History

From the aftermath of the Norman Conquest of England to the close of the 15th century, the history of the island of Britain centered on the development of two monarchies: the English crown and its dominions and the kingdom of Scotland. This course has at its core the relationship between the two realms and comparisons of the different but related societies they contained. Students examine the English and Scottish realms as specific examples of northern European kingdoms in the high and later Middle Ages. The course stresses their internal development and issues of national identity, but also focuses on the full range of contacts between the princes and peoples of Britain and the wider world, in particular via the Church and through extensive ties with France and the Low Countries.

For Romantic poets and natural scientists, Christian missionaries and package tourists, the natural world was a source of inspiration and fascination. This course examines the ways the Victorians encountered and interpreted the natural world. Key themes include natural theology, Romanticism, imperial exploration and discovery, the growth of tourism, and the emergence of science as an expert profession. Students use contemporary documents to examine the ways in which different social and professional groups constructed and represented the natural world according to their own interests.

This course offers an intensive introduction to the historical development of ideas about ethnicity, race, and racism in the Western world. Students gain insight into the cultural processes that feed into constructions of race and ethnicity and learn to turn a critical lens on scientific concepts such as racism, racial boundaries, multiculturalism, discrimination, othering, and whiteness. Course participants also are instructed in the techniques of the historian's craft: finding and selecting literature, assessing texts, critically analyzing sources and working with historical concepts such as ethnicity, racism, and discrimination. Though racism is mainly associated with the colonial slave experience and genocide in the Second World War, it has a much longer history that also ripples through to our own world today. This course studies the history of racism in the West from the Enlightenment to the present day. The main focus is on the way in which ideas about race and ethnicity have evolved as categories of differentiation, hierarchy, and exclusion. Students research the complex interactions between these cultural constructs and the historical dimensions of nationalism, colonialism, imperialism and globalization in Western history. The development of racism in Europe is considered from an international and comparative perspective, in part through the study of colonial and transatlantic experiences of slavery and migration, as well as by researching the worldwide spread of ideals of equality, human rights, and civil rights. In addition, the course looks at how scientific and pseudo-scientific constructs of racism, social Darwinism, and eugenics were modeled from the nineteenth century onwards to legitimize differentiation and selection on the basis of racial characteristics. Finally, this course investigates how knowledge of this controversial past can offer a framework for understanding current discussions about race and ethnicity. Note: The lectures of this course are in English. If there is only one seminar group, discussions are also entirely in English.

This course surveys the history of European diplomacy since 1814. Topics covered: Napoleon's conquests and the French Empire; the defeat of Napoleon and the gathering in Vienna in 1814-15 to restore the old order; a Concert of Europe based on a set of informal norms to govern relations between states; liberal national movements and various crises caused by the instability of the Ottoman Empire; the creation of a new form of European nation-states (i.e. Italy and Germany). The course discusses how the character of European diplomacy was profoundly altered, in particular by Bismarck's particular brand of foreign policy and a new wave of imperialism, but also by the idea of internationalism. The course then moves on to 1914, where a minor crisis in Sarajevo turned into a European and, eventually, global war. This part of the course discusses the efforts at the Paris Peace Conference to institutionalize a system of collective security. However, with the advent of new aggressive and belligerent regimes, this endeavor failed miserably. After the Second World War, Great Britain and France both lost their Empire, though each of them in their own way. At the same time, Western Europe tried to further integrate on a regional level and, at first, focused on economic integration. Only later on did European states increase integration on a political and diplomatic level as well. The violent break-up of Yugoslavia with its ensuing ethnic tensions and the embarrassing display of European disunity undoubtedly hastened this process.

The history of developing countries is strongly marked by European colonization, the scale of which has been unprecedented. Today, about 70% of the world's population has a colonial past, either as descendants of colonizers or as descendants of colonized people. The European colonial fact, which is one of the sources of inequality in today's world, has seen effects unfold in two very different historical contexts around the world: the first phase of European expansion overseas in the sixteenth-eighteenth century and that of colonialism and imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To try to measure a phenomenon of such magnitude and ambiguous effects, and to highlight its long-term effects, the course looks at the variety of forms taken by European colonization during these two periods and the factors that can be put forward to illuminate it.

This course discusses the history of commercial aviation and the role of two major aircraft manufacturers-- Airbus and Boeing. It discusses the competition between the two companies and the impact of this competition on the aviation industry. Topics include: comparison of the two major aircraft manufacturers; the evolution of airlines-- alliances; the future of aviation-- new competitors.

This course examines the period of European History extending between 1789 and 1914. Topics include: the end of absolutist monarchies based on divine right; the implantation of representative political systems based on a strong national feeling; and the civilizational crisis that provoked a general European war involving the five great powers and marked a before and after in the contemporary history of Europe.

This course approaches Czechoslovak history both chronologically and thematically, tracing some of the most important current directions in modern European historiography. The course combines social, cultural, and political approaches to examine the limits of understanding history as a purely top-down process. Students review significant recent scholarship from the Czech and Slovak Republics and elsewhere, including literature, film, photography, and official documents. The course discusses topics including the chronological approach to studying history, using conventional periodization to analyze Czechoslovak history, whether the European continent was characterized by a Cold War divide and how Czechoslovakia might shed light on this, debates surrounding the use of a totalitarian paradigm, and the actors and drivers of historical change.