'Eastern Enlargement' of the European Union
16.859.501 & 16.920.503
version September 10, 2000
M 2:50-5:50, 172 College Ave (unless otherwise agreed upon)
Rutgers University, Fall 2000
Professor: József Böröcz
offices: Lucy Stone Hall B 207 and 172 College Ave # 102
office hours: Wednesdays, 1-2 pm or by special arrangement
phone: 445-2435
email: jborocz@rci.rutgers.edu
This is a graduate research seminar. Its purpose is to engage in hands-on research on the 'eastern enlargement' of the European Union-a case of large-scale social change that is momentous, unduly understudied, and crucial in many ways both from a scholarly and political perspective. The course consists in two parts. After a few introductory readings-which we will run in the same way as any regular PhD-seminar in the social sciences-we reconstitute ourselves as a research team, with individual participants contributing their perspective to a scholarly discussion of empirical phenomena agreed upon at the beginning of the semester. A website will be developed for the empirical materials discussed and the scholarly materials produced in the seminar, providing worldwide visibility to the project and the participants. As of this year, 'eastern enlargement' constitutes the focus of interest for the Center for Russian, Central and East European Studies; stay tuned for related guest lectures and other events.
Each week during the first, "conventional seminar" half, the readings will be presented by two commentators whose job is to bring out the best and the worst, the exciting and the disappointing and, above all, the intellectually stimulating from the readings studied. The readings during this period will have a double focus: after an opening discussion of the uses of Carlo Ginzburg's "evidential paradigm," we will consider two areas of scholarship: (1) important work about western cognitive constructions of disparaged Otherness, and (2) an introduction to the issues of European integration from the emerging field of EU-studies.
Equipped with those theoretical and methodological tools, then, the second-and truly 'hands-on'-part of the course will examine the political process of 'eastern enlargement.' Applying the 'evidential paradigm', we act as combination Sherlock Holmes and diagnostician or, more conventionally, as interpretive historians // historical anthropologists // macrosociologists, in any case members of a creative investigative team charged with the task of searching for, and interpreting, clues regarding the nature of emerging statehood, interstate relations and discourses of otherness in Europe since 1989. The specific topics and their distribution over time will be subject to collective decisions by members of the team (and hence they are "TBA" in subsequent versions of this syllabus). You will need two basic research skills to participate in this seminar: using a research library and clicking on the Internet.
Grading (a widely abhorred chore) will be based on a judicial combination of (1) your contribution to constructing the class as an intellectual process, (2) your paper (see below).
The most important books are available at the Recto & Verso bookshop at 90 Albany St, New Brunswick (247-2324) and are on Graduate Reserve in Alexander Library. For the journal articles, please peruse the periodicals holdings or the Internet where appropriate.
Paper:
In each discussion during the empirical investigation phase those members of the team who volunteer-and surely those who are interested in obtaining grades-will serve as rapporteurs. I.e., they will pay close attention to the research discussion, collect all the research evidence brought to the meeting by team members, take sparkingly witty and reveailng notes throughout the discussion and, finally and most important, write up a brilliant summary in the form of a paper, that week's Rapporteur's Report. The Rapporteur's Report s will be 5000-word research papers on the week's topic. The working version (=complete draft ready for discussion) of each Rapporteur's Report is due on December 4 (except if you are writing about the December 4 meeting, in which case it is due on December 9) but do feel free to hand them in earlier. Rapporteur's Reports will be uploaded on the web (details will follow) and will constitute the subject of the last meeting (on December 11). The revised version of each Rapporteur's Report is due on December 15. The final versions will be placed permanently on the web in a nice, reader-friendly format and will be available for the whole wide world to read, providing visibility to our work. As a matter of policy, I do not give incompletes; given the time-bound nature of the assignments and the dependence of the course on the Rapporteur's Reports, I am even less inclined to do so here. Just say no to incompletes.
Hint: Do use my office hours, and email to me to set up extra time if necessary, to discuss possible issues, problems & solutions!