Entry requirements

Admission to a Master's programme within the faculty of arts or a Bachelor's degree, equivalent to a Swedish degree of at least 180 credits (i.e. three years of full-time studies), in history studies.

Learning outcomes

A student who successfully completes the course will be able to:

• provide an overview and summarize the current state of research on state formation, legitimation of power, and forms of resistance in the late medieval and early modern periods
• describe, compare, and apply different theoretical perspectives and approaches from the relevant research
• define a research task, analyse a topic, and present the analysis in a concise and understandable way
• know and apply the basic methodology of analysis of texts and images as primary sources

Content

During the period 1300–1800, the nature of the state developed in several significant ways in Europe. This course provides a broad perspective on these state-building processes. The processes were not uniform on the European continent, but there are a number of common distinguishing features: similar arrangements of power were formed, which had to be legitimized, and which met different types of resistance from both within and outside the corridors of power. These divergent paths of state formation and the inherent power struggles will be explored, as well as the institutions that were developed and the impact these had on the population of Europe.

Instruction

The course will consist of seminars.

Assessment

Assessment will be based upon written and oral assignments. Students that have missed a small number of mandatory assignments may complete them by the end of the term at the latest. If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.