Spring 2016
Eastern Europe and EU Integration
Time: Tuesdays and Thursday 3:30-4:50pm.
Undergraduate sections: EURO 490/A3, PS 300, ANTH 399, SLAV 452/A3, SOC 496, CWL 453
Graduate sections: EURO 490/A4, PS 590, ANTH 515, SLAV 452/A4, SOC 596
Lead Instructor: Prof. Zsuzsa Gille
The objective of this course is to explore the subject of European Union expansion to the east and south from an interdisciplinary, multifocal perspective. Comprised of a political scientist, a sociologist, and two literature and culture experts – all of them possessing significant pertinent area studies expertise in the region – and with additional guest lectures by a historian and political scientist specializing in European integration studies, this team-taught course will address crucial problems of political enlargement and social integration, including the following:
- In what ways did the inclusion of ten new members in 2004 – the EU’s largest expansion to date in terms of landmass and population – and two new members in 2007 and one in 2013 affect the identity and self-perception of the old core of European nations?
- What is the factual political status of the newly admitted member states, and what are the specific challenges of integration that they must still face today? Are these challenges analogous throughout the new Europe, and if not, what factors (historical, cultural, social) may account for the differences?
- What have been some of the consequences of expansion in terms of practices of social mobility; what can be learned from the microhistory of those regions that have been blessed by new investment as well as those parts of the new EU that have been passed over as sites of new capital allocation?
- What are the key geopolitical challenges faced by the enlarged supranational entity of the EU, in terms both of immediate stewardship and long-term strategy? As well – and the assembled teaching team is especially well-suited to address this issue – what have been some of the consequences of enlargement on the literary and artistic scenes of Europe new and old alike; what types of other dialogues or interpenetrations of ideas has enlargement occasioned?
- Finally, what can be said of the internal dynamics of the East European states themselves, given that for many of their citizens the condition of being part of a transnational entity governed from elsewhere (the Soviet Bloc) is still a fairly recent memory, in the context of their current integration within a new supranational political body?
- What explains the difference in attitude to migrants and refugees in East and West Europe? How does this crisis and responses to it bode for the unity of the EU?
Spring 2015
Eastern Europe and EU Integration
Time: 12:30-1:50, TR
Location: 113 Davenport Hall
Undergraduate Section: EURO 490 (CRN #60800)
Graduate Section: EURO 490 (CRN #60801)
Instructor: George Gasyna (ggasyna@illinois.edu)
Explores the subject of European Union expansion to the east and south from an interdisciplinary, multifocal perspective, examining crucial problems of political enlargement and social integration. Addresses issues of East European domestic and transnational identities in the broader European context, and intersection of these issues with the European integration project, to include representations of Eastern Europe, historical conflict, migration, religious identities, and gendered identities. Examines structures and policies that connect the people and societies of Eastern Europe to the European Union, including democratic consolidation, conflict management, minority rights, environmental policy, and the role of Eastern European leadership in formulating EU policy. The course is a Jean Monnet Module, funded in part by the European Union.
The course meets with:
CWL 453, CRN 39071 (Undergrad), CRN 40704 (Grad)
PS 300/590, CRN 57684 (Undergrad), CRN 57689 (Grad)
SLAV 452, CRN 39070 (Undergrad), CRN 40702 (Grad)
SOC 596, CRN 61112