History

This course provides the analytical tools required to connect and address the historical, philosophical, and political dimensions in the climate crisis. The first part of the course explores the development of the idea of humans as global agents; an idea which has culminated in the notion of “The Anthropocene,” the geological epoch that ends the Holocene. It examines the conceptual and technological conditions that have enabled us to think in terms of a global climate crisis and the ways in which this history continues to shape how we think about solutions and futures in a world of climate change. Part of this is also to reconsider the relations between the human and the natural sciences in a situation in which the nature-culture distinction may have lost its meaning. The course then encourages an adjustment of human self-understanding in light of the proclamation of our time as the Anthropocene, raising ontological as well as ethical issues, which burst the time frames as well as our understanding of responsibility for climate change as we know it. It examines the consequences of the collapse of the nature-culture distinction and the distinction between earth history and world history, and explores alternative conceptual models of framing our current situation. The final part of the course develops further the political and ethical implications of the climate crisis. It discusses the relationship between the global climate crisis and economic inequality and investigates the political dimensions (is the future of the planet a form of world government – a climate leviathan?) and the ethical dilemmas (what are the responsibilities of individuals, between societies and across generations?). 

This course explores the place of food in art in France, with a focus on the modern and contemporary periods. The course studies representations of food as a means to survey the evolution of French art within a global context, and as significant markers of social, ethnic, and cultural identity. An analysis of these depiction provides the opportunity to learn about dietary and dining customs, habits and beliefs prevalent in France from the early modern period to the present. The course begins by decoding the archetypal representations of succulent food in the still life and genre painting of 16th-17th century Holland, then examines how the rise of these previously minor artistic genres in 18th century France coincided with the birth of French gastronomy. Frivolous depictions of aristocrats wining, dining, and indulging in exotic beverages like coffee and hot chocolate then give way in post-Revolutionary France to visions of austerity and “real life,” featuring potato-eating peasants. The focus then shifts to representations of food and dining in the age of modernity, when Paris was the undisputed capital of art, luxury, haute cuisine, and innovation. Drawing from these pictorial and social innovations, the course observes the place of food and dining themes in the avant-garde movements of early 20th-century Paris. The course questions the place of food—or its absence--in art to capture the suffering and violence of upheavals like the Second World War. The course considers the place of food and dining in contemporary art: from the Pop Art movement calling into question postwar consumer society through its representations of industrialized, mass-produced food; to contemporary creators in a plural and globalized art scene who use these traditional themes to challenge the status and roles of the artist, the spectator, and the work of art itself; to how depictions of food in visual art grapple with multiculturalism in France today.

This course provides an overview of Swedish and Nordic history from the Viking Age to the present. To allow a critical approach to an otherwise Swedish interpretation of history, the course is taught from a Nordic perspective. Selected issues from Swedish and Nordic history are discussed in order to orient students in relevant discussions and arguments in historical theory. Students are also trained in historical argumentation based on scholarly foundations.

According to recent World Economic Forum polls conducted among 18-35 year olds in nearly 200 countries, the planet’s most urgent crises include religious conflict, government accountability, poverty, food and water (in)security, inequality, and climate change. These problems, in turn, raise pressing collective conundrums, such as: How can population growth and resources be brought into better balance? How can changing the status of women help improve the broader human condition? How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? How can the threat of new and re-emerging diseases be reduced? How can shared values and security strategies reduce ethnic conflict, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction? And how can governments work together to address the threats associated with global warning? But every global challenge has its own particular "history," closely linked to developments taking place in different parts of the world over the last century or so (if not longer). This course, therefore, adopts a thematic approach towards making sense of the recent historical context in which these challenges have emerged.

The course addresses the development of communism after World War II, focusing on the situation in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim is to study the development of communism during the Cold War, from the Yalta conference in 1945 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and its consequences in the 1990s and early twenty-first century. The subject is addressed from both genetic and genealogical perspectives.

This course examines the world of the supernatural and paranormal from both historical and contemporary perspectives.