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Luther was one of the seminal figures of the second millennium whose impact is still felt today. We will examine some of his writings and his activities, the conditions that led to his rise, and the impact he had on the world after him. Just as importantly, we will study the historical, cultural, and social context in which he lived and whose product he was. In a broader sense, this course focuses on the transformation of European culture (with special emphasis on Germany) from the late Middle Ages to the early modern age (1450-1600), roughly during Luther’s lifetime. Humanism and the Protestant Reformation will be the main focus of this course, but we will also discuss political, social, economic, scientific, and philosophical developments as well as architecture, art, music, and literature of the time period. At the end, students will have a good understanding of German and European culture at this particular crossroads as well as of Martin Luther and his writings. This course also will relate the historical material to our own time; we will learn that history plays a cultural, social, political and ideological role in the present and that therefore historiography is work-in progress. 

Grading:

• Attendance, Participation 10%
• Reading Check Quizzes 10%
• Homework 10%
• Group Presentation 10%
• Two Short Papers 20%
• Two examinations 40%

This course will offer a survey of the Ukrainian authors from the 1920s through the present. We will examine the writings from the times of the “executed renaissance,” underground literature, and postmodernism. We will focus specifically on works that, in one way or another, challenge the set paradigm of socialist realism, either ethically or aesthetically, by discussing forbidden subjects (famine, religion, Gulag), or even simply accentuating the themes that are not considered “major” (personal life). Book excerpts and articles will supplement literary works, to enable better understanding of the historical context.

Grading:

• Exams (2): 30% (15 each)
• Short papers (2): 20% (10 each)
• Participation: 10%
• Term (final) paper prospectus: 5%
• Term (final) paper: 25%
• Presentation: 10 %

European society changed so rapidly and extensively between 1050 and 1200 that medievalists often call it a "renaissance," ( a period of rebirth not to be confused with the later Italian Renaissance.) During this period, agricultural technologies changed, new forms of religious life developed, schools and universities emerged, cathedrals were built, towns became self-governing, and royal governments experimented with new forms of administration and law. Though a reading of primary documents - including love letters, memoirs, accounts of religious visions, chronicles of urban revolts, court poetry, theological treatises, and artistic creations – this course examines a series of these intellectual, religious, social, and political developments.

Grading:

• Class Preparation Exercises 26% 13 Total at 2% each (complete/incomplete)
• 2 short (3-page) papers 30% (15% each, re-writes average grade)
• Map Exercise (on line) 4%
• Final Paper (8 pages) 30%
• Class Participation and Attendance 10% Your attendance grade is the number of classes you attend

This upper-division course mixes lecture, reading, writing, and discussion to explore the cultural movement known as the Italian Renaissance. Our focus this semester is on the Renaissance reception of classical moral philosophy.

Grading:

• Reading worksheets – you’ll complete and turn in via CANVAS a worksheet for nine secondary source readings. Nine worksheets = 50% of your final grade.
• In-class writing assignments – you’ll write in class almost every meeting. Some of these projects will be graded and some won’t. Some will be individual and some will be in pairs or groups. On occasion you’ll revise your classroom draft at home. In-class writing = 50% of your final grade.
• There are no exams in this course

This course introduces students to the writings of Karl Marx as well as to those of his intellectual successors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will treat the nineteenth century context of industrialization and democratization in Europe in which Marx formulated his social, political, and philosophical critique, as well as the theoretical and philosophical legacy that followed through the twentieth century. The course will not focus on Soviet Marxism, but will examine how western Marxism’s critique of capital evolved in complex relationship to the existence of Soviet Marxism. We will spend roughly eight weeks reading Marx’s writings, and then seven weeks reading his  intellectual successors (including writings from Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukács, Walther Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Cedric Robinson, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Slavoj Žižek).  This course focuses on intellectual history, and students should thus expect to read philosophy and social theory throughout the semester.

Textbooks:

Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition (New York: Norton, 1978).Vincent Barnett, Marx (New York: Routledge, 2009).

Grading:
First paper: 25%

Second paper: 25%

Option II or III: 10- to 12-page paper: 50%

Final Journal: 30%!Class Presentation: 10%

Participation (including attendance and also sustained constructive contribution to classdiscussion): 10%

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The principal focus of this course will be to analyze contemporary Scandinavian literature, film and comics and examine how the arts reflect a Scandinavian reality that is under transformation. The main focus will be Scandinavian stories from the last 25 years.

Scandinavian fiction has reached international audiences lately, gaining new followers with the concept of “Nordic Noir” which expands on the previous success of Scandinavian crime fiction as a form of fiction explicitly concerned with social critique in TV-series, novels and films. The Scandinavian comics scene is experiencing a diverse and creative growth mirroring the international development in the field and visual culture plays an important role in discussions of sustainability, immigration, equality and democracy in the North. In our discussions, we will compare similarities and differences between the various materials and look at how they each tackle historical and contemporary themes including how these artistic forms negotiate Scandinavian identity and interact with an increasingly global and interconnected world. We will examine what makes Scandinavian stories Scandinavian and discuss, in what ways the individual countries in the region might differ from each other in their political discussions as well as their creative output.

Grading:

• Essays: 30%
• Final essay: 20%
• Quizzes: 20%
• Midterm: 10%
• Participation: 20%

This class is about the art and culture of northern Europe during the Renaissance. It is inherently interdisciplinary since we have to address the reasons art was made, where it was placed, how it was used, and how it relates to broader historical developments. We look at the advent of the Protestant Reformation and how it affected art. What are the reasons for iconoclasm? How did the Catholics respond artistically? Printmaking made artists like Dürer famous across Europe while spreading ideas faster than ever before.

Grading:

• Test 1: 30%
• Test 2: 30%
• Test 3: 30%
• Short paper: 10%

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What does it mean to be a Scandinavian in the last decades of the twentieth and early twenty-first century? To what extent does film reflect or even construct a sense of national or transnational identity?

This course will begin with two detective films which tie these issues to the presence of new groups of people within the borders of Scandinavia and to the links between contemporary Scandinavian culture and society and the European past. We will then turn back to Ingmar Bergman’s After the Rehearsal, which marked the end of one phase of the prolific filmmaker’s production, before moving on to films by younger filmmakers in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Some, such s Lasse Hallström’s My Life as a Dog, Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror, Liv Ullmann’s Sofie, and Lukas Moodysson’s Together, turn back to the past, at times reverently, at others critically. Others, such as Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration, turn a scathing eye on contemporary Scandinavian culture. Still others, such as Per Fly’s The Inheritance and Susanne Bier’s Open Hearts respond to economic and political crises of recent years. 

ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:  One two-page paper (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%.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Tytti Soila et al.:  Nordic National Cinemas

Bordwell and Thompson:  Film Art

FILMS:

August:  Smilla’s Sense of Snow

Oplev:  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Bergman:  After the Rehearsal

Hallström:  My Life as a Dog

August:  Pelle the Conqueror

Ullmann:  Sofie

Vinterberg:  The Celebration

Moodysson:  Together

Scherfig:  Italian for Beginners

Bier:  Open Hearts

Dagur Kári:  Noí albínói

Fly:  The Inheritance

Trier:  Dogville

Kaurismäki:  The Man without a Past

Bier:  In a Better World

It happened in music, it happened in arts, and it happened in literature – the transition to modernity asked for completely new expressions in order to interpret the revolutions that happened in the society and in the human relationships. In this course we will read a variety of texts from the golden age of Scandinavian literature - 1890-1910 - and we will at the end of the course be able to understand why and what happened in that period, and that will increase our understanding of a world of thoughts and ideas which laid the foundation for the emancipated lives we are all living.

The transition to modernity in Scandinavia created namely an artistic outburst never seen before or since. The amount of eternal classics written in that period is astounding. Nobel prize-winning authors like Knut Hamsun, Selma Lagerlöf, Johannes V. Jensen, Sigrid Undset and Henrik Pontoppidan all wrote masterpieces in that period as did August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen.

This course is enhancing the students’ analytical skills in reading texts, but as we can’t understand these texts if they are not read according to the historical and social context in which they were written, we will also take a closer look at the many societal changes. It means that the students will be acquainted with the most important social reforms of the day, and they will be able to analyze historical events and their significance for the individual person.

Reading:

August Strindberg: Miss Julie and other plays, Knut Hamsun: Hunger, Selma Lagerlöf: Saga of Gosta Berling, Henrik Ibsen: Four major plays, Johannes V. Jensen: Fall of the king, Hjalmar Soderberg: Doctor Glas, Sigrid Undset: Gunnar’s daughter

Grading:

Essays: 30%

Quizzes: 20%

Midterm: 10%

Participation: 20%

Final essay: 20%

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This course presents a fundamental description of the modern globalization process that also incorporates a description of the current Coronavirus pandemic as a phenomenon that is inextricably linked with modern globalization. The globalization process consists of a vast network of man-made systems that produce innumerable kinds of interconnectivity. Some of these systems, such as global airlines and ocean-going ships, carry microorganisms between continents. Other systems, such as international organizations and various forms of governance, can be profoundly affected ed by the medical calamities that result from the spread of a microorganism like the coronavirus.

Grading:

Grading consists of three online examinations and three five-page papers to be submitted online.

Eastern Europe is home to an ethnically diverse population. And in the past 100 years, the map for Eastern Europe has been redrawn more than a dozen times – often with great consequences for ethnic politics. This is the lens through which we will study the region. The course is divided into five broad topics: 1. We will begin by identifying the ethnicities of Eastern Europe. Next, we will shift our attention to the post-Cold War era. We will then look at the impact of an international institution – i.e., the European Union – and its policy of open-borders. We will return to the domestic politics, but this time, we will examine the effect of the European Union – its membership criteria and its unexpected implications – on the rise of right-wing parties.We will conclude by discussing the implications for minority accommodation, first by focusing on the post-Soviet republics where there are sizable Russian minorities; and then by understanding the importance of democracy for minority accommodation specifically and human rights generally.

Grading:

• Quizzes Canvas Current Events Quizzes: 10%
• In-Class Quizzes: 10%
• Examinations Midterm Examination: 20%
• Final Examination: 20%
• Government Cabinet Project Excel Spreadsheet Coding Assignment: 20%
• Power Point Slides Assignment: 20%

In today’s global economy, professionals must understand the relationships, institutions, and environment that underlie international commerce. The primary objective of IB 350/EUS348 is to extend your knowledge of the global economy so that you can be a more effective manager in business – whether or not you actually work in a global corporation. I hope it will also help you to be an educated citizen, understanding the major issues impacting government policy and globalization. The topics in the class have been selected to address both theoretical and practical dimensions of the global economy.

Grading:

• Exams (2 at 20% each) 40%
• Learn Smart/Quiz Assignments 15%
• Briefing papers (2 at 5% and 10%) 15%
• Country Analysis Project 20%
• Class participation 9%
• Face card 1%

In today’s global economy, professionals must understand the relationships, institutions, and environment that underlie international commerce. The primary objective of IB 350/EUS348 is to extend your knowledge of the global economy so that you can be a more effective manager in business – whether or not you actually work in a global corporation. I hope it will also help you to be an educated citizen, understanding the major issues impacting government policy and globalization. The topics in the class have been selected to address both theoretical and practical dimensions of the global economy.

Grading:

• Exams (2 at 20% each) 40%
• Learn Smart/Quiz Assignments 15%
• Briefing papers (2 at 5% and 10%) 15%
• Country Analysis Project 20%
• Class participation 9%
• Face card 1%

In today’s global economy, professionals must understand the relationships, institutions, and environment that underlie international commerce. The primary objective of IB 350/EUS348 is to extend your knowledge of the global economy so that you can be a more effective manager in business – whether or not you actually work in a global corporation. I hope it will also help you to be an educated citizen, understanding the major issues impacting government policy and globalization. The topics in the class have been selected to address both theoretical and practical dimensions of the global economy.

Grading:

• Exams (2 at 20% each) 40%
• Learn Smart/Quiz Assignments 15%
• Briefing papers (2 at 5% and 10%) 15%
• Country Analysis Project 20%
• Class participation 9%
• Face card 1%

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Sport and other forms of physical culture have played important political roles in German history over the past two centuries. The gymnastics movement of the early 19th century promoted an intense German nationalism based on racial/ethnic identity. The late-19th century gymnastics movement was both politically conservative and engaged in an unsuccessful struggle with the foreign "sport" culture that eventually conquered the world in the form of the Olympic Games and global soccer. The 1936 ("Nazi") Olympics promoted Hitler's foreign policy objectives by serving as a propaganda platform that persuaded much of the world that Nazi Germany would not go to war. an anti-Nazi boycott effort in the united States did not succeed. The next German dictatorship to adopt sport as a political strategy was Easy Germany (1949-1989), which produced huge numbers of internationally successful athletes by creating a system of early recruitment, expert coaching, and a secret doping program that fed anabolic steroids to thousands of young men and women, including children: criminal medicine in the service to sportive nationalism. In recent decades, Democratic Germany has pursued a very successful program to become a world soccer power. The 2006 wold Cup competition in Germany marked a turning point by producing and politically acceptable form of German nationalism. The German victory at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil has confirmed traditional stereotypes about German efficiency that reflect well on Germany's political system. The inclusion of players of non-German origin on the national team serves as a symbol of German multicultural policy in an era of troubled race relations across the face of Europe.

Grading:

• Exam #1: 25%
• Exam #2: 25%
• Quizzes (5 worth 5% each): 25%
• Term Paper: 25%

Europe has experienced a remarkable transformation in the last century: from the mass destruction of World War II to the emergence of prosperous multiparty democracies, from the erection of the Iron Curtain to the fall of the Berlin Wall, from centuries-long divisions to a European Union of 28 states that stretches from Lisbon to Bucharest to Helsinki. Many of us know this recent past from history books, others have visited the other side of the Atlantic for vacation or study. But despite our apparent familiarity with our transatlantic neighbors, the governments and politics of Europe often remain unfamiliar. How exactly does a parliament work? Why are there so many political parties? How can governments just call new elections? How do European democracies compare with one another, and with the United States? European politics becomes even more mystifying when discussing the European Union, an entity encompassing 28 member states, over 500 million people, and one of the world’s largest economies. What is the European Union exactly? Is it an international organization, a federation of countries, or something else entirely? Who actually makes the decisions for Europe today?

This course will seek to answer to all of these questions by focusing on the major political, social, and economic dynamics shaping contemporary European politics. In the first part of the course, we will examine the historical origins of contemporary European politics, the features of parliamentary government, multiparty democracy and electoral systems, and other essentials of European politics today. We will highlight how these operate in a number of country contexts, but especially Great Britain, France, and Germany. The second half of the course will provide students with a detailed introduction to the European Union, including its tumultuous history, its decision-making institutions, and its relations with member states and the international community. Finally, the course will conclude with an investigation of some major policy issues and challenges in Europe today, notably the Euro crisis, European integration and enlargement, immigration, and European foreign policy.