Course Information

(FRENCH 201; ITALIAN 201; LIT 273; ROMST 201)
TTH – 01:25PM to 02:40PM in TBA

Continent, n. A continuous body of land on the earth’s surface…
Oxford English Dictionary

A look at a world map soon reveals a curious fact: whereas Africa, America and Australia have clear geographical limits, Europe is instead a land mass extending, without geographical separation, into Asia. Where does Asia end and Europe begin? Could Europe be nothing more than “a small heading of the Asiatic continent… a western appendix of Asia” — as Paul Valéry once put it? This course looks at the construction of European identity in history. From antiquity, through EU integration, to the recent Greek crisis, we will reflect on the limits and possibilities of Europe as a political, moral, and cultural identity.