To declare a major/minor with us please email european.studies@nyu.edu
FALL 2021 COURSES
EURO-UA 950 Contemporary Europe
Seminar | 4 points
Professor Hadas Aron | Thu, 10:15-12:15
Room: KJCC, Rm 324
Please note: This is a required course for all CEMS majors.
The course examines the liberal order in Europe that was formed after WWII, its institutional design, the challenges it has been facing, and the implications of the liberal order for politics, society, and culture in Europe. The first part of the course reviews the social, economic, and security concerns Europe faced in 1945, and the institutions that were constructed to respond to these concerns. We will also explore the Cold War and its consequences for the politics, and the realities of people throughout Europe. The second part of the course explores the integration of Europe into a social, economic, and identity community, and the expansion of European institutions and identity first to Southern Europe and then to the former Soviet Bloc. The third part of the course addresses the current "Crisis of Europe" from the 2008 financial crisis through the surge of refugee migration and the rise of populism. We will ask whether and to what extent the current crisis threatens the system formed after 1945.
The course is interdisciplinary in nature. To explore political change and continuity in contemporary Europe we will combine theories from international relations, political science, sociology, and economics, as well as readings of historical primary and secondary resources. In addition to scholarly literature we will use contemporary media outlets, cultural resources and video, when available.
EURO-UA 983.001 The State in History
Seminar | 4 points
Professor Peter Baldwin | Mon, 4:55-6:55
Same as HIST-UA 670.002
From before your birth until after your death, the state dominates your life: 24/7/365. You will spend scarcely a minute outside its orbit. You will be prodded, poked, vaccinated, inspected, tested, certified, autopsied, and buried as it sees fit. Today, the state is all-powerful, omnipresent, ubiquitous. But it wasn’t always that way. The state too has a history. This course examines that development across 2000 years. The state is the single largest, most ubiquitous, most powerful thing in history. It knows all about you. Shouldn’t you know about it?
EURO-UA 983.002 Old Europe and the New Right
Seminar | 4 points
Professor Tamsin Shaw | Mon 12:30-2:30
Room: KJCC, Room 324
Same as PHIL-UA 983.001
This course will examine the origins of right wing ideology in European thought since the French Revolution. We will look at the emergence of an imagined "old Europe" through mythological ideas about national authenticity, race-based philosophies of history, populism, and anti-rationalism. We will also look at the role this fantasy still plays in global right wing thought.
SPRING 2021 COURSES
EURO-UA 982 Political Parties on the Edge: Green, Populist and Radical Parties in Europe
Seminar | 4 points
Christian Martin| Thu, 12:00-2:00
Online
This seminar will discuss political parties in Europe that are different from mainstream socialist, social democratic, Christian democratic and conservative parties. We will analyze the political platforms of radical left and right wing, as well as green and populist parties in addition to separatist and anti-system parties and relate these parties to structural changes in the economies and societies of Europe.
Assessment:
- Active participation (20 percent)
- Presentation (15 mins max) (20 percent)
- Midterm (20 percent)
- Final paper (about 10-12 pages) (40 percent)
EURO-UA 983.001 Crisis of Europe
Seminar | 4 points
Hadas Aron | Thurs, 10:00-12:00
Blended
In the past decade the countries of Europe, and the European Union as an organization, have been facing multiple challenges. The 2008 financial crisis hit several countries and generated a crisis in the shared Eurozone; Euroscepticism has given rise to populist movements throughout the continent; waves of migration were met with struggle and backlash; Western European countries have been threatened by terror; Russia is increasingly aggressive; and recently the US is increasingly indifferent and even hostile toward its European allies. In this course we will attempt to evaluate the following questions: Do these challenges amount to a crisis? Is the integrity of the EU in danger? What can be done to face these multiple challenges? The course explores the dimensions of the European crisis: sovereignty, democracy, economy, security, and culture. We will explore these questions in the EU, in its relationships, and in key individual cases such as Britain, Germany, Greece, Poland, and Hungary.
EURO-UA 983.004 Aliens since 1897
Seminar | 4 points
Alexander Geppert | Tue, 2:00-4:45
Blended
Humankind’s self-understanding as a species is defined, tested and exposed when confronted with radical alterity, be it real or imagined. Located at the intersection of European and American cultural history, the history of science and technology, literary studies and film, this class charts the manifold figurations of the alien since its modern invention in 1897. Sessions examine alleged invasions from Mars and Venus, H. G. Wells, Liu Cixin and Ted Chang, UFO sightings and alien encounters but also the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the making of astrobiology into a scholarly discipline, NASA’s Voyager missions, the so-called Plurality of Worlds, Ancient Astronauts and Rare Earth controversies and many other aspects of twentieth-century extraterrestrialism.