European Studies

This course focuses on the comparative study of the four formerly Communist Central European countries, commonly referred to as the Visegrad Group. The course draws upon students' basic knowledge of current and classic themes of comparative politics and takes these to the next level by analyzing how applicable they are to the region under study where democratic institutions are young. It focuses on historical and current developments in Central Europe, looking at how the legacy of Communist rule shaped the creation of a particular type of political institutions and political actors. The course looks at and compares the systems of legislatures, executives in the four countries and analyses the role of the fragile judiciary systems in the region. Among other topics covered are corruption, democratization, mass protesting, party development as well as changing values. The course briefly looks at the backlash in the European integration process and rise of populism and far-right movements in the region.

The course provides students with a theoretically-grounded understanding of the role of the European Union as an international actor. Using theories of international relations, European integration and Foreign Policy Analysis, it analyzse and evaluate the EU’s evolving external identity and policy capabilities across a range of external relations, including membership conditionality, trade and development, international crime and terrorism, asylum and immigration, foreign, security and defense policy, and democracy and human rights promotion. The course then examines the nature of key bilateral relationships between the EU and selected countries (US, Russia, and China) and regions (former colonies, regional groups), explaining the extent to which they have been institutionalized and the challenges that define them. It will end by assessing what sort of international actor the EU ‘is’ and ‘wants to be’ – namely civilian, normative or military – and evaluating the likelihood of the EU emerging as a global superpower in the future.

This course explores the creation, evolution, and subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union, as well as the emergence of a new Russia from the wreckage of the world’s first socialist state. Emphasis is placed on key political, social, and cultural developments, seen within the context of Soviet, post-Soviet and, more broadly, European history.

This course aims at a broader and deeper understanding of Europe, developing a panorama of the meaning of the term “Europe” using a hybrid approach at once historical/cultural and institutional/political. It provides the basic knowledge needed to be an informed citizen of/in Europe and read and interpret accurately European current events. The course builds fundamental knowledge of the basics of European geography, and its common history and politics. It considers Europe as not simply a geographical area nor a multilateral treaty but a civilizational mosaic, and a whole. The course allows students to become familiar with the mainstays of French academic literature on European integration. The approach this course takes is to highlight and examine the key moments, what Solzhenitzyn called the nodal points, of the European adventure as a way of understanding what drove the artistic and religious revolutions that accompanied Europe's tremendous expansion on the basis of overseas conquest. Subsequently, and based on the understanding of the European historical ensemble, the course reflects on the political, economic, social, and even cultural convergence constituting the European integration which has been taking place over the past seventy years. 

This seminar introduces the scientific study of European politics. The course applies the basic theoretical tools, concepts, and empirical methods of comparative politics to analyze, understand, and explain some of the systematic relationships that exist between economic, political, and social variables within European countries and the European Union. The seminar is divided thematically into three parts. Following a brief introduction to the course and review of the comparative method, the first section covers the origins of European states and democracy in Europe as well as the democratic transition processes of the ‘third wave’ in Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe. The second section focuses on the domestic political institutions of liberal European democracies and the variation that exists between them and the institutions of the European Union. While the course covers country-specific knowledge, the course is not an in-depth study of individual countries. Instead, the course discusses the similarities and differences in the executive-legislative relations, electoral systems, and party systems across Europe. The final section of the seminar deals with the effects and policy consequences that the variation in these institutional arrangements has on government accountability, representation, economic performance, political stability, and various economic and social policies.

This course provides an introduction to European fairytales within a historical, geographical, and cultural context including European folk genres such as myth or legends and a close focus on Czech fairytales. The course describes and surveys the changes in the approach to European fairytales within the development of scholarship about them. It presents sociohistorical, psychological, or anthropological interpretations, as well as biologically based and gender or feminist methods of their interpretation. The course topics include ethical or moral principles in fairytales, gender and social roles, and historical and political influences on fairytale adaptation.

At the end of the 20th century, the official reinvention of the city for the 1992 Olympic games placed Barcelona on the map for the rest of the world. The dramatic changes in the cityscape post-1992, as well as the clever marketing campaigns, rapidly turned Barcelona into the place to be. In the wave of that international renown, Ferran Adrià’s worldwide fame influenced and revolutionized not only the work of many chefs, but also the ways in which we all understand the creative process behind transforming food into cooking and cuisine. The city and industry would never again be the same, but thirty years later and with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 on the horizon, Barcelona is now looking at the significant tensions that this transformation involved in terms of gentrification, food insecurity, and social inequalities. This course explores the clash between the celebrated innovation of cuisine that transformed Barcelona and the complex challenges of the resulting 21st century global city, thus deconstructing the myths of food and celebrity.