HISTORY PROGRAM
The history program of the Doctoral School of History and Ethnography of the UD encompasses a wide range of professional historical knowledge and research fields within the scope of five subprograms.
Cultural History of Antiquity Subprogram
The subprogram intends to provide a comprehensive overview of Greek and Roman cultural history andart history in particular. Emphasis is mainly on the examination of the historical sources of the Roman imperial period, and within, primarily to study any well-defined historical, ideological, and religious questions based on the literary, inscriptional, fine art, and material sources of the era of the principate. The Augustan age represents a pronounced period due to its outstanding cultural achievements, yet the subsequentperiods are also of high importance, as these followed the Augustan sample and further developed the social system of the imperial period.
Pannonia's art- and religious-historical issues play a special role within the imperial period, such as the study of Pannonian painting, partly thematic, partly stylistic large and small statuettes and their incorporation into the art of the Roman Empire.This couldresult in identifying local features or provincial characteristics. The examination of cameo collectionsthat originate from Hungary – and partly from Pannonia – is strongly recommended. Regarding religious history, the religious memories of a particular cult or a specific area of the province may also be examined. This requires anelaborate analysis of inscriptional, art historical, and archaeological sources, which shall be compared to the research results of other areas of the Roman Empire.
Ancient History Subprogram
We primarily offer classical philological and ancient historical subjects within the Ancient history subprogram. Our main research fields include classical historiography, Greek and Roman military history, Roman land surveying, and the history of Dacia and Pannonia. Archaeological research (prehistoric and provincial archaeology) contributed to the improvement of the subprogram in the past few years.Along with theoretical lectures, our students also participate in field exercises, which, in addition to museums and archaeological sites in the area, involve the major centers of Pannonia and Dacia. The goal of the subprogram is to provide students with an insight into the material culture and written memories (works of historians, epigraphic, papyrologicalmemories)of their research topic, and to aid them in becoming experts in their field.
We organize large-scale national conferences and minor workshops, the proceedings of which provide opportunities for our students to publish their papers.
Economic and Social History Subprogram
The economic and social history subprogram is an essential part of the professional repertoire of the doctoral school, the foundations of which are the determining courses of history MA education and teacher training. The subprogram covers a wide time frame: from the early middle ages to the second half of the 20th century. Its priorities regarding economic history is agriculture: economic management and manorial history; and regarding social history, the emphasis is mainly on regionalism: local history, spatial structure examination, ecclesiastic-, and institutionhistory, aristocratic, official, civil career, and family history. The latter topics also refer to the key role of the history of lifestyles. The research areas of economic, social and lifestyle history fit well with the trends prevailing within Hungarian historiography and partly with the professional work of the lecturers of the History Institute of the University of Debrecen. The most excellent Hungarian researchers hold the lectures of the subprogram, and we provide a wide range of opportunities for the students to consult with them. The successful doctoral defences of our candidates prove the effectiveness of the joint work.
History of Political Thoughts and Institutions Subprogram
The sub-program provides a framework and professional background for PhD topics related to the areas of political thinking (ideology), political institution history, press history and renewable political history. It supports research that is based on extensive primary source analysis, and which may reflect the latest achievements in history, historiography and its co-sciences.From a theoretical and methodological point of view, the subprogram prefers the aspects of reflexivity, openness to experimentation (e.g. new political biography) and the pursuit of interdisciplinarity.The program focuses on theoretical and methodological foundations in the offered courses, thus introducing PhD students to intentionalist-contextualist (“Cambridge”) and conceptualist (“conceptual history”) approaches and guides them into the world of discourse analysis through the examination of nationalist theories and political thoughts of certain periods (“viewing the past from today” perspectives).
History of International Relations Subprogram
The history of international relations subprogram has existed in the Doctoral School of History and Ethnography for over ten years. The sub-program welcomes and receives those doctoral candidates in particular, whose chosen research topic is related to the diplomatic history, the history of international relations, and international studies.
Within this framework, the specific research topics have covered or still cover the various aspects of the history of Hungarians living abroad, the historical facets of Hungarian-Polish, Hungarian-British, Hungarian-German, Hungarian-Italian, Hungarian-American relations, and topics of mainly modern and late modern universal history and military history (Balkan aspects of the history of Russian diplomacy, the Boer wars and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Hungarian prisoners of WWI in Italy, British conservative election propaganda after 1945, Hungarian sports policy and the Cold War, etc.).
Successful doctoral defences have been taking place in this subprogram since 2001, and interest in the research being conducted here is continuing. Within the framework of the doctoral classes, the doctoral program offers compulsory courses in International Relations and Modern International Relations for the first and second year students of the four-year training, in which the analysis of sources and basic documents of international relations enable the students to acquire the methods of examining diplomatic history, and to learn the primary, secondary and other sources of each topic in detail.
The management of the sub-program continuously endeavours to help the foundation of the doctoral candidates' scientific career by inviting Hungarian and foreign guest lecturers, encouraging the doctoral students to give lectures at conferences, providingopportunities for publication and research scholarships abroad.