European Identity/Identities

Please note that this class meets 6 hours each week for 4 credits. You must attend all sessions, including the Friday session, to receive 4 credits.

In recent years European identity has found itself in crisis. A former vision of the Continent as peaceful, prosperous, and integrated has given way to harsh and seemingly intractable realities: economic instability, burgeoning nationalisms, the rise of the far-right, humanitarian disasters, terrorism, an aggressive Russia, etc. This course wishes to interrogate the various phenomena (cultural, social, political) that have led to fissures in European solidarity, and to ask what European identity amounts to today. In addition, the course seeks to introduce students to the French language skills necessary to understand and discuss the stakes of European identity. Through in-class discussion of the relevant issues as presented through various media (both linguistic and non-linguistic) students will progress in their ability to think critically about European identity, and will improve their proficiency in French more generally.

Course requirements

1. Continuous and creative oral participation

2. Four vocabulary tests

3. 3 to 5 written compositions (approx. 1 page in length)

4. Final presentation (to be done with a partner)

Recommended language proficiency

Intermediate Low to Intermediate Mid (per the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines) + placement by professor + conversation with professor + strong motivation and discipline