PhD Programme

PhD PROGRAMME
“HISTORY OF POPULATION”

(UNIVERSITY OF DUBROVNIK, UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB, INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL SCIENCES OF CASA IN DUBROVNIK, 2006-ongoing)


One of the greatest epistemological innovations of twentieth-century historiography was turning away from the traditional history of great men and great events towards the history of broadest layers of population, and phenomena beyond politics, diplomacy and war. Among the new disciplines developed along these lines was historical demography, situated at the meeting point of history, geography, economics, anthropology and traditional demography.

Historical demography is an exceptionally rewarding field when it comes to the education of future researchers and university professors. It is an area which demands an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach. Understood in a broad sense, it encompasses most sub-disciplines of modern historiography, but also significant elements of other humanities and social sciences, involving the students with a wide variety of methodologies and research traditions. Therefore, it is an excellent gateway into the scholarly study of the past, enabling the students to eventually specialize not only in demographic issues, but in the other fields of historiography and humanities in general.

The three-year PhD programme “History of population” has been established with all the aforementioned reasons in mind. Its organizers are the University of Dubrovnik, University of Zagreb and the Institute for Historical Sciences of CASA in Dubrovnik. The director is Academician Nenad Vekarić (Institute for Historical Sciences of CASA in Dubrovnik) and the members of the board are: Jakov Gelo (Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb), Gordana Vilović (University of Dubrovnik) and Božena Vraneš-Šoljan (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb). Since its establishment in 2006, 65 candidates have enrolled in the programme, and out of them 9 have already defended their dissertations. Three monographs based on these dissertations have been published so far.