Religious intolerance seems to be endemic in human societies. It takes different forms, ranging from subtle discrimination to mass violence. There are times when it is less intense than at others. As a social phenomenon, there seems little chance that it can ever be eliminated. 

But historically, political and legal structures have been developed that have ensured a high degree of freedom for religious minorities. These structures have been built gradually and with great effort. They have very particular roots in early modern Europe (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries). In this course we will try to understand in historical perspective how this happened, as well as the impact of this development on contemporary thinking. 

To understand the extraordinary struggles of the early modern period, we’ll first have to understand the basic position and practices of the western Church toward heretics and non-believers as they were formulated in the first few centuries CE and as they were elaborated in the medieval period. We will then turn to the events and changed perspectives of the Reformation period. Finally, we will analyze the range of theoretical ideas about religious toleration proposed by European thinkers, and consider their practical implications. We’ll conclude with some reflections on the persistent problems that have arisen and still arise in the effort to achieve religious toleration, including recent issues particular to the multiculturalism experiment. 

The course, then, has a three-part structure:

Part 1: A survey of the late antique and medieval European background;

Part 2: A look at how new conditions in the Reformation period encouraged the emergence of ideas of religious toleration;

Part 3: A study of a variety of theoretical positions – then and (briefly) now.

You will take an exam after the first two segments of the course (together, 50% of the grade), and a final exam (30%). In addition, you will write a 3-5 page exercise (10%), and attendance and participation will be evaluated (10%).

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Description

This course is a systematic introduction to geography of all regions of Europe, from Iceland to Sicily and European Russia and Finland to Bretagne and Galicia. The course is based on a renowned textbook by Alexander B. Murphy, Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov and Bella Bychkova Jordan and focuses on all the major aspects of the European makeup: its physical, economic, political, and cultural geography, geolinguistics and environmental issues. A special attention is given to such issues as expansion of the European Union and NATO, problems associated with immigration and ethnic tensions, challenges of multiculturalism and integration. A significant portion of the class is dedicated to the analysis of demographic, urban and agricultural patterns. The historical perspective allows the analysis of the evolution of the European civilization during the last two millennia and resulting geographical patterns in modern Europe.

Prerequisites 

Upper division undergraduate students.

Grading

The final grade is based on 3 exams.

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OUR GSD  COURSES ARE TAUGHT IN ENGLISH.

Films of Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) was arguably the greatest filmmaker of the twentieth century. His career spanned over sixty years and includes such works as the sophisticated comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), the allegorical Seventh Seal (1957), the avant-garde Persona (1966), the masterful television adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1975), and the television miniseries Fanny and Alexander (1982). He also wrote scripts for many other filmmakers, including Bille August and Liv Ullmann. In 2003, he directed the television film Saraband, and in recent years many of his films have been adapted for the stage both in Sweden and elsewhere.

This course is intended as an introduction both to the films of Ingmar Bergman and to the viewing of films in general. We will look at representative films by this prolific and gifted filmmaker, considering them in the contexts of the director's life, Scandinavian culture, and issues of film theory and aesthetics.

This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and to read and discuss your peers' work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work.

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:

One two-page paper which may be rewritten (5%); one five-page paper which may be rewritten (25%); one storyboard (10%) accompanied by a five-page essay (25%), and five quizzes (25%; you may drop the lowest grade). Class participation will count 10%.

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OUR GSD  COURSES ARE TAUGHT IN ENGLISH.

Watch Video: Learning Danish

Descripton

The burgeoning field of comics and graphic novels has received attention in the last few decades where publishers, critics and new readers have engaged enthusiastically with a medium which has historically not been at the pinnacle of cultural good taste. This course provides an introduction to comics and graphic novel with an emphasis on works from Northern Europe as a specific area of comics culture that tends to stand in the shadow of more known comics cultures. The course will go into depth with the mechanics of comics, how images and text work together, as well as how this particular way of telling stories relates to other media. The main readings will delve into the rich material from the Northern European sphere but will situate these comics in the wider world of international comics culture through parallel readings of American, Franco-Belgian and Japanese manga. The main focus will be on comics from the last 30 years, but the course will include a historical element that considers the history of comics globally.

One of the main reasons comics have surfaced as an artistically viable and serious medium in recent years is the diversity of subjects and the quality of writing and drawing of comics artists today. This course discusses style, line, coloring and structure as important aspects of comics and graphic novels story telling but also emphasizes the wide variety of topics that comics portray with great sensibility and complexity. From adventure stories to graphic memoir, from avant-garde experimental comics to newspaper humor strips, this course allows you to read, write, discuss and think critically about comics and graphic novels as well as it provides a greater understanding of the cultures of Northern Europe.

The course meets the Writing Flag and the Global Cultures Flag Criteria

Today's Anglo-American Analytic Philosophy grows out of the tradition of Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism as it evolved in the circles around Wittgenstein in England after the Second World War, and it positions itself over and against Continental Philosophy.  That positioning, however, obscures how Wittgenstein and the group that Viktor Kraft, the first historian of the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivism, took over a much broader cultural project that is echoed in the work of twentieth-century theorists and philosophers from Walter Benjamin through Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.  Just as significant, the Vienna Circle's work parallels today's philosophy of science as practiced by figures like Bruno Latour.

This class will combine perspectives from philosophy and the history of philosophy to undertake a project in "historical epistemology":  it will trace how Logical Empiricism  actually came into being out of a set of methodological arguments about the philosophy of science and hermeneutics that were widespread in the late nineteenth century (and which find their echoes in figures as diverse as Nietzsche and Heidegger).  The new genesis narrative we will trace reverberates with problems of forced migration and emigration, as a generation of theorists and philosophers were forced out of continental Europe and to the US and Great Britain by the Nazis.  And in order to find their feet, these émigrés took up new projects and redefined their work for new audiences, offering a set of cases of culture transfer -- cases where philosophical logics responded directly, if tacitly, to politics and culture.

No background in philosophy is required for this course, and all readings will be available in English on the class blackboard site.    Background reading on the history of science will ground our readings of primary texts, and each student will be responsible for evolving a semester project in writing a specific philosopher or project into a new kind of intercultural history of ideas.

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Course description:

This course will examine works of a number of Eastern European women writers, such as Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Svetlana Alexievich (Belarus), Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Herta Muller (Romania – Germany), Sofi Oksanen (Finland), and Ludmila Petrushevskaya (Russia), and trace their role and involvement in resisting not only political regimes but also gender-based oppression. We will also read supplemental articles, interviews, and secondary sources to provide a general understanding of contemporary politics and ethnic conflict as well as gender roles in Eastern Europe. Through class discussion, students will discuss the many forms and repercussions of women's resistance to recent issues and events within this strategic region. 

Grading:

Journals, 1-2 page long, on authors of choice (4): 20 %

To in-class exams: 20 %

Final paper (may be based on one of the journals): 30 %

Presentation: 20%

Participation:10%­

Examines the conceptual and practical aspects of European comprehensive security via the institutions charged with implementing it.

OUR GSD  COURSES ARE TAUGHT IN ENGLISH.

Course Description

A massive influx of refugees, conflicts about cultural diversity and religion, debates on the lack of highly-skilled workers - immigration currently is at the top of the German public agenda. However, discussions on immigration are taking place in a political climate much different from twenty years ago. Until the year 2000, despite being a major destination for international migration, Germany defined itself as a non-immigration country and aimed at preventing permanent immigration. However, for some years now, the integration of migrants has become a central aim and in some fields the country even pursues a pro-active immigration policy. What factors have encouraged this change, and how has immigration changed German society and culture? These are the questions that the course will address. Applying a historical perspective and using central theories and concepts of contemporary migration research, we will analyze recent changes in the fields of labor migration, asylum and undocumented migration and the integration of migrants. We will ask how the changes that have taken place are reflected on a cultural level, looking at the (contested) incorporation of Islam in German society, the reflection of immigration in contemporary art, movies and novels, and regional and civil society initiatives to preserve the memory of immigration.

The course aims at providing students with a profound knowledge of the main characteristics of Germany as an immigration country and on the current central empirical research topics on immigration in Germany. It also aims at enabling students to understand and apply central theories and concepts of contemporary migration studies beyond the case of Germany. At the end of the course, students should also be able to understand and assess Germany’s profile as an immigration country in comparison to other immigration countries such as the United States.

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Our GSD courses are taught in English.

Course Description

This course investigates how this small European country positions itself in a globalized world and how it competes and thrives in it. A key question will be how globalization pressures impact a small, affluent country, how the economy copes with globalization, what defense mechanisms—both integrative and isolationist—they elicit, and what identity issues they provoke accentuate. A key factor of the Swiss strategy is a unique relationship with the European Union that highlights the themes of integration and integrative patterns versus isolation and the ideology of exceptionalism in a small European country.

The course starts with a brief survey of Swiss history, beginning with a defensive pact among three small alpine valleys in 1291, in order to better understand Swiss exceptionalism. We will closely examine the Swiss system of direct democracy, how it shapes the political country, but also how it inspires right-wing populists across the globe. We also will study how direct democracy has created unique patterns of conflict resolution and consensus building. Finally, we will take a look at Swiss responses to climate change.

We will study the following themes in weekly installments:

1. Swiss exceptionalism: founding myth and a heroic republican history

2. Switzerland and the US as sister republics: founding the modern state in 1848

3. Neutrality and political isolation: the meaning of neutrality (Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland) before and after 1989

4. The power of small nations: specialization, multilateralism, humanitarianism

5. Swiss economic structure: how a high-wage country competes globally

6. Switzerland as a hub off the global offshore economy (bank secret, tax competition)

7. The institutions of direct democracy in Switzerland (as tools of identity formation)

8. Swiss consensus democracy: how institutions impact the political culture

9. Direct democracy in international comparison: tool for right-wing populism?

10. Switzerland’s four languages and cultures: model for other plurilingual states?

11. Switzerland and the European Union: resistance and integration

12. Switzerland and the EU: an alternative model for reluctant members (Brexit)

13. Right-wing populism in Switzerland: migration, integration and naturalization policies

14. Climate change: how does it impact Switzerland, and how is the country preparing for it?

Students will be assigned daily readings (listed on syllabus) and should expect to turn in one homework assignment per week; we also will work with video material. There will be short quizzes on the readings throughout the semester. Students will write a short paper (2 pp) and a research paper (8-10 pp). Students also will participate in one group presentation during the semester. Each group will focus on a topic that is an integral part of the syllabus and will present it to the class in a group presentation of 20-30 minutes.