Teaching

Teaching Areas

Undergraduate and postgraduate courses include: European Economic History (19th–20th c.), Europe in the Twentieth Century, History and Historiography of the French Revolution, Labour and Gender History, Political and Economic Liberalism, Interwar Europe, Technology and Economic Development, Public History and Memory.

Supervision (PhD, MA)

Political economy
Labour and gender history
Public history and memory
Historiography
Archival research design and critical engagement with primary sources

Courses

Undergraduate

IEΠ 470: Introduction to Modern European History

Semester: Spring

Offered: 2026

The course offers an introductory overview of modern and contemporary European history from the Age of Discovery to the last quarter of the 20th century, covering central political, economic, social and ideological developments. Along with providing basic information, the aim is to present a differentiated historical approach involving both Western and Eastern/South-Eastern Europe, with particular emphasis on the formation of European regions and the exchanges that took place between them over the centuries at the level of politics, economics, intellectuals and ideology. Keywords: colonialism, imperialism and globalization / banks and capitalism / printing and guns / Humanism and the Enlightenment / bureaucracies and regular armies / Mediterranean / Western Europe / central powers / "world wars" and World Wars / autocracy and revolution / war, economic crisis, fascism, totalitarianism.

Methods of evaluation:

Written exams. Optional written paper (up to 3,000 words) that will be incorporated into the final grade.

IEΠ 464: Europe in World War II

Semester: Spring

Offered: 2026

By the end of 1941 Europe, from the Pyrenees to the heart of European Russia and from the Northern Cape to Crete, apart from the neutral countries (Sweden, Switzerland), had been occupied by Germany. The course examines German policy in occupied Europe as a policy of disparities, with the most important being that of the behavior of the occupation authorities in Western as opposed to Eastern Europe. The course examines Hitler's vague plans for the "New European Order" that had been gradually taking shape since the 1930s: settlement areas for German farmers, supply areas of the continent controlled by Germany, zones inhabited by Germans, and advanced Western European states that could conditionally enjoy some measure of independence. The course also discusses the ways in which the Germans defined the "Jewish question", the gradual evolution of their policy toward the "final solution", and the reaction of the groups involved in the extermination plan. An attempt is made to map the forms of resistance that emerged in the occupied countries: gestures of disobedience, personal protests, sabotage, illegal organizations operating in the urban space, small and large-scale guerrilla warfare and the correspondent German mechanisms of repression. In the same context, the course addresses the role of the Allies, the escape networks and the trajectories of European populations inside and outside Europe. The course highlights the effects that the new division of the Cold War had on the uses and reception of the terms "collaboration" and "resistance" in the post-war period.

Methods of evaluation: Written assignments in two different versions:

a. Students choose an essay topic at the beginning of the semester (public presentation at the end of the semester). The paper (approximately 4,000 words) is submitted to the e-course platform on a date during the exam period.

b. Essay assignment: two topics are defined for written work through the e-course platform at the beginning of the examination period, with a specific time frame for submitting a thesis (5-8 days). The essay (2000-2500 words) is submitted on the e-course platform on a date during the exam period.

The grade of the assignment amounts to 90% of the final grade, while the remaining 10% is awarded on the basis of participation in the lectures.

IEΠ 444: Modern European and World History

Semester: Fall

Offered: 2025

The course is an overview of international history, with an emphasis on Europe, from the Great Depression of 1873 to the present day.

The first part (classes 1-4) examines Europe and the United States in the era of the great political and social changes of the last quarter of the 19th century. Issues to be discussed include the management of political and economic power by the bourgeoisie, the emergence of the labor question, socialism and syndicalism, the importance of the economic policy of nation states, the dynamism of the American economy after the Civil War and the characteristics of the new imperialist phase of colonialism, which led to an internationalized economy and upset the European balance of power.

The second part (classes 5-8) examines the two World Wars and traces the continuities and intersections that characterize the interwar period from the point of view of capitalist development. Capitalism was confronted with the upheavals of the war but also with a new production mode (socialism) that emerged after the Russian Revolution, while at the same time its political expression (parliamentary system) was assailed by fascism. Special attention will be given to the economic crisis of 1929, the national recovery options and the new models of economic development devised to deal with it, both at the level of politics (New Deal) and the level of theory (Keynes, General Theory).

The third part (classes 9-12) examines the construction of the post-war order and the attempt to create, with the Bretton Woods agreements, a multilateral international system different from that of the 19th century and the interwar period. The effects of the Marshall Plan on European economies, the consolidation of the Cold War, decolonization, the consolidation of models of social and economic prosperity in the West, the creation of the European communities, the disputes of the 1960s and the oil crises of the 1970s will be presented and analyzed.

Methods of evaluation:

Written exams. Optional written paper (up to 3,000 words) that will be incorporated into the final grade.

IEΠ 432: Societies and Ideologies in Europe in the 19th Century

Semester: Fall

Offered: 2024

The course looks at the West as a representation in the period before World War I, at a time prior to the anxiety of decadence that prevailed as the spirit of an era (zeitgeist); it was a time when the ideology of liberal democracy could still incorporate Greek science, Roman law, the biblical eschatology; liberal democracy transformed time from circular to linear, moving only forward, and perceived the world as History. The course will examine the previous revolutions (English: 1648, 1688, American: 1775-1783, French: 1789-1792) and the revolutions of the 19th century (1848, 1871). It will also examine the establishment of liberal institutions in modern Western states: representative democracy, universal suffrage, separation of powers, independent justice, religious tolerance, freedom of scientific research, academic freedoms and freedom of the press, freedom of work and freedom of enterprise, protection of material and intellectual property, and respect for contracts. The reasons why the European states of the 19th century claimed to possess a truth that had to be applied to all mankind will be sought.

Methods of evaluation: Written assignments in two different versions:

b. Essay assignment: two topics are defined for written work through the e-course platform at the beginning of the examination period, with a specific time frame for submitting an essay (5-8 days). The essay (2000-2500 words) is submitted on the e-course on a date during the exams period.

The grade of the assignment amounts to 90% of the final grade, while the remaining 10% is awarded on the basis of participation in the lectures.

Postgraduate

YΠI 101: Methods of historical research, Historiography (graduate)

Semester: Fall

Offered: 2025

The seminar is organized in two axes. The first refers to the issues that explicitly or implicitly concern historians in the exercise of their profession: what is the role and nature of truth and how is this truth expressed in historical work; how can the historian organize the synthesis of facts? Is moral judgment acceptable in history and how can it be justified? What is the role and function of the historian in society? These reflections, which often concern the field of philosophy of history, will constitute the basis on which we will move on to the second axis: the formation of historical research from the 19th century to the present day and its expression in different historiographical schools and political or social movements. The aim of the seminar is to understand the interdependence of historical thought and writing with the intellectual framework of the time and with a whole range of institutions below the level of those of the nation state. Thus, the study of each school/movement investigates the causes of its formation, the way in which this particular school perceives the relationship between past and present, its positions on historical writing and its research methodology.

Methods of evaluation:
Presentation of bibliographic material assigned individually or to small groups of students during the semester for the various modules of the seminar.

Written assignment (Greek, English, French, German):

Oral presentation during the final session of the seminar

(evaluation criteria): documentation, argumentation, clarity in thinking and writing.

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