Universität Wien

070196 GR Guided Reading (2017S)

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 7 - Geschichte
Continuous assessment of course work

LV-Leiterin: Machteld Venken

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Friday 31.03. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 07.04. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 28.04. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 05.05. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 12.05. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 19.05. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 26.05. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 02.06. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 09.06. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 16.06. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 23.06. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Friday 30.06. 09:30 - 12:45 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

If the imagery and narratives of the Iron Curtain connote “division”, then those of European integration connote “unity”: unity across borders to the point of dispensing with them altogether. In this Guided Reading, we investigate the extent to which the tropes of Cold War divisions hold when explored from below and up close. To that purpose, we examine the modalities of territorialisation, as well as the practices and memories of border crossing and everyday life in communities at the former Iron Curtain border.

Assessment and permitted materials

Quality of written answers to questions distributed in advance for each meeting; introductory talk on the basis of written answers; texts written on a problem discussed in the GR; contributions to discussions.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Language of instruction is English, though German is welcome as well; participants have to prepare texts on the basis of questions distributed in advance of every meeting. On that basis the texts will be discussed at the different meetings. Answers to questions distributed in advance have to be handed in in writing. In order to start discussions students are required to give very brief talks summarising their written answers for one specific meeting.

Examination topics

We will discuss and analyze texts from various schools of historiography and political thought as well as texts from representative individuals.

Reading list

Mezzadra, Sandro and Neilson, Brett. Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Durham, Duke University Press, 2013, Chapter 1.
Nail, Thomas. Theory of the Border. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, Introduction.
Silberman, Marc, Till, Karen and Ward, Janet (eds) Walls, Borders, Boundaries: Spatial and Cultural Practices in Europe, New York and Oxford, Berghahn, 2012, p. 1-24.
Chandler Andrea M. Institutions of Isolation: Border Controls in the Soviet Union and Its Successor States, 1917-1993, Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998, p. 15-42.
Drechsel, Benjamin. 'The Berlin Wall from a visual perspective: comments on the construction of a political media icon', in: Visual Communication 9 (1/2010), p. 3-24.
Alf Lüdtke. 'Working the Passage: East German Border Checkpoints, 1961–90. The Case of GÜSt Bahnhof Friedrichstraße, Berlin', in: Journal of Contemporary History 50 (3/2015), 680-705.
Ahonen, Pertti. Death at the Berlin Wall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, chapter 5.
Sheffer, Edith. Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, chapter 8.
Blaive, Muriel. 'České Velenice, a Czech City on the Austrian Border: A National or Ideological frontier?', in: Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire. 109 (1/2011), p. 129-141.
Grady, Tim. 'A Shared Environment: German–German Relations along the Border, 1945–72', in: Journal of Contemporary History, 50 (7/2015), p. 660-679.
Glassheim, Eagle. 'Ethnic Cleansing, Communism, and Environmental Devastation in Czechoslovakia’s Borderlands, 1945-1989.' in: Journal of Modern History, 78, (1/2006), p. 65–92.
Heinrich-Franke, Christian, Badenoch, Alexander, Fickers, Andreas. Airy Curtains in the European Ether: broadcasting and the Cold War, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2013, introduction.
Scott-Smith, Giles. 'Opening Up Political Space: Informal Diplomacy, East-West Exchanges, and the Helsinki Process' in: Mikkonen, Simo and Koivunen, Pia (eds.). Beyond the divide: entangled histories of Cold War Europe. New York, Berghahn Books, 2015, p. 23-43.
Arndt, Agnes. Renaissance or Reconstruction? Intellectual Transfer of Civil Society Discourses Between Eastern and Western Europe, in: Kind-Kovacs, Friederike and Labov, Jessie. Samizdat, tamizdat, and beyond : transnational media during and after socialism, New York, Berghahn Books, 2013, 156-172.
Stefanov, Nenad. 'Message in a Bottle': Yugoslav Praxis Philosophy, Critical Theory of Society and the Transfer of Ideas between East and West, in: Brier, Robert (ed.) Entangled protest. Transnational approaches to the history of dissent in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Osnabruck, Fibre, 2013, 109-123.
Keck-Szajbel, Mark. Shop Around the Bloc: Trader Tourism and its Discontents on the East German-Polish Border, in: Bren, Paulina and Neuburger, Mary. Communism Unwrapped. Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe. New York, Oxford University Press, 2012, chapter 15.
Karaboeva E. 'Borders and go-betweens: Bulgarian international truck drivers during the Cold War', in: East Central Europe, 41 (2-3/2014), 223-253.
Präger Ulrike. ''Musicking' children from the Bohemian Lands: nurtured and hidden musical practices on both sides of the Iron Curtain', in: European Review of History 22 (2/2015), p. 310-330.
Hakkamies, Pekka. Soviet Settlers on a Strange Territory: Experiences and Narratives from the Former Finish Karelia, in: Hurd, Madeleine (ed.). Borderland identities: territory and belonging in Central, North and East Europe. Eslöv, Förlags ab Gondolin, 2006, p 31-56.
Kind-Kovacs, Friederike. ''Voices, letters, literature through the Iron Curtain': Exiles and the (trans)mission of radio in the Cold War', in: Cold War History 13 (2/2013), p. 193-220.
Brier, Robert. Entangled Protest: Dissent and the Transnational History of the 1970s and 1980s, in: Brier Robert (ed.), Entangled protest: transnational approaches to the history of dissent (...) Osnabrück: Fibre, 2013, p 11-43

Association in the course directory

BA Geschichte: GR Neuzeit (4 ECTS) | BA UF Geschichte: GR zu Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftlicher Europaforschung (4 ECTS) | Diplom UF Geschichte: GR zu Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftlicher Europaforschung (4 ECTS)
MA Interdisziplinäre Osteuropastudien: GR (4ECTS)

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:30