European Studies

This course consists of three parts. The first part covers the basics of the EU, including major theories of European integration, its core institutions, decision-making procedures, and legal order. In the second part, this course explores the major bilateral relations between the EU and third parties. The last part focuses on selected policy areas critical to the EU’s internal stability and external posture.

This course examines mechanisms underlying real economic integration, including growth convergence, trade, factor mobility and fiscal transfers. It also analyzes theoretical and policy dimensions of the economic integration of Europe, the recent history of European monetary and financial integration, and the rationale for European Monetary Union, the theory of optimal currency areas, the European Central Bank, fiscal and monetary policy in a currency union, and the impact of banking and sovereign debt crises on the financial stability of the Eurozone.

Through the reading of scholarly texts, collective analysis of sources, and personal research, this course aims to address European integration through the lens of gender and how gender issues impact European integration. The course highlights the contribution of women’s networks to bringing European societies closer together, but also examines the place of feminism and reflections on gender in the development of European values, which today help to set Europe apart globally. Particular attention is paid to the different experiences of gender and feminism in Western Europe and in Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The course focuses on developments in the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages, in relation to other parts of Europe. After a general introduction, the course focuses on a number of case studies related to medieval court and town culture from the viewpoint of various disciplines. Among the topics covered are defining a medieval town, musical institutions, the role of literature, and the changing function and styles of art and architecture in this period. The classes taught by faculty from different disciplines: art history, history, Dutch language and literature, and music.

Today, the European Union tends to elicit, at best, indifference and boredom, and at worst, rejection. That is why it is urgent to consider ways to foster a sense of European identity, to give substance to this Europe that is perceived as too distant and too abstract. For Europe does indeed exist; it is present in our shared history, in a common past, in cultural references so obvious that we no longer see them. This course (re)discovers literary and audiovisual works, analyzes them, and discusses them in order to build a shared reflection on the nature of European identity. Sessions begin with students’ oral presentations on the selected works, followed by a class discussion on the lessons to be drawn from these works and the avenues for reflection they offer for thinking about the construction of a sense of European belonging.