070213 UE Foreign Languages in Historical Science 1 & 2 (2017W)

Great hopes are again pinned on the nation state and with it economic nationalism has made a comeback. The course will not provide definitive answers on whether economic nationalism was/is an inherently good or bad thing. It will rather use a diverse range of approaches (economic and political history, nationalism studies, political sciences, history of knowledge and economic ideas, history of consumption) to open up historical perspectives for an informed discussion. The course will shed light on an intricate web of relations between state, nation, and economy, between production, trade, and consumption; a web that includes the transnational elaboration of knowledge and policies.
The course will be taught in an interactive manner. Class language will be English. A good commandment of English is therefore necessary. However, the course forms part of the curricular module “Fremdsprachen in der Geschichtswissenschaft”. Among its goals is to reflect upon the hurdles of reading, writing, and discussing scientific subjects in a foreign language.
Objectives and learning outcomes: On completion of the course students will have reached a more complex understanding of economic nationalism and of related concepts such as state, nation, and national economy. They will be able to discuss different traditions of economic knowledge in their relation to nationalism.
Students will have improved skills of participating in English-language academic discourse.