History and Politics of European Cooperation Since 1919

History and Politics of European cooperation since 1919

This new course, funded by 4EU+ Alliance, combines a weekly web-meeting (two hours per week on 21 weeks: 16 normal meetings + 5 seminars delivered in association with a think-tank) and two physical meetings only for selected registered students:
-a winter school as an intensive one-week field trip at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence to implement historical skills on archival holdings. The HAEU gathers materials from the European Union, but also from many institutions, associations and actors dealing with European history since 1919.
-A three-day workshop in late May 2022 to discuss the exam papers resulting from the course for a feedback session, before their delivery on 15 June. Milan agreed to host this session in 2022.
The HAEU was chosen for the field trip as it is extremely rich on material on European cooperation since 1919 - the archive has gathered materials from many institutions, associations and actors going far beyond the history of the European Union in a strict sense.
The final workshop will take place at one of the host universities (with a rotation so that at least two universities of the network are represented each year). During the academic year 2021-2022, the University of Milan will host the final workshop, and will establish a close partnership with a leading think tank based in this town, the Fondazione Feltrinelli.
Although the course plans to take advantage of the advances in online teaching, brought to the fore by the covid-19 epidemic, the two physical meetings are crucial to create a sense of team spirit, hands-on academic cooperation and eventually in-depth learning. From the financial point of view, the main bulk of the costs of the project will result from those two gatherings because the rest of the course will be delivered online. The course is expected to attract 20-30 students in the first year. Although mostly historical in its in theoretical and methodological approach, this course will welcome masters and PhD students from all disciplines.

This course will give students registered in Milan 9 Cfu credits.
For further information, please contact the course Convenor, Professor Paola Mattei ([email protected])

ECTS
This MA-Phd course will provide between 8 and 15 ECTS, depending on local regulations and can serve as a basis for a more integrated cooperation on a common diploma in the future.

Theme: European cooperation since 1919
The theme of the course will be European integration history writ large, encompassing not only the history of the European Union and of its forerunner since 1950, but also all forms of European cooperation with an element of institutional formalization, from 1919, when the League of Nations and the International Labour Organisation, two international organisations with a large European operative basis, were founded. Beyond the European Union, it also includes organisations such as the Council of Europe, OEEC/OECD, NATO, the Comecon (the organisation of economic cooperation of the Eastern bloc) and the OSCE (the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe created in 1975). It also includes analyses of the societal actors that either underpinned or opposed closer European integration, ranging from non-state actors such as transnational political party organizations, professional associations and stable cartels among companies. Hence the course touches on a wide variety of sub-disciplines, including political, economic, social, cultural, legal, diplomatic and military history.
The topic of European cooperation since 1919 is not only exceptionally important from a contemporary vantage point, it also constitutes a particularly fertile ground to allow the diversity of our European universities to flourish in common, as it straddles the former Iron Curtain, and also the North-South division of Europe. At the same time, the theme is sufficiently narrow to provide a sense of unity among the seminar's participants: European cooperation history is not the history of the European continent.

Planning
-Early October : Plenary meeting (online) to initiate the course. In parallel with the seminars students will be divided in 5 groups of 6 students (split across national lines), tutored by one academic mentor selected among the core-team.
-October-December: first series of 10 online seminars (two hours per week). The seminars will be organized by academics from all 4 universities (some of them with Fondazione Feltrinelli). The seminars will be mixed between plenary sessions and breakout rooms to encourage student to reflect and debate. Student will work on primary sources (written and oral archives) and provide literature review.
-January: the winter school will be an intensive one-week research field trip at the HAEU in Florence. Students will work on the primary sources of their own research, and will take part in workshops. Only students who have passed the mid-term exam and have achieved a mark above 28/30 (at the University of Milan) can attend the winter school in Florence.
-February-April: second series of 11 seminars. Similar to the autumn seminars.
A limited number of BA students will be admitted as observers during the last part of the seminar.
-late May: three-day physical meeting. The students will present their draft final paper and receive feedback. The seminar will take place in Milan.
-15 June: deadline for the delivery of final individual papers. The best could be published.

Core Team
The 4EU+ core team is composed of:
-Paris (SU): Laurent WARLOUZET, Full professor, Dpt of History, Sorbonne University, [email protected]
-Copenhagen (UCPH): Morten RASMUSSEN, Associate professor, Saxo Institute, Univ. of Copenhagen, [email protected]
-Milan (UNIMI): Paola MATTEI, Associate professor, Dpt of Social and Political Sciences, Univ. of Milan La Statale, [email protected]
-Milan (UNIMI): Piero GRAGLIA, Associate professor, Dpt of international relations, and political history, Univ. of Milan La Statale, [email protected]
-Warsaw (UW): Dobrochna KALWA, Assistant professor, Institute of History, University of Warsaw, d.kalwa@