ΠΙΘ512: Social and Historical Theory

The Module ΠΙΘ512: Social and Historical Theory is one of the two required Modules of the first semester in the first year of the Master’s Programme “PNYX: Polit­ical History, Theory and Practice”. Its aim is to effectively acquaint students with certain aspects of social and historical theory. The Module’s initial goal is to high­light the very basic nature of politics as an engage­ment with human society. Stu­dents are encouraged to realize that in the 21st century the political engage­ment with social problems and conditions should not be just an em­piricist under­taking, but a scientifically well informed pursuit. For this reason, a serious involve­ment in politics requires a sound expertise in the theoretical study of societies and in the dif­ferent views on the ways societies function, evolve and change. For this pur­pose the Module fo­cuses on certain theoretical schools of thought in the fields of social anthropology, sociology, history and archae­ology, which deal with both past and present societies. At the same time, elements of the differ­ent theor­etical tradi­tions are related with certain aspects of the current public political de­bates, in or­der to highlight the serious problems that can occur when the interest in the so­cial affairs lacks a systematic theoretical background.

The Module ΠΙΘ512 is di­vided in four Parts:

• 1st Part: Fundamental concepts of social theory, historical theory and epi­stemology
• 2nd Part: Social science-oriented and Marxist historiography
• 3rd Part: Aspects of archaeological theory
• 4th Part: Aspects of anthropological theory