Objectives

All the teaching methods provided in the study program are aimed at:

  1. providing students with an in-depth competence aimed at understanding the complexity of historical processes and historiographical interpretations of the medieval, modern, and contemporary ages, in the interrelations between European history and extra-European societies and in the indispensable long-term perspectives;
  2. offering students a solid orientation in the disciplines belonging to the politico-social sciences, and in those of artistic, literary, and philosophical culture;
  3. fostering the critical attitude of students, the ability to translate the acquired competences into written form and, also with a view to defining the topic of the degree thesis, their ability to begin independent scientific research;
  4. providing students with adequate knowledge of research methodologies, techniques for the use of sources and the most solid and innovative historiographical approaches, as well as of the evolution of scientific and technological knowledge in the historical field, preparing them for emerging professional roles and for the cultural and professional qualification needs of the territory.

The study program includes several tracks, distinguished by the amount of credits assigned to the core subjects and aims to respond to the many declinations of history in the main disciplinary sectors (with respect to approaches of social, religious, political history from the medieval to the contemporary age and to historiographical methodology), ensuring teaching modules capable of addressing a wide variety of research themes, epistemological approaches, and reference contexts. The modules (and the teaching support methods integrated with them) are delivered through frontal lectures, which may be integrated with practical classes and seminars, and possibly with coordinated-shared modules aimed at understanding the complexity of historical processes, especially in relation to certain paradigmatic nodes. The number of hours available to students for personal study, or for individual training activities, in line with regulatory guidelines and the decisions of the Faculty, is defined by the Teaching Regulations of the degree program. The training of students includes:
a) in-depth study and acquisition of methodologies typical of the core disciplines;
b) acquisition of skills in the related disciplines indicated (in the field of historical, art-historical, philological and literary, philosophical studies, and the history of extra-European societies);
c) acquisition of tools for reading and interpreting bibliographical, archival, and iconographic sources thanks to practical classes and internships, seminars;
d) in-depth study of current historiographical trends, Italian and international, acquired by students thanks to participation in scientific conferences of particular educational value (appropriately recommended by the teaching board of the degree program).
The internationalization of teaching is defined as an educational objective of the degree program and corresponds to a teaching method already tested in previous specialist degree regulations; it is implemented through participation, with a specific study track, in the European project of the Italo-French University. Graduates of the master’s degree program may in fact obtain a double French-Italian degree in History within the “Italo-French Track” included in the educational offer of the LM, according to the modalities prescribed by specific agreements signed by Sapienza University with the Universities of Grenoble II, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Chambéry. Included in the European Union project “Italian-French International Degree”, the “History – Italo-French Track” curriculum offers students coordinated international teaching.