Universität Wien
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410009 SE Transformations: Theories, concepts and historical processes (2025S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 41 - Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliches Doktoratsstudium
Continuous assessment of course work
Th 06.03. 13:00-14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: German, English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Please note: This course is only suitable for students with a qualification corresponding to the course description. In case of doubt, please clarify the possibility of participation with the course instructor during the first unit. Bachelor students are not admitted and will be deregistered if necessary

  • Thursday 13.03. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 20.03. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 27.03. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 03.04. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 10.04. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 08.05. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 15.05. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 22.05. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 05.06. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 12.06. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07
  • Thursday 26.06. 13:00 - 14:30 Hörsaal des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2R-EG-07

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Transformations: Theories, concepts and historical processes

ID-Seminar of the Doctoral School Focus "State, Policy, Governance in historical perspective”

Based on Karl Polanyi´s opus magnum „The Great Transformation“ the special doctoral seminar (ID seminar) will deal with theories, concepts and historical cases of transformation. Based on Polanyi we will discuss especially the relationship between society and the free market. His concept of a dialectical “double movement” will also help us to understand the recent backlash against the hegemonial neoliberal world order that was established after 1989. The seminar will also discuss other key Polanyian terms such as “embedded capitalism” (which was partially implemented in the trente glorieuses after World War II) and “global laissez faire capitalism”, and earlier periods of transformation, especially after the demise of the continental empires after World War I and after 1945. Following the sociologist Claus Offe, transformations can be broadly defined as accelerated and synchronous change of the economy, politics, society and culture. The seminar will be organized in close cooperation with the interdisciplinary FWF doc.funds program “The Dynamics of Change and the Logics of Transformation: State, Society, and Economy at Critical Junctures”, that has started to operate in the winter semester 2024/25.
A part of our program will be provided by the annual History and Social Science Festival organized by the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET). In 2025, it will take place on the afternoons and evenings of June 3-5 and deal with „Transformations of Migration“

Our doctoral seminar will start on March 6 and take place on Thursday 13:00-14:30. We will start on a weekly basis in March, later in the semester it will be partially blocked, also to give you time to take part in the RECET festival „Transformations of Migration“

Assessment and permitted materials

Regular attendance and active participation
Presentation of your doctoral research

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Regular attendance and active participation
Presentation of your doctoral research (or of a chapter or research article if you are more advanced)

Examination topics

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Reading list

We will read broad spectrum of literature on transformations with a focus on theory and methods, Polanyi, and later in the semester on migration.
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. Foreword by Robert M. MacIver, Boston: Beacon Press, 1957, chapters 6, 11, 12, pp. 71-81, 136-156.
Block, Fred. “Karl Polanyi and the Writing of the Great Transformation.” Theory and Society 32, no. 3 (2003): 275–306.
Philipp Ther, How the West Lost the Peace: The Great Transformation after the End of the Cold War, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023, vi-xxviii, 1-36.
Bohle, Dorothee, and Béla Greskovits. “Polanyian Perspectives on Capitalisms after Socialism.” In Capitalism in Transformation, edited by Atzmüller, Roland et al, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019; pp. 92-104.
Slobodian, Quinn Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univ Press, 2018; Introduction, Chapter 1 and Conclusions, pp. 1-55; optionally pp. 263-289.
Steffen Mau, Sorting Machines. The Reinvention of Borders in the 21st Century, Cambridge: Polity, 2022.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Th 23.01.2025 18:06