Forthcoming Events:

Political Concepts in Europe
The European Political Concepts Europaeum Research Project Group (ERPG), originally launched via our consortium, has been making further good progress this month. Following an eighth academic meeting in August in Helsinki, the editorial board has just met in Bielefeld and now the two editors of the publication series, set to emanate from this group, Michael Freeden from Oxford and Willibald Steinmetz, are set to sign the first of their books deals this December. Each volume will focus on a separate theme around the work which focusses on defining political concepts in Europe from different regional, historical and interest group perspectives throwing light of their usage and misusage. Colleagues from Geneva, Madrid, Oxford and Helsinki, have been involved down the years. For a note of the origins of the group see the Europaeum Review.

Policy Forum on Higher Education
The Europaeum is moving ahead with its plans for an international policy forum on the Future for European Universities 2001-5. This important event will set out to explore the future of higher education in former ECE region. The conference entitled Higher Education: Progress, and Academic Freedom - Universities in East Central Europe since the Fall of the Wall is planned for late 2012, to be held at Oxford University. Leading education experts, policy-makers, top media figures, and scholars from across the Europaeum network will be in attendance. As usual this event is open to selected graduate students from Europaeum partner universities. Stay tuned for more information.

Federalisms vs. Localism - East & West ?
Following the great success of our 2010 conference on Federalisms - East and West - India, Europe, and North America, the Europaeum is planning a follow-up international conference in late 2012 this time exploring themes of multi-level governance as well as new trends in 'localism ' in Europe, India and north America. This event, rotating, is set to take place in the Indian capital of Delhi, with a range of leading figures from the worlds of politics, law, economics, academia, and the media. A draft statement is attached.

Europaeum Diary of Forthcoming Events

Programmes:

MA in European History and Civilization
Applications are now now open for the Europaeum’s 2012-2013 MA programme in European History and Civilization, with terms spent at Leiden, Paris and Oxford. This programme offers graduate students a special opportunity to deepen their knowledge of European history and institutions, their philosophical and historical backgrounds and underpinnings, and their social and economic contexts, through the lens of three different university worlds. This knowledge plays an increasingly crucial role in practical decision-making and strategic planning, where Europe-wide and global contact and negotiation is required. For further information, see Application details on our website.

Click here to view recent matriculations photos from Oxford. For students view on the course see a summary of results plus a selection of anonymous quotes taken from recent evaluation forms, and student views from an article from the Europaeum Review. Please support our recruitment efforts and distribute the attached Poster to students and colleagues and on noticeboards. Please also note the deadlines for submission: April 1st, 2012, with final deadline June 1st, 2012

Scholarships and Opportunities:

Jenkins' Scholarships 2012-13
The deadline is approaching for applicants invited for up to six Jenkins Scholarships for the 2012-2013 academic year, including four to study at Oxford. The Jenkins Scholarship Scheme honours the lifelong achievements of the former President of the European Commission (1976-1981) and Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1987-2003) and is linked only to the universities of the Europaeum, via the Roy Jenkins Memorial Fund set up upon his death to support leading young scholars to study at other European universities. Awards are for now c €12,000 pa usually for one year. Jenkins Scholars are eligible to study at Oxford for a Masters degree in the Humanities or Social Sciences, the disciplines closest to Lord Jenkins’ own political and literary interests. Please note applications for Oxford must be received by 20th January 2012. Full details of the scheme can be found here.

Europaeum Internships
The value of internships for graduate students has recently been endorsed as a key component for students entering the job market, according to University World News. The Europaeum has proudly offered lively internships to graduate students, doctoral candidates and post-doctoral scholars from Europaeum universities for a number of years. We are committed to providing engaging and fruitful work experience - with opportunities to pursue research studies in Oxford libraries, join lectures etc and travel in the UK. In this way, we seek to extend the mission of the Europaeum to build European leadership, foster diversity and provide opportunities to supplement research and background education.

We offer internships for one to three months, and each intern will be asked to support general office work, work on current events and will be given a relevant research project to work on and help develop. We will help in finding housing and cover the costs, as part of a support package also for food and travel.

Interns for 2012 are now being selected. If you know anyone who might be interested, please send a CV and covering letter, including details of two referees (preferably one academic and one professional) to the the Europaeum office.

Publications & Media

Connecting Europe through History
Part of our year-long series on Experiences and Perceptions of Migrations, organised in conjunction with EUROCLIO and the International Students History Association, the Europaeum sponsored numerous special events hosted by our partner universities throughout Europe. In Bologna, we organised a workshop on Transition from an Emigration Country to an Immigration Country which explored how this transition is reflected in History Education in Italy, using shared experiences, media representations, and how this is received and can be dealt with in the classroom. Click here to download the report.

In Leiden, the Europaeum helped organise a graduate workshop on Migration, Political Parties & Public Rhetoric in Contemporary Europe which brought together young scholars from Europaeum universities to explore contemporary European themes. The workshop was followed by a special Roundtable discussing the state of History Education and the relevance of Migration as a theme in History Education with graduate students, professors from the Humanities and Social Sciences, History and Citizenship teachers, teacher trainers, textbook authors, and curriculum developers. Click here for a report on this event.

The Europaeum has partnered EUROCLIO - an association of European history teachers in two special EU-funded programmes on Connecting Europe through History, allowing History teachers and Historians and policy-makers to explore and share new ideas and themes for teaching in classrooms. Following the success of our initial series on Human Rights in Europe (2007-2008), we embarked on an another series of lectures, conferences, and workshops at Europaeum partner institutions at Oxford, Bologna, Leiden, Helsinki, Paris, and Krakow, as well as other universities in Berlin, Vienna, and Nijmegen, on the theme Experiences and Perceptions of Migrations (2010-2011) with similar goals. Please see the full report, documenting the results of this year-long study.

Report of the Month

Report on the 2011 Classics Colloquium
The theme of the 2011 Classics Colloquium was on Strangers and Friends, hosted by the University of Helsinki on October 21st - 22nd. The 10th Classics Colloquium dealt with such questions as How does a stranger become a friend? How can we draw a line between a stranger and an enemy? How do we recognize an enemy from a friend? How strangers and friends deal with each other in Ancient Greek and Roman culture? As expected, the theme elicited excellent discussions from a wide variety of perspectives from the impacts of Roman imperialism, war, city life, culture and religion and myth.

The topic of this year's colloquium truly represented one of the principal goals of all Europaeum events: bringing together a diverse group of students and scholars - strangers - and providing a medium through which new friendships and connections are formed. Click here to download the full report of this event

Link-of-the-Month:

New publication on the Arab Spring
The Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) is a U.K. political think-tank that promotes the discussion of UK foreign policy in the Middle East, and seeks to ensure that this policy in grounded in a deep understanding of the complexities of the region. In its first published briefing and policy paper, the CMEC brings together a collection of leading thinkers, policy-makers, and scholars to discuss their thoughts on The Arab Spring: Implications for British Policy. Contributors include a number of Oxford scholars, including Professor Eugene Rogan (Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College), Dr. Michael Willis (Mohamed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies at the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College), Marwa Daoudy (Departmental Lecturer in the Politics and International Relations of the Middle East), and Tariq Ramadan (Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies), who gave the 2006 Keynote Europaeum Lecture at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow on Muslims: Finding their right place in Europe.

Around the Members:

OXFORD: Revisiting Les Eventements of the 68-ers
As someone who admits that the student protests of 1968 have always been part of his consciousness, Professor Robert Gildea, Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, seems a fitting leader of a five-year international study entitled ‘About 1968’. Involving nearly 500 interviews with former activists from 14 countries (including France, which is his main focus), Professor Gildea’s study aims to put the protests in a truly European perspective, even examining their impact in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The conclusions of the project will be published by Oxford University Press next year, in a book called Europe’s ’68: Voices and Networks of Revolt. Some might conclude that being in close proximity to former student radicals may have rubbed off on Professor Gildea: he was a proposer of the vote of no-confidence in the UK government’s higher education policies on 7 June.

BONN: Safe-guarding against bogus degree
Bonn University has introduced a new regime to try to avoid future scandals over the validity of its degrees, after being rocked by two high profile scandals in the past six months. First, Jorgo Chatzimakakis, a Member of the European Parliament and former secretary general of the FDP Saarland regional association, was found to have plagiarised his doctoral thesis. After initial denials, he was forced to admit his guilt, even claiming at one point that ‘it was not very important’. He was forced to resign, as the Philosophy Faculty stripped him of his degree. Then Margarita Mathiopoulos, an advisor to Guido Westerwelle on Foreign Policy and International Security, was also accused of plagiarism. Both were exposed via internet ‘hunters’ who check out PhD dissertations. This reflects a 2004 Europaeum survey of its partners which found plagiarism to be the most significant concern among academics, even above cuts. Bonn now promises stricter control on citations and evidence of origin by usage special software to detect fraudulent use of intellectual property.

KRAKOW: New course in Holocaust Studies
The Institute of European Studies has just helped launch with the Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Jagiellonian University with a new Master Programme in Holocaust Studies. The course includes modules on the Holocaust; the regimes of the Third Reich and Fascist Italy; consequences of ethic and religious prejudice; analysis of ethnic, political, social conflicts, and contemporary international conflicts. It also covers analysis of xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism in historical and comparative perspective. Welcoming the initiative, Professor Jerzy Buzek, Polish President of the European Parliament, said : "The totalitarianisms of the 20th century, Holocaust, are one of the biggest cataclysms of humanity. It is well worthwhile here, close to Auschwitz, where the biggest tragedy happened, to talk about human rights, to discuss the events that brought about this great curse of history." Last year 22 MA students enrolled. Professor Karol Musioł, Rector of the Jagiellonian, added that all humanity was greatly afflicted by this tragedy. "We want to tell the truth about that. We want to pass this truth to those who will be telling it to others. We want to educate teachers who will be telling this truth to young people....". See http://www.holocaust.uj.edu.pl/index.php?lang=en for more information and to apply visit the Jagiellonian website. The closing date for 2012-13 is around June.

Footnote-of-the-Month:

What's next for the Eurozone ?
Jan Zielonka, Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford and Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow at St Antony’s College, offers a fresh and imaginative insight into the crisis facing the Eurozone. Not shying away from giving his personal opinions and comments, Zielonka presents a stark case for the disintegration of the EU in response to the economic crisis facing the Eurozone today. In an article appearing in Le Monde Diplomatique in September, Zielonka deals with possible future scenarios of European disintegration:

1. Return to Westphalia: An uncontrolled economic avalanche leads to destruction, chaos, the revival of populism and nationalism;
2. Core vs. Periphery: Attempts at further unification leads to new divisions between the ‘core' and the ‘rest’, as there is no set of interests strong enough and common to all the member states;
3. ‘Disintegration in disguise’: member states start solving problems on their own or using other networks and strategic alliances, while the EU is kept intact for merely symbolic reasons and loses its political significance.

Zielonka argues for the need of political leadership endowed with creativity, imagination, and the courage to imagine new ways of thinking about the integration. Click here to read the full article

Now with EU leaders heading back from yet another 'make or break' summit in Brussels, have European leaders done enough to save the Eurozone? Or will Zielonka's vision of disintegration come to fruition? In a recent article appearing in openDemocracy.com, Kristy Hughes - veteran European political analyst - suggests that even if a successful deal is reached and the potential political and economic catastrophe following the break-up of the Eurozone is avoided, the political damage has already been done. Thus, while essential for the stability of the EU, a euro-deal will only be the first step down a rocky road of political and economic crises for many years to come. Click here to read the full article

Contact:
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Endnote:

New History e-Portal
We are delighted to hear that Historiana - the exciting new portal to the past - developed by our partner organisation, EUROCLIO, the European History teachers association, has just won an important education award. The portal was developed as a linked element of the Connecting Europe Through History programmes on which the Europaeum collaborated with Euroclio and others in recent years. We do believe this will be an important resource for History teachers to link young historians across Europe, as well as young and older scholars in exciting new job enterprises - which also focus on new cross-cutting themes such as democracy, toleration, conflict and conflict resolution, and migration. Click here to read more about this project