Idea of Europe Course

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 10:46:32 -0800
From: J.B. Shank <jabes@leland.stanford.edu>

I am helping a committee to assemble a potential syllabus for a quarter long seminar examining the question "What is Europe?" to be used next year in the spring. The idea is to have the seminar meet each week for 2 hours to discuss readings chosen around this topic. The one contingency is that this seminar is planned as a supplement to standard course work, and thus cannot involve a reading load that overly infringes on the pursuit of the other course work necessary for that quarter.

Thus far, we have broken the quarter into a set of sub-topics, with the idea that we would try each week in the workshop to consider a different way of conceptualizing Europe as a historical entity. I have been assigned (for lack of a better term) the topic of "Europe as Transnational Phenomenon" meaning by this the notion of Europe as something transcendant of national political histories. What I have in mind is a week of readings which would consider and/or problematize the idea of Europe as a geographic, demographic, and/or essentially socio-economic category. I am writing to the list to see if anyone might know of readings suitable for the workshop (i.e. no more than 50-100 pages in length with the requisite generality and conceptual richness) that I could recommend.

In particular, I hoped that list-members might know of something good from either one or all of the following traditions:

1.) The Annales School, especially readings that would focus exclusively on the question of Europe in something like a general or synoptic manner.

2.) Contemporary German social thought on this question, specifically that fusion of Marx and Weber that someone like Habermas, among others, represents.

3.) Something with a "World-Systems" take on the question of Europe

Of course, any other readings or traditions that seem pertinent would be greatly welcomed, and if the response is large I will gladly assemble all the suggestions and post a bibliography on the list.

Thanks in advance,