Project information
Human Societies: Past, Present, Future (Human Societies)

The blockbuster success of Homo Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (2011) has demonstrated the popular appeal of scholarly works offering a ‘big picture’ of humanity. The proposed CORE course Human Societies: Past, Present, Future follows a similar agenda, reconstructing the evolution of human societies from a sociological and cultural perspective. While human adaptation to and impact on nature will play an important role throughout the lecture, the main focus will be on changes in social organization and cultural codes. The first seven lectures will follow closely a script by the late German sociologist Bernhard Giesen, who used it as basis for a lecture series delivered at Yale University. Like Giesen’s lecture and Harari’s book, the course will be designed to be highly accessible without any prerequisites or prior knowledge (except the capability to understand English). Following Giesen’s example, Human Societies offers a unique perspective on human history that avoids any simplistic narrative of progress. Forms of social organization and cultural practices that originated in the earliest of human societies (such as rituals and gift-exchange) continue to live on in contemporary society (e.g., wedding ceremonies or Christmas gifts). Thus, the historical analysis of past societies will constantly reference contemporary phenomena. The five remaining lectures will apply its basic structure (production, classification, circulation, representation) to contemporary society as well as future societies. The course offers students a novel perspective on and deeper understanding of the society in which we live, how we ended up here in the long arc of history and what the future might hold for us as a species. The proposed lecture aligns perfectly with the 4th Call for CORE courses and the strategic goals of Masaryk University, learning from the best practices of prestigious institutions (1.1) while also promoting interdisciplinarity (1.2) and internationalization (1.5). Last but not least, the course should attract many students, including international students, from a wide range of fields.