81718 - Europe in World History (1) (LM)

Academic Year 2019/2020

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in History and Oriental Studies (cod. 8845)

Learning outcomes

Through direct contact with some specific research paths students will be able to apply research techniques and methodologies, as well as to show capacity of a critical use of sources and literature. Students will show awareness of the research problems in a wide series of topics drawn from migration history, history of ideas circulation, material exchange and consumption patterns, global labour history, social protests, transnational mobilizations processes, power forms and resistance strategies.

Course contents

Word History, Europe and some entanglements

The course will tackle some theoretical and methodological aspects concerning a world-historical approach to European contemporary history: How to study Europe and contemporary European history with reference to analytical frames drawing on World history?

In a second step, the course will focus on European migration history from a global perspective. Particular attention will be devoted to different forms of migration in relation to the social and political impact exerted on th societies involved. The topic will be handled through case studies of anarchist migration between the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century that students will be asked to present in class.

The third and last part of the course will on focus on decolonization, relatated social conflicts/movements and its impact on the European political sphere from the 1960s until the 1980s. How antiimperialist and anticolonial criticism addressed Europe and how European left-wing groups and parties reacted to the rising challenges will be illustrated and discussed following case studies illustrated by students.

Readings will be presented either individually or in small groups of students that will be organized week by week accordingly to the programe.

Readings/Bibliography

Included in the bibliography list students find all texts considered or quoted during the course.

Roberto M. Dainotto, Europe (in theory), Durham, Duke University Press, 2007

Dan Diner, Cataclysms. A history of the twentieth century from Europe's edge, Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press 2008

Tony Judt, Postwar. A history of Europe since 1945, New York : Penguin Press, 2005

Marc Matera, Black London. The imperial metropolis and decolonization in the twentieth century, University of California press, Oakland 2015

Michael Goebel, Anti-imperial metropolis. Interwar Paris and the seeds of Third World nationalism, Cambridge university press, New York 2015

Christoph Kalter, The discovery of the Third World. Decolonization and the rise of the New Left in France,1950-1976, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2016

Jeffrey J. Byrne, Mecca of revolution: Algeria, decolonization, and the Third World order, New York, Oxford University Press 2016

Samantha Christiansen, Zachary A. Scarlett (eds.), The Third World in the global 1960s, New York, Berghahn Books, 2015

Martin Klimke,Jacco Pekelder, Joachim Scharloth (eds.), Between Prague Spring and French May : opposition and revolt in Europe, 1960-1980, New York-Oxford 2011

Thomas Borstelmann, The 1970s. A new global history from civil rights to economic inequality, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2011

Jacques Rupnik (ed.), 1989 as a political world event. Democracy, Europe and the new international system in the age of globalization, Verso, London-New York 2014.

Following book is mandatory literature for not-attending students:

Dan Diner, Cataclysms. A history of the twentieth century from Europe's edge, Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press 2008

Teaching methods

The course is organized in a mixed form consisting of lectures and seminar moments. Students are asked to participate actively by reading and preparing class presentations of the assigneed articles, essays or book chapters to be discussed in class, as well as writing short papers in due time.

Short papers - to be sent to: worldhistory.papers@gmail.com - are scheduled as follows:

19.11 Sebastian Conrad, Enlightment in Global History. A Historiographical Critique, in American Historical Review, 117(4):999-1027 · October 2012

25.11 Discussion of chapters by M. Isabella, K. Zanou (eds), Mediterranean Diasporas. Politics and ideas in the long 19. century, Bloomsbury, London 2016. The Introduction to be read by all students, Ch. 1 (J.L. Simal); 4 (M. Isabella); 6 (K. Zanou) to be read organizing in small groups.

3.12 Discussion of chapters selected from S. Hirsch, . van der Walt (eds.), Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940 : the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution, Brill, Leiden 2010. Chapters by A. Gorman (on Egypt); L. van der Walt (on South Africa); S. Hirsch (on Peru); E. Toledo, L. Biondi (on Brazil); A. Dirlik (on China)

10.12  Stuart Hall, Life and Times of the first New Left, New Left Review, 61 (2010), 177-196.

H. Nehring, "Out of Apathy": Genealogies of the British New Left in a transnational context, 1956-1962; in M. Klimke, J. Pekelder, M. Scharloth (ed), Between Prague spring and French May. Protest, culture and society, New York, Berghahn 2011, pp. 15-31.

17.12 Discussion of Ch. 8 by M. Bracke, Which Socialism, Whose Détente? West European Communism and the Czechoslovak crisis, 1968, Central European University Press, Budapest 2007, pp. 323-360.

Assessment methods

Following instructions on the final exams concern both modules (12 CFU). There are two alternative ways to take the exam:

1. Attending students are required to participate actively to all classes and must regularly write short papers (500 words) on the reading texts listed in the class programm in due time; they will further write a 4000 words final paper on one of the following areas:

  • History of international communism in the 20th century (Capuzzo)
  • Political impact of migration flows and social movements (Tolomelli)

Students are required to choose a specific subject within one of this twor areas with the advise of one of the two professors (Paolo Capuzzo and Marica Tolomelli).

2. Not-attending students are required to pass a written test with prof. Capuzzo (first module of the course) and an oral exam with prof. Tolomelli on the book by Dan Diner, Cataclysms. A history of the twentieth century from Europe's edge, Madison, Wis. 2008 (second module).

They also have to write a final paper (4,000 words) on one of the topics handled with during the course. The subject of the final paper should be decided in accordance with the teacher.

The final grade will result from the evaluation of all aspects concerning the course: active participation in class; accuracy and punctuality in delivering the due papers; accuracy in oral presentation and academic writing; capability to deepen and master topics addressed during the course;ability to identify relevant bibliography; critical analysis; clear and logical structure of the final paper.

Teaching tools

Pc; uploaded texts; power point presentations. 

Office hours

See the website of Marica Tolomelli

SDGs

Quality education Reduced inequalities

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.