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
History and Literature
Historiography
Archival research design and critical engagement with primary sources

Undergraduate

IEΠ 471: Modern European and World History

Semester: Fall

Offered: 2025; 2026

The course offers an overview of modern international history, with particular emphasis on Europe, from the Long Depression of 1873 to the present.

The first part (classes 1–4) examines Europe and the United States during the era of the major political and social transformations of the late nineteenth century. Topics include the consolidation of bourgeois political and economic power, the emergence of the labor question, socialism and trade unionism, the economic policies of nation-states, the dynamism of the American economy after the Civil War, and the characteristics of the new imperialist phase of colonialism, which contributed to the formation of an internationalized economy and disrupted the European balance of power.

The second part (classes 5–8) examines the two World Wars and traces the continuities and ruptures that characterized the interwar period from the perspective of capitalist development. Capitalism was confronted not only with the upheavals produced by war, but also with the emergence of a new economic and social model — socialism — following the Russian Revolution, while its political expression in the form of parliamentary democracy was challenged by fascism. Special attention is given to the economic crisis of 1929, the national strategies for recovery, and the new models of economic development devised in response to the crisis, both at the political level (the New Deal) and at the theoretical level (Keynes and the General Theory).

The third part (classes 9–12) examines the construction of the postwar order and the attempt, through the Bretton Woods agreements, to create a multilateral international system different from that of the nineteenth century and the interwar period. The course analyzes the effects of the Marshall Plan on European economies, the consolidation of the Cold War, decolonization, the establishment of models of economic growth and social welfare in the West, the creation of the European Communities, the protest movements and social upheavals of the 1960s, and the oil crises of the 1970s.

Assessment methods:

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

Graduate

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

Semester: Fall

Offered: 2025; 2026

The seminar introduces students to historical research, historiography, and the theoretical and methodological questions involved in the production of historical knowledge.

It is organized around two interconnected axes. The first examines the development of historical scholarship through the changing ways in which historians have approached the past, formulated research questions, defined their objects of study, and constructed historical interpretations. Particular attention is paid to the intellectual, social, and institutional contexts that have shaped historical inquiry, as well as to the evolving relationships between history and other disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, economics, and literary studies.

The second axis addresses fundamental questions concerning the practice of historical research and writing. How do historians formulate research questions, identify and interpret sources, construct arguments, and develop historical explanations? What constitutes historical evidence, and how are objectivity, interpretation, and historical truth understood? How do historians move from the analysis of sources to historical synthesis and narrative? What is the relationship between historical knowledge, memory, and the public uses of history?

The seminar also introduces students to the practical aspects of historical research and academic writing, including bibliographic research, the use of archival and digital sources, the organization of research papers, and academic referencing conventions.

Assessment methods:

Presentation and discussion of assigned readings, individually or in small groups, throughout the semester, in connection with the seminar's thematic units.

Written research paper (in Greek; Erasmus+ students may also submit their papers in English, French, or German).

Oral presentation of the research paper during the final sessions of the seminar.

Assessment Criteria:

Quality of documentation, strength and coherence of argumentation, clarity of thought, and quality of academic writing and oral presentation.

Undergraduate

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.

Assessment methods:

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 exams 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 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.

Undergraduate

IEΠ 470: Introduction to Modern European History

Semester: Spring

Offered: 2026; 2027

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.

Assessment methods:

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

Undergraduate

IEΠ 464: Europe in World War II

Semester: Spring

Offered: 2025; 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.

Assessment methods:

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 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.

Graduate

ΙΠ2 202: The American Revolution: The Making of a Middle-Class Republic

Semester: Spring

Offered: 2027

This seminar examines the emergence and transformation of American democracy from the Revolution to the industrial age, with particular emphasis on the political, economic, social, and cultural processes that shaped the ideal of a “middle-class republic”. It explores the relationship between democratic ideals, economic independence, property ownership, and the development of capitalism, as well as the tensions that arose between the ideal of a republic of independent producers and the expansion of market relations and wage labor.

The seminar also investigates the contradictions inherent in the American democratic experiment. Slavery, racial discrimination, gender hierarchies, and the dispossession of Native Americans are examined not simply as limitations of democratic principles, but as integral elements to the historical development of American society and its political institutions.

Particular attention is paid to the distinctive features of the American experience, encouraging comparisons with the different trajectories of political, economic, and social transformation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe.

Assessment methods:

Assessment includes oral presentations and critical discussion of assigned readings, the development and presentation of an individual research project, and the submission of a final research paper.

Assessment is based on the quality of documentation and analytical argumentation, as well as on clarity of thought, oral communication, and academic writing.

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