98694 - EUROPEAN CULTURES AND SOCIETIES

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students with an introduction to the idea of Europe as a cultural and historical reality from a wide multidisciplinary perspective, as well as the political project that the European Union represents. At the end of the course, students should know the role of gender, ethnicity, nationalism and social class in the construction of European identities and in the consolidation of a feeling of belonging to the European Union. They will also be able to analyse how particular cultural identities play an integrating and disintegrating role in a broader system such as the European Union.

Course contents

Seminars focus on the discussion of key texts related to the thematic blocs of the course:

• European Heritage
• Nationalism in Europe
• Europe and Colonialism
• Social Movements in Europe
• Mobility and Migration in the Context of Europe
• Contemporary Challenges for Europeans
• Europe and Global Challenges

Readings/Bibliography

Compulsory readings are assigned for each seminar. The course material is made available on Toledo.

Teaching methods

Seminars are to guide students in reading and discussion of academic texts, and to encourage debate and interaction between students.

Assessment methods

Students are expected to attend and participate in each seminar. In case of absence, students must make up for the missed seminar by providing a written review of one of the texts discussed during the missed seminar (1 page max.), answering the question: What arguments in the text I would disagree with?. The unjustified absences cannot exceed 3 seminar sessions. If students miss more than 3 seminar sessions, they cannot make them up with a written review and will receive an automatic NA for the course in the first examination period.

Teaching tools

Participatory teaching methods 

Office hours

See the website of Alice Lacchei

See the website of Joanna Orzechowska Waclawska

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