Бакалавриат
2025/2026
История и культура стран Европы
Статус:
Курс по выбору (Иностранные языки и межкультурная коммуникация)
Кто читает:
Школа иностранных языков
Где читается:
Школа иностранных языков
Когда читается:
1-й курс, 2, 3 модуль
Охват аудитории:
для своего кампуса
Язык:
английский
Кредиты:
4
Контактные часы:
60
Course Syllabus
Abstract
This course offers a comprehensive overview of European history from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with a particular focus on the political, social, and intellectual developments that shaped the continent. Through the study of major historical events – including the formation of medieval states, the Renaissance, absolutism, revolutions, world wars, and ideological conflicts – you will gain a structured understanding of Europe’s transformation over centuries.
While history forms the foundation of the course, each period is examined alongside its cultural context: the visual arts, architecture, literature, and cinema that both reflected and influenced historical change. From Gothic cathedrals to Renaissance humanism, from 18th-century court culture to 20th-century film propaganda, you will explore how cultural production intersects with power, belief, and society.
By the end of the course, you will be able to interpret key events in European history while understanding how culture – especially visual and material culture – serves as both evidence and expression of the past.
The course combines lectures and seminars. Lectures are delivered in a dialogic, interactive format that encourages student engagement, critical reflection, and open discussion. Seminars provide space for deeper analysis of selected historical sources, artworks, and films, fostering a more detailed understanding of the period in question.
Learning Objectives
- To provide students with a structured understanding of European history from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, focusing on major political, social, and ideological developments.
- To examine key historical events explore their causes, consequences, and interconnections.
- To explore the cultural and artistic responses to historical change, including architecture, painting, literature, and film, as sources that reflect and shape historical consciousness.
- To familiarize students with major cultural movements and styles.
- To develop students’ ability to analyze and interpret visual and material culture, from medieval manuscripts and Renaissance paintings to propaganda films and 20th-century cinema, as historical evidence.
- To introduce students to key historical figures – political leaders, thinkers, artists, and filmmakers – who influenced European history and cultural identity.
- To cultivate historical thinking skills, including chronological reasoning, cause and effect, comparison, and critical engagement with primary and secondary sources.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Students can outline the major historical periods of European development from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, including key political and social transformations.
- Students understand the relationship between historical events and cultural developments across different European regions and centuries.
- Students are familiar with significant artworks, architectural landmarks, and films within the historical and geopolitical contexts.
- Students are able to recognize, describe, and analyze works of visual culture from various European countries and historical periods.
- Students can identify and explain the main artistic and cultural movements and their connections to historical change.
- Students develop critical thinking skills through the interpretation of historical sources, artworks, and films in class discussions, seminars, and written assignments.
- Students are able to articulate historical arguments and cultural insights in both academic and conversational formats.
Course Contents
- From Empire to Christendom: Foundations of Medieval Europe
- Faith, Learning, and Imagination: The Cultural Fabric of the High Middle Ages
- The Dawn of a New Mind: Humanism, Education, and the Early Modern World
- Power and Patronage: Dynasties, Empires, and Social Change in Early Modern Europe
- Italian City-States and Political Thought: The Heart of the Renaissance
- Art and Innovation: From Renaissance Genius to Baroque Expression
- The Northern Renaissance: Humanism, Reform, and Realism
- The 18th Century – Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution
- The 19th Century – Political Transformations and Social Change
- The 19th Century – Visual Culture and Artistic Movements
- The Early 20th Century – Chronology of Crisis (1900–1945)
- The History of Cinema – Origins and Early European Film
- The 20th Century – Postwar Europe and Cultural Transformation
Assessment Elements
- In-class Participation and PresentationActive participation of students in the discussion of the seminar issues is required. As part of the seminar, students are also required to give a presentation in pairs on the seminar topic. Presentation defence is obligatory for all students. If a student does not give a presentation by the end of the course, they will receive a grade of 0. Presentations cannot be retaken. Both oral and visual aspects of the presentation are evaluated. Presentations can only be given until the last seminar (the final seminar is reserved for the final test, so presentations cannot be given).
- QuizzesQuizzes take place every two weeks and last 20-25 minutes. Quizzes are taken both during the seminars and during/after lectures (seminar quizzes are taken on paper offline; lecture quizzes can be conducted both offline and online on SmartLMS). Every quiz contains an additional question of increased complexity.
- Individual Project (Article)Individual projects must be submitted two weeks before the exam session on SmartLMS. In case of unfair use of artificial intelligence tools and/or if the originality of the work is less than 80%, the student receives 0 points (also see the instructions below). Additional projects during the course are possible.
- Final Test
Interim Assessment
- 2025/2026 3rd module0.3 * Final Test + 0.2 * In-class Participation and Presentation + 0.25 * Individual Project (Article) + 0.25 * Quizzes
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- 9780252050541 - Albala, Ken - The Banquet : Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe - 2017 - University of Illinois Press - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1625767 - nlebk - 1625767
- 9781476608433 - Harty, Kevin J. - The Reel Middle Ages : American, Western and Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian Films About Medieval Europe - 2006 - McFarland - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1052184 - nlebk - 1052184
- 9781861895486 - Bendiner, Kenneth - Food in Painting : From the Renaissance to the Present - 2004 - Reaktion Books Ltd. - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=292540 - nlebk - 292540
- Akin, Y. (2011). The Ottoman Home Front during World War I: Everyday Politics, Society, and Culture.
- Armitage, D., & Subrahmanyam, S. (2010). The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, C. 1760-1840. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1522916
- Black, R. (2001). Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy : Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools From the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=74141
- Blockmans, W., & Hoppenbrouwers, P. C. M. (2017). Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 (Vol. Third edition). London: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1620912
- Ching, F. D. K., Jarzombek, M., & Prakash, V. (2017). A Global History of Architecture (Vol. Third edition). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1492721
- Cinema History as Social History : Retrospect and Prospect. (2019). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsnar&AN=edsnar.oai.dspace.library.uu.nl.1874.383233
- Cline, P. L. (2016). Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome: An Introduction. Etruscan Studies, 19(1), 177–180. https://doi.org/10.1515/etst-2016-0004
- Cook, J. W., & Facts on File, I. (2006). Encyclopedia of Renaissance Literature (Vol. 1st ed). New York: Facts on File, Inc. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=229629
- Davis, B. J. (2000). Home Fires Burning : Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin. The University of North Carolina Press.
- Deger-Jalkotzy, S., & Lemos, I. S. (2006). Ancient Greece : From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=165161
- Gold, S. F., Chenowith, E., Andriani, L., & Zaleski, J. (2003). ART OF THE FIRST CITIES: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus (Book). Publishers Weekly, 250(33), 74. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=bsu&AN=10618566
- Hopkins, L., & Steggle, M. (2006). Renaissance Literature and Culture. London: Continuum. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=837464
- Klasa, M. G. (2014). State and Empire Before and During the Napoleonic Era ; The effects of liberal revolutions in France, Spain, and Portugal at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.A221B540
- Kuiper, K. (2010). Ancient Greece : From the Archaic Period to the Death of Alexander the Great (Vol. 1st ed). New York: Britannica Educational Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=317112
- Leo Charney, & Vanessa R. Schwartz. (1995). Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life. University of California Press.
- ZOCH, P. A. (2020). Ancient Rome : An Introductory History. University of Oklahoma Press.