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

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

Europe and Decolonization: post imperial anti-imperialism?

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, imperialism and anti-imperialism among others – in relation to some crucial 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 prompted a variety of institutional reactions and policies, as well as actions carried out by the civil society that reshaped the conceptual tools of the left-wing tradition. Moreover, the Cold War frame also contributed to questioning common understanding of empires and imperial order by asserting an imagined new bipolar engine of world power. Along with the formation of a transnational New Left and the rise of new collective actors, a new concept of imperialism was coined as well as new practice of anti-imperialist struggle. 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 aiming at challenging imperialim in its changing shape. The programme is articulated in 5 weeks, each of them will address specific topics.

Week 1: Building the analytical frame: introduction to the concept of imperialism in the liberal and the marxist tradition and first attempts of anti-imperialism agency with a particular focus on the 1920s and 1930s. Reading to be discussed on Wednesday 15.11: Fredrik Petersson (2014) Hub of the Anti-Imperialist Movement,
Interventions, 16:1, 49-71. Available on Virtuale platform.

Week 2: The context: Cold war and decolonization in the early 1950s. The demise of the European imperial order: decolonization conflicts and the shift of power on the global scale. European critics (S. Weil) responses and reactions. Building of discourses and views from the centres of anti-colonial struggle: Bandung as a historical culmination and a watershed. Readings to be assigned from L. Eslava, M. Fakhri, V. Nesiah (eds.), Bandung, Global History and International Law, Cambridge UP 2017. Presentation on Wednesday 22.11.

Week 3: Structures, discourses and the rise of post-imperial theories of imperialism: criticism from within the imperialist powers and from the newly emerged anti-imperialist forces. The impact of non-alignment, and the debate within the circles of the New Left. Readings to be assigned for presentations on Wednesday 29.11.

Week 4: Third-worldist anti-imperialist agency: anti-imperialist critique of the bipolar Cold war system, the radical critique both US and Soviet imperialism. Processes of splitting, radicalization, disillusion. Readings on sources from T. Ali, Street fighting years : an autobiography of the Sixties, London 2018; H.-J.Krahl on Czekoslovakia in the NLR, 1, 1969 (available on Virtuale); Quaderni Piacentini 1970; Documents from the RAF. Presentations on Wednesday 6.12.

Week 5: From anti-imperialism to human rights? A debate on recent interpretations (Mohandesi, Davey a.o.)

Readings will be weekly presented 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” (Virtuale platform).

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

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

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

Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent empire : anticolonial resistance and British dissent, London, Verso, 2019

Jennifer Anne Boittin, Colonial metropolis. The urban grounds of anti-imperialism and feminism in interwar Paris, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press 2010

Michael Goebel, Anti-imperial metropolis. Interwar Paris and the seeds of Third World nationalism, Cambridge UP, 2015

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 University press, 2017;

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

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

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

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

Tariq Ali, Street-Fighting Years:An Autobiography of the Sixties, Verso, London 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

Aldo Marchesi, Latin America's radical left. Rebellion and Cold War in the global 1960s, Cambridge University Press, 2018

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

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

Eleanor Davey, Idealism beyond Borders: the French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954-1988, Cambridge UP 2015;

Salar Mohandesi, Red Internationalism. Anti-Imperialism and Human Rights in the Global Sixties and Seventies, Cambridge UP 2023.

Not-attending students have to take a written exam on following books:

Elizabeth Buettner, Europe after empire: decolonization, society, and culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2016;

Salar Mohandesi, Red Internationalism. Anti-Imperialism and Human Rights in the Global Sixties and Seventies, Cambridge UP 2023.

 

 

 

 

Teaching methods

The course is organized in a mixed form consisting of lectures, presentations and discussions. Students are asked to participate actively by reading and preparing class presentations of the articles, sources or book chapters assigneed weekly.

Readings and discussion are scheduled as follows:

15.11: Historical experiences: F. Petersson, Anti-imperialism and Nostalgia: A Re-assessment of the History and Historiography of the League Against Imperialism, in H. Weiss (ed.), International Communism and Transnational Solidarity: Radical Networks, Mass Movements and Global Politics 1919-1939, Brill 2016, pp. 191-255. (The chapter is very long, students are expected to have a look to get some glimpses about the first anti-imperialist conference held in Europe in the 20th century).

21.11: Contextualization: E. Buettner, Myths of continuity and European exceptionalism: Britain, decolonization, and the Commonwealth family ideal, in Europe after Empire. Decolonization, Society, and Culture, Cambridge UP 2016, pp. 23-77.

28.11: The Suez crisis seen from diverse positions: presentation and discussion about sources provided by the students (the activity will be organized in the first week of the course according to the real number of attending students).

5.12: US vs. Social imperialism: the Tricontinental Conference in the Cold War frame (Chapter from A. Westad + sources provided by the teacher, they will be uploaded on Virtuale on due time).

13.12: Interpretations in the long term: Chapters from S. Mohandesi (chapter 6 from Red Internationalism, CUP 2023) and E. Davey (chapter 1 from Idealism Beyond Borders, CUP 2015).

 

Assessment methods

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 discussions 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 with regard to the main topics addressed by the program (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:

- participation in class presentations and discussions;

- 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

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.

For attending students the final grade will be assigned by the professor with whom the subject has been agreed (either Capuzzo or Tolomelli).

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).

For Tolomelli's module they have to study following books:Elizabeth Buettner, Europe after empire: decolonization, society, and culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2016;

Salar Mohandesi, Red Internationalism. Anti-Imperialism and Human Rights in the Global Sixties and Seventies, Cambridge UP 2023.

The exam will consist of six open questions (three for each book) that students are expected to answer in 90'.

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").

 

Teaching tools

Pc; uploaded texts; power point presentations. 

Office hours

See the website of Marica Tolomelli