Historical Sociology

Form of study: full-time or combined

Standard study period: 4 years

Description of the Field of Study

Historical Sociology is a unique Study Programme that, in the Czech Republic, can be studied only at the Faculty of the Humanities, Charles University. The aim of this programme is to advance research activities and pedagogical training of experts focusing on issues of long-term social processes and trends that have a significant impact on the life of contemporary societies. These include, in particular, the issues of modernization and social change, globalization tendencies and impacts, integration and disintegration processes, continuity and discontinuity relationships, religious and cultural pluralism, interconnection of global and local, identification of chances and risks of social development, analysis of conflict situations and possibilities of overcoming them. The need to understand all these issues raises the requirements for the development of adequate theoretical and methodological approaches as well as specific university education. The aim of the Study Programme is to provide such special training, as well as to contribute to the advancement of research activity in the given field.

Historical sociology cannot be understood merely as a hybrid link of history and sociology. It is a discipline based on the assumption that its general subject is historical, space-time determined social reality. Acceptance of this assumption has consequences for both the theory of this discipline as well as its research strategies, since both should be oriented not only on the analysis of the present but also on the near and more distant past. Therefore, in accordance with this premise, historical sociology cannot be defined as a special historical or sociological discipline, but as a specific, interdisciplinary oriented theoretical and methodological perspective, which is relevant both for the area of basic research and for specialized research programmes. It is a discipline that focuses significantly on long-term social processes as well as on the analysis of the differences and similarities of social phenomena in various historical periods. The thematic direction of the Study Programme is illustratively brought nearer by the Historical Sociology professional journal (Karolinum, Scopus), which has been, since 2009, edited by the Department of Historical Sociology of the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University.

Historical sociology is close to both a sociology discipline as well historical sciences; it has a number of common or similar concepts, theoretical orientations, methodological approaches and research questions, but it is not – neither in case of sociology or history – simply transferable. It is not some mechanical joining of two disciplines, but a specific research perspective and a specific Study Programme. The PhD Study Programme in Historical Sociology is designed to provide high quality and demanding special training to those who want to pursue a qualified scientific and research work – in particular of analytical and comparative nature - in one of the areas that contemporary historical sociology deals with.