Czech Republic

This course explores the historical development of racial prejudice and antisemitism, from their roots in the classical and mediaeval worlds to the rise of National Socialism in the early 20th century. It analyses the way religious, cultural, linguistic, and physical/biological forms of exclusion have overlapped and reinforced each other. It is one of the principal contentions of this course that National Socialism’s exterminatory antisemitism is not merely a product of centuries of anti-Jewish prejudice; rather, racial antisemitism must be understood as something which evolved in close symbiosis with racial prejudices directed against Indigenous Peoples, Africans (slave and free), and colonial peoples from the early modern period onward, culminating in the historically particular form of exterminatory racial antisemitism which formed the necessary precondition of the Holocaust. A focus of the course is the rise of exclusionary racial, anti-Semitic, and nationalist discourses in Central Europe from the middle of the 19th century until the Final Solution. Throughout, the course analyzes disparate and contradictory perspectives on the history of racism using primary sources as well as theoretical conceptualizations. It critically examines divergent conclusions and, through a focused, discriminatory, and judicial critique of these sources, produces evidence to creatively integrate these divergences into something which reflects the student’s unique perspective.

The course discusses environmental studies as an interdisciplinary field, exploring their intersection with other disciplines. The core of the course is focused on the current environmental issues in a global context, primarily within the conceptual framework of Anthropocene and Post-Anthorpocene. The Czech context is presented through an analysis of the most burning environmental issues, including brown coal mining, air pollution, carbon emissions, waste management, landscape transportation, soil erosion, and energy production. The interconnection of social, economic, and ethical contexts of environmental issues is stressed throughout the course. The course consists of lectures, discussions, student presentations, group work, quizzes, and an excursion.

This course provides a basic overview of the role of sport in the Czech Republic from historical, sociological, and political perspectives. Students are acquainted with current trends in the society and their influence on the development and practice of outdoor activities. The main topics include the concept of Czech physical culture and the outdoor concept of “turistika,” a nation-specific type of hiking. The course also examines some contemporary sports-related issues from an inter-disciplinary perspective, including violence, cheating, doping, and technologies in sport.

The European Union (EU) as we know it has been formed by three creative processes: deepening of the integration, enlargement of the EU, and economic transformation in former socialist countries. In this course, after introducing those processes and some theoretical background, different EU economic policies are thoroughly analyzed. Considering that the participants are American undergraduates, this course systematically compares and contrasts the EU and its role in the world with the United States. Preliminary knowledge of principles of microeconomics is strongly recommended, but all necessary theoretical concepts are briefly summarized as part of this course.

This course focuses on differences in the functioning of national economies around the world and especially on differences between the national economies of individual EU member states and Central and Eastern European countries. It discusses the influence of culture, geography, abundance, or lack of natural and human resources, and mainly economic institutions and polices on the economic development of those countries. Using Hofstede's dimensions, students explore cultural differences among European countries and discuss practical issues such as the differences in the style of management and differences in consumer preferences. In addition to other theoretical tools employed in the course such as contemporary population theories, natural resource abundance, and production theories, also statistical data are included, serving as supplementary information for the comparison. The course explains common generalizations and classifications of economic and social models (e.g. Atlantic capitalism vs. Rhine capitalism; Sapir's view: Anglo-Saxon model vs. Nordic vs. Continental vs. Mediterranean model) and analyzes the implications of differences between economic and social models used by individual member countries for competitiveness. In addition to helping students understand economies of different countries and their ability to do business, it also helps them gain an insight into European economic institutions and policies. Although the lectures and readings contain extensive empirical evidence and data, the emphasis is on understanding the logic and economics of the analyzed processes.