European and Mediterranean Studies (EURO-UA)

This course introduces students to the rudiments of the Irish language, including phonemes and pronunciation, syntactical structure, and verbal conjugations. In addition, a history of the language is provided, as well as a general introduction to Irish culture, including discussions of family and place names. Students are encouraged to begin speaking with basic sentence structures.

This course builds on the grammatical lessons of Elementary Irish I and expands into more complex verbal conjugations while concentrating on idiomatic expressions. The accumulation of vocabulary is stressed and students are introduced to basic literature in Irish while developing beginning conversational fluency.

The focus of this course is on conversational fluency, reading complex literature in Irish, and writing in the Irish language, further encouraging students to strengthen their pronunciation and command of spoken Irish.

Emphasis varies by semester; designed to allow flexibility in course offerings from visiting scholars and specialists in particular fields. Past examinations have included imagery and ideology of Irish nationalism, Irish American popular folk culture, and the Irish in America. Recently, focus has concentrated on the oral history of the Irish in America with course instruction in conducting oral history interviews, writing an archival finding aid, and in editorial decision making for public history projects.

Humankind’s self-understanding as a species is defined, tested and exposed when con- fronted with radical alterity, be it real or imagined. Located at the intersection of European and American cultural history, the history of science and technology, literary studies and film, this class charts the manifold figurations of the alien since its modern invention in 1897. Sessions examine alleged invasions from Mars and Venus, H. G. Wells and Liu Cixin, UFO sightings and alien encounters, but also the search for extraterrestrial intelli- gence (SETI), NASA’s Voyager missions, the Plurality of Worlds, Ancient Astronauts and Rare Earth controversies and many other aspects of modern extraterrestrialism.

The present is only one possible outcome of the many ways in which it has been imagined in the past. While historians usually do not aim to predict the future, they have become increasingly interested in how societies and cultures projected their development in the past. While such scenarios are often fascinating in themselves, they are of particular historical interest as gauges and indicators of how societies understood themselves and evaluated their then present conditions. Largely chronologically organized, this course explores the future’s multifaceted history in twentieth-century Europe and the United States, from the emergence of ‘scientifiction’ in the 1920s to the ‘end of utopia’ during the crisis-ridden 1970s. Particular attention will be paid to ‘enhancements’ of the human body, furistic technologies (flying cars, time machines, computers) and human habitats (the classless city of tomorrow, underwater settlements, space colonies).

Over the course of the twentieth century the infinite void that surrounds planet Earth has stimulated the human imagination as never before. For several decades, anticipation of human spaceflight was intimately bound with futuristic visions of technoscientific progress, while space exploration became key to societal self-images. This course charts the rise and fall of the Age of Space from a global perspective. Individual sessions will be devoted to the ‘rocket fad’ of the Weimar Republic, Nazi ‘wonder weapons,’ the so-called Sputnik shock and the American moon landings, as well as providing an introduction to the historical origins of techno-nationalism, from the Cold War to today’s Space Race in Asia.

Topics vary by semester

The course examines the liberal order in Europe that was formed after WWII, its institutional design, the challenges it has been facing, and the implications of the liberal order for politics, society, and culture in Europe. The first part of the course reviews the social, economic, and security concerns Europe faced in 1945, and the institutions that were constructed to respond to these concerns. We will also explore the Cold War and its consequences for the politics, and the realities of people throughout Europe. The second part of the course explores the integration of Europe into a social, economic, and identity community, and the expansion of European institutions and identity first to Southern Europe and then to the former Soviet Bloc. The third part of the course addresses the current "Crisis of Europe" from the 2008 financial crisis through the surge of refugee migration and the rise of populism. We will ask whether and to what extent the current crisis threatens the system formed after 1945. The course is interdisciplinary in nature. To explore political change and continuity in contemporary Europe we will combine theories from international relations, political science, sociology, and economics, as well as readings of historical primary and secondary resources. In addition to scholarly literature we will use contemporary media outlets, cultural resources and video, when available.

Prerequisite: permission of the department. Offered every semester. 4 points. Advanced students of European and Mediterranean studies can earn academic credit for a structured and supervised professional work-learn experience within an approved organization.

Topics on European politics vary by semester.

Topics vary by semester.

Prerequisite: permission of the department. Offered every semester. 1-6 points.

This course investigates the history, the structure and the inner logic and working of European integration from the end of the Second World War to present day. It will provide students with an overview of the political institutions, the member states and the current developments of the European Union while focusing on the paramount role played by France throughout the years. Conducted in English.

This course will try to put European security into the context of today’s world: from the collapse of communism and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact through the years of wars in the former Yugoslavia, the wars on former Soviet territory, and to the stateless threat of terrorism today. But study limited to Europe would be pointless; the Old Continent is no longer the prime player on the planet. Therefore a series of related topics and areas will also be discussed: U.S. military might (especially compared to the European armed forces); the situation in adjacent regions (North Africa, Middle East, Russia and Ukraine) and its implication for Europe; and the new types of terrorism.

This course introduces contemporary Italy in all its complexity and fascination. Reviewing politics, economics, society, and culture over the past two centuries, the course has a primary goal -- to consider how developments since the 1800s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today's Italians. In other words, we are engaged in the historical search for something quite elusive: Italian “identity”. Topics will include the unification of the country, national identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the First World War, and Italian fascism, World War Two and the resistance, the post-war Italian Republic, the economic "miracle", the South, the Mafia, terrorism, popular culture, and the most recent political and social developments, including Italy and the European Union. Lectures combine with readings and films (taking advantage of Italy’s magnificent post-war cinema).

Individual or minority revolt against for the time being prevailing majority position, religious interpretation or political rule is an important but often forgotten part of history. Modern Political Dissent class covers this phenomena combining findings from several fields like psychological response to extreme situations, modern history, political and communication theory, art and culture in opposition against perceived injustice and case studies and analyses of important examples of modern political dissent. From interpretation of holocaust or torture survival ordeal and Stockholm syndrome students are led to analyze the context – both psychological and historical – in order to search for possible remedies. Conditions that made totalitarian ideologies so widely acceptable are studied within the context of thought reform and cult manipulations. Works of Robert J.Lifton, Stanley Milgrams and Phillip Zimbardo are used to explain importance of individual responsibility versus obedience to authority. Role modeling and differentiation in communicating minority or dissent values to majority society give a possibility to adjust complex strategies for change.

Topics vary by semester