Archives: Courses
Education and Sustainability Leadership
The purpose of this course is to provide participants with opportunities to work with institutional and systems approaches in working with sustainability and sustainability education. This is a reading course where on-line and campus sessions are built on informed debate.
Examples of issues to be taught:
- Education for sustainability in formal and informal settings (e.g. in workplaces)
- Leadership for sustainability (e.g. whole school or leisure activity change)
- Relations between science and sustainability (e.g. tactic/principle)
- Wicked problems
- Rural development and sustainability
- Creating shared values (including corporate social responsibility)
- Curriculum change
Central Europe and the European Union (KPE/BCEU)
The fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe represent a dramatic turning point in contemporary political history. The „annus mirabilis“ of 1989 opened the way to political, economic, and social changes not anticipated, even weeks before the changes swept the region. This course will focus on the international dimension of transition in Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia), which had strong cultural and institutional ties to Western Europe before the post-World War II and the subsequent communist takeover, and thus logically embarked on the path toward re-joining key European and Transatlantic organizations. The course will cover the evolution of relations between Central European countries, the European Community/Union, and NATO. Special attention will be paid to the key events and issues forming the CE-EU relations from 1989 until the present, including the Association Agreements, entry negotiations, lessons from previous enlargements, the impact of eastward enlargement, etc. The course will also deal with the security dimension of the relationship covering all relevant developments connected with the EU and NATO.
Transition to Democracy in Central Europe (KPO/TDEU)
The course focuses on the transition to democracy in Central Europe – former Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. It focuses on the communist regimes in these countries as a basic starting point for the study of transition processes. The process of transition to democracy is discussed with emphasis on the specifics of each transition. The course analyzes the problems of democratic consolidation – building democratic institutions, economic transition, etc. Last but not least, the course focuses on the international factors of democratization in Central Europe, especially the influence of the European Union, and the relations of Central European states to the EU.
Short-term mobility will be required in April / May (the specific dates will be provided by the lecturer at the start of the course). Please, make sure to consult mobility coordinator at your institution to explore potential funding opportunities.
History of EU integration (KPO / EHEUI)
The course examines the historical development of EU integration from its founding to the present in the context of global changes. The main stages of the organization’s development are complemented by a detailed focus on the interests of key member states and the role of key figures and their ideas on European integration. The course helps students to understand the way in which European integration has been shaped and the impact of history on its current state. The course is taught in a hybrid format with e-learning support in Moodle.
Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (KHI/YMAG)
Course summary
Early modern Europe saw several waves of panic during which thousands of women, but also men, were accused of witchcraft and executed. The victims of the trials were forced to make confessions in which they admitted the pact with the devil, casting spells, murders, annibalism, and other abominable crimes. These horror tales circulated among the population and made significantly influenced European culture. The complexity of this phenomenon provokes many questions: What was the cultural background of witchcraft and magic in general? What did trigger and fuel the with-trials? Why did they happen so late – in the period of the emerging modern world, instead of the “dark Middle Ages”? Why did the panic last so long and why did it eventually stop? What was the impact of witch-hunts in the modern world?
Although the course will deal mainly with the early modern European witch-hunts, its scope is much wider. There are two major underlying themes. First, it aims at discussing the position of magic in European culture. Early cultural anthropologists (Tylor, Frazer) saw magic as a primitive form of human thought and behaviour which was, in the process of human development, replaced first by religion and later by science. Next generations of scholars however discovered that the relationship between magic, religion and science is much more complex. These categories are intertwined; their boundaries are blurred and overlapping. Yet European history is marked by regular attempts to define and delineate magic, religion and science as three separate realms of thought and behaviour. The seminar will discuss some of these attempts (which culminated in early modern witch-hunts) and their impact on European culture. It will demonstrate that the changing attitudes towards magic helped to define not only Europe’s main religious systems (Judaism, Christianity) but also modern science. Second, the course will focus on the “mechanism of persecution”. The outbreak of the witch-panic could dramatically alter social and power relations at the local level. Many studies suggest that witch-hunting was closely related to other processes and problems in society. An accusation of witchcraft could be often used as a tool to sort out accumulated tension between neighbours, while other individuals could use the trials to pursue their own agenda. Yet the dynamism was not limited to the use of the alleged witches as scapegoats. The course will try and address some of those issues – paying, of course, closer attention to gender aspects. It will, however, also include a comparison with other “witch-hunts”, both older (trials with heretics, Templars, medieval pogroms) and modern (anti[1]Semitism and Shoah, Communist terror, McCarthyism, etc.)
Topics
• LEGACY: Magic, religion, and science in the Western thought
• SETTINGS: Pre-modern universe
• REMEDIES: Coping with misfortune
• SOURCES: Narratives of witchcraft
• PANIC: Emergence of the new witchcraft
• FANTASIES: Representations of witchcraft
• AGENTS: The witch-hunters and their motivations
• CONFESSIONS: Narrating witchcraft
• GENDER: Why were witches (mostly) women
• AFTERMATH: Where have the witches gone?
This course requires physical attendance throughout the whole semester.