, etc.), Arab geographers of the Middle Ages, Chinese sources, geographical sources of mediaeval and Renaissance Europe, etc. |
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| Course objective : | History and Geography are two complementary disciplines, using documents; the objective of the course is to present the main rules of the historical criticism, applicable to wriiten sources likely to interest the geographers. |
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| Prerequisites : | Knowledge of the French language. |
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| Organization : | See : http://cipl82.philo.ulg.ac.be/horaires |
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| Written notes : | The framework of the course and some documents showed during the lessons will be available on WebCT. |
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| Assessment : | Written examination. |
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| Contacts : | Pierre ALEXANDRE
Département des Sciences historiques - Bât. A4, Université de Liège, Quai Roosevelt, 1B, 4000 LIEGE.
e-mail : Pierre.Alexandre@ulg.ac.be |
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