81718 - EUROPE IN WORLD HISTORY (1) (LM)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

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.

Contenuti

Europe and Decolonization: Solidarity, Internationalism, Entanglements and patterns of action

This 6 CFU course is part of the 12 CFU Integrated Course “World History (C.I.) (LM)". It will introduce and analyse controversial concepts – Europe, decolonization, solidarity among others – in relation to some critical events that marked the passage from the Western colonial/imperial order to the post-war constellation based on nation states, the principle of self-determination of peoples, the issue of human rights. In Europe, from the 1950s to the late 1970s decolonization triggered a variety of institutional reactions and policies, as well as actions carried out by the civil society that reshaped traditional patterns of international solidarity. Moreover, the Cold War frame also contributed to theorizing and practicing different ideas of solidarity with new emerging countries. We will follow a red thread apt to assess the multiple interactions between the “new emerging forces” out of decolonization and European actors, institutions as well as social groups and movements. The programme is articulated in 5 weeks, each of them will focus on specific topics.

Week 1: Building the analytical frame: introduction to key concepts and analytical categories of the programme: Europe and non-Eurocentric approaches to European history; the meaning of international solidarity in 20th century Europe; the several conceptual understandings of decolonization. 

Week 2: Ground-breaking decolonization events and their impacts: the Bandung Conference of African and Asian countries; the Suez-crisis, the rise of the movement of non-aligned countries and, reactions of western and eastern European countries. In this week students will be asked to provide short assessments about the resonance of the Bandung conference either in their home country or another region of the world by considering the print press. The findings will be presented and discussed in class on November 21.

Week 3: From “tiers monde” to Fanon and the rise of third-worldism as a sympathetic western reaction of civil society toward decolonization. Effects, conflicts and reactions triggered by the “Algerian revolution”: particular forms of solidarity and critique will be tackled, particularly from a gender perspective.  

Week 4: Socialist solidarity and Human Rights in western and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on the GDR. We will address the growing sensitivity toward issues of human rights as in the cases of the Vietnam War and the Russell Tribunal, and the Biafra/Nigeria war with the constitution of human rights devoted NGOs. For this week students will be assigned readings on different topics concerning ideas and practices of socialist international solidarity.

Week 5: North-South Entanglements: How did “new emerging forces”, European social movements and political forces try to address the problem of economic dependence and asymmetric power relation? The weight of impacting political events in Latin America, the Helsinki and the Mexico City Conferences (both in 1975) and the case of the “North-South Commission” as a highly promising achievement without great impact. In this last week the focus will shift to the institutional action taken by personalities involved in the North-South Commission.

Readings will be presented either individually or in small groups of students that will be organized at the beginning of the course accordingly to the program. The readings will be uploaded on “didactic materials”.

Testi/Bibliografia

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

Steinar Stjerno, Solidarity in Europe: the history of an idea, Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2005;

David Featherstone, Solidarity. Hidden Histories and Geographies of Internationalism, London: Zed Books, 2012;

Jan C. Jansen, Jürgen Osterhammel, Decolonization: A Short History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017; 

Prasenjit Duara (ed.),  Decolonization. Perspectives from now and then, London-New York: Routledge, 2004

Kweku Ampiah, The political and moral imperatives of the Bandung Conference of 1955: the reactions of the US, UK and Japan, Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007;

Luis Eslava et al. (eds.), Bandung, global history, and international law: critical pasts and pending futures, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2017;

S.-Y. Hong, Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime (Human Rights in History). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015; 

Burton, Eric, Dietrich, Anne, R. Harisch, Immanuel and C. Schenck, Marcia. Navigating Socialist Encounters: Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021;

N. Karagiannis, Multiple Solidarities. Autonomy and Resistance, in Varieties of world-making : beyond globalization, edited by Nathalie Karagiannis and Peter Wagner, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2007, p. 154-72.

O. A, Westad, The Global Cold War. Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times, Cambridge university press, Cambridge 2007

Q. Slobodian (ed.), Comarades of Color. East Germany in the Cold War world, Berghahn, New York 2015

Quinn Slobodian, Foreign front : Third World politics in sixties West Germany, Durham: Duke university press, 2012;

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

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;

Jocelyn Olcott, International womens year : the greatest consciousness-raising event in history, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017;

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

 

Following book is mandatory literature for not-attending students: Elizabeth Buettner, Europe after empire: decolonization, society, and culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2016

 

 

 

Metodi didattici

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, as well as writing two short papers in due time.

Students have to submit two short papers (600 words). The first paper will regard the article by S. Ward, the second one can be freely chosen among the readings discussed in class. Papers have to be sent via email to: worldhistory.papers@gmail.com.

Readings and papers are scheduled as follows:

15.11 Ward, Stuart. “THE EUROPEAN PROVENANCE OF DECOLONIZATION.” Past & Present, no. 230 (2016): 227–60.

21.11 Debate on the perception of the Bandung conference in different areas of the world according to the findings provided by studentes.

29.11 Presentation and discussion of Catia Cecilia Confortini, Intelligent Compassion: The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and Feminist Peace, Oxford, 2012, Chapter 4; and Celia Donert, From Communist Internationalism to Human Rights: Gender, Violence and International Law in the Women’s International Democratic Federation Mission to North Korea, 1951, Contemporary European History, no. 25, 2 (2016): 313-33

6.12  Presentation and discussion of chapters 2, 3, 4,6,10 and 13 from Navigating Socialist Encounters Moorings and (Dis)Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War, edited by Eric Burton, Anne Dietrich, Immanuel R. Harisch and Marcia C. Schenck, De Gruyter 2021. The articles will be assigned to groups during the course. 

12.12 Presentation and discussion on Jean-Phillipe Thérien, The Brandt Commission: The end of an era in North–South politics, in International Commissions and the Power of Ideas, edited by Ramesh Thakur, et al., United Nations University Press, 2005.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

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

Attending students are required to participate actively to all classes and must write two short papers (600 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:

• Race, nation and socialism in the late 19th and 20th century (Capuzzo)
• Europe's changing place in the long 20th century (Tolomelli)

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

Deadline for the submission of the final paper is either 30th January or 31st March.

The grade assigned to the paper will be based on:

- punctuality in the submission and adequacy of the papers expected during the course;

- selection of the topic of the final paper and its relatedness with the course content

- ability to identify relevant bibliography

- critical analysis

- clarity in structure and aims

- language proficiency 

 

Not-attending students are required to pass a written test. This concerns both this module (6CFU) as well as the first module by Prof. Capuzzo (see the respecitve program). The written test (60') will consist of three open questions concerning the book by Elizabeth Buettner, Europe after empire: decolonization, society, and culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2016.

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.

Proper language and the ability to critically analyze relevant topics will lead to a good/excellent final grade

Acceptable language and the ability to resume relevant topics will lead to a sufficient/fair grade.

Insufficient linguistic proficiency and fragmentary knowledge of relevant topics will lead to a failure in passing the exam.

This 6 CFU course is part of the 12 CFU Integrated Course “World History (C.I.) (LM)". If the student has the Integrated Course (12 CFU) in his/her study plan, the final grade for not-attending will result from the arithmetic average of the marks obtained in the two parts (“World history: theory and methodology" and “Europe in World History"). For attending students the final grade will be assigned by the professor with whom the subject has been agreed (either Capuzzo or Tolomelli).

 

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

P; uploaded texts; power point presentations.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Marica Tolomelli