The Ideas of Europe

Recommended Prerequisites

NA

Teaching Methods

To achieve the learning outcomes, this curricular unit combines the expository method with a more pragmatic approach, including the analysis of recommended readings for each topic/sub-topic, as well as the presentation of academic esays by students. The goal is to foster the active engagement of students in the classroom, enabling them to develop relevant skills to critically analyse specific case-studies, through the elaboration and discussion of their essays.

Learning Outcomes

The cu aims to expose students to the historical, political and identitary context in which the ideas of Europe are developed from Classical Age, and get them to know and critically analyse intelectual projects to reach political European unity, from the Middle Ages untill the end of the Second World War, as well as their relevance for the current EU/Europe. At the end of the semester, students should:

1. Understand the evolution of the idea of Europe in a political and identitary dimension, from Classical Antiquity

2. To know the intelectual projects for an European political unity developed from the Middle Ages until the end of the Second World War

3. To show critical sense about the political and identitary conceptions of Europe within the ambivalence of unity and diversity

4. Be able to reflect with critical sense about the current EU as an idea fermented across centuries and about the adequation of studied ideas and projects to the nowadays reality of the EU/Europe.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. The Idea of Europe

1.1. The Greco-roman legacy

1.2. The Judeo-christian legacy

1.3. Nation-state, enlightenment, imperialism, nationalism

1.4. Cultural and social identity: multiple Europes

2. European unity as ideal

2.1. Christian and imperial unity as models

2.2. The break with the ideal of unity and the confederate models

2.3. Enlightenment and the federal path to perpetual peace

2.4. Federation as survival of the Nation-state and Europe

2.5. Utopia's political accreditation in the era of pragmatisms

3. Europe between the ideal and the real

3.1. The conceptions of Europe and the present

3.2. Unity models and the present.

Head Lecturer(s)

Clara Isabel Calheiros da Silva de Melo Serrano

Assessment Methods

Assessment
In-class participation: 15.0%
Research work: 35.0%
Frequency: 50.0%

Bibliography

Durosselle, J.B. (1965). L’Idée d’Europe dans l’Histoire. Les Éditions Deñoel.

Guerrina, R. (2002). Europa, History, Ideas, Ideologies. Oxford University Press.

Heather, D (1992). The Idea of European Unity. Leicester University Press.

Padgen, A. (2007). The Idea of Europe, from Antiquity to the European Union. Cambridge University Press.

Patrick, P. (2015). Imagining European Unity since 1000 AD. Palgrave Macmillan.

Seth, C., Von Kulessa, R. (ed.) (2017). The idea of Europe. Enlightenment Perspectives. Open Book Publishers.

Stjerno, S. (2009). Solidarity in Europe: The History of an Idea. Cambridge University Press.

Stoica, A. (2015). History of the European Idea. From Origins until the mid-20th century. Lambert Academic Publishing.

Wilson, K., & Dussen, J. (ed.) (1993). The History of the Idea of Europe. The Open University.