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The Truth: a political history of press and populism (2026/2027: Semester 2 – Spring)

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Cursusdoel

After completing this course, students are able to:

Demonstrate a nuanced vision on political history
Conduct a research project from start to finish including basic historical (archival) research
Demonstrate the ability to find, understand and assess the existing historiographical debate on a topic
Analyse a historical problem within the context of the historiographical debate, based on archival materials
Use (and test) concepts from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in historical research
Formulate coherent and precise research questions, based on state of the art and available primary source material
Understand the complicated interconnections between representative political systems and populism and demagogy
Understand the intricate nature of the relation between press and politics in the modern era

Relationship between assessment and learning goals:

Portfolio of individual essays on course themes and research skills
Research project (including 3000 word congress paper)
Research proposal / presentation
Research presentation (small scale congress setting) and participation

goal 1,7,8
goal 1-8
goal 3-6
goal 4-6

Vakinhoudelijk

What is true, what is fake? Are some facts more true than others? This course focuses on the surprisingly long history of facts and truths in the public sphere. It deals with the murky history of ‘the news’ and discusses the rise of the printing press and public debate. What is public opinion? Where and when does it take shape? If freedom of speech is a necessary condition for representative democratic systems, does it automatically breed populism? Did people in the past assess the information that they had to base their political opinions on differently than we do today?
In this course students conduct a research project that explores the intricate relationship between press (media) and politics. By analysing the power of rumour, by researching how representative political systems in the past have tried to avert the dangers of fake news and information, by researching news media in all ages in digitized collections across the globe or in the physical archives in The Netherlands.
You will find that the definition of ‘fake’ over ‘true’ is culturally determined. You will discover that populist tropes and ideas in past and present have much in common. You will study how politicians and philosophers devised ways to counter populism without touching the vital democratic principles of freedom of speech or the right to vote. Thus, the course teaches students to analyse the history of journalism and the press as both conduits for news, facts and information, as well as for conspiracies, slander, rumour and demagogy, and how these relate to both public and political debate. In short, it explores the history and meaning of ‘the truth’.

Besides History, this course may be of special interest to students pursuing Media Studies or Political Science.

Format

The course will make use of a diverse set of teaching methods.

(Guest) Lectures on history and disciplinary concepts (MES, POL, PHI), knowledge clips and podcasts as well as guided readings to flesh out the historical context needed to be able to argue historically, as well as to explain the intricacies of concepts and theories from multiple disciplines.
Student lead seminars:
In light of the literature on student-centered inquiry (SCI), I seek to make students aware of their lack of knowledge, to enable them to find the right questions to ask (otero/da rosa 2018). Furthermore, through SCI the course enables students to detect knowledge gaps in existing literature and develop (manageable) research questions that could potentially help filling these holes. Since we know from study that students prefer to investigate their own questions over answering questions posed by others, by the end of the first half of the course students should be able to ask study questions. (Chin & Kayalvizhi, 2005) The goal is to guide them to becoming an ‘ideal student questioner’. (following Pedrosa-de-Jesus et al. 2018).
Students will hand in draft versions for lecturer feedback. This feedback they can use to improve the final version of assignments, which are to be graded. The proposals for the research project they have to put to their peers, who will help to reflect on the quality and attainability of the proposal.
During the thematic phase students have to answer study questions and compare answers during the student led seminars, lecturer will only correct and steer where necessary.
All assignments use a grading rubric. These rubrics we will discuss in class. The rubrics contain an ‘open category’ for the students to fill out themselves, to stimulate agency over their own project.

Werkvormen

UCU hum 3 course

Toetsing

Research proposal

Verplicht | Weging 15% | ECTS 1,13

Portfolio II

Verplicht | Weging 10% | ECTS 0,75

Research project and paper

Verplicht | Weging 40% | ECTS 3

Portfolio I

Verplicht | Weging 20% | ECTS 1,5

Research presentation and participation

Verplicht | Weging 15% | ECTS 1,13

midterm FEEDBACK

Niet verplicht

Ingangseisen en voorkennis

Ingangseisen

Er moet voldaan zijn aan minimaal één van de cursussen:

Voorkennis

Er is geen informatie over benodigde voorkennis bekend.

Voertalen

Engels

Competenties

Academisch schrijven
Debatteren / discoursanalyse
Interdisciplinariteit

Cursusmomenten

Gerelateerde studies

Tentamens

Er is geen tentamenrooster beschikbaar voor deze cursus

Verplicht materiaal

READER

The course will be based on a diverse offering of secondary literature, chapters and articles
BOEK

Zachary M Schrag, The Princeton Guide to Historical Research (2021) ISBN 9780691198224

Aanbevolen materiaal

Er is geen informatie over de aanbevolen literatuur bekend

Opmerkingen

Crosslisted with SSC. Counts towards HUM or SSC major.

Coördinator

dr. E. Jacobs

e.jacobs@uu.nl

Docenten