Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Institute of Historical Studies
- Code
- BA-ERA-IHS-S-20
- Title
- Constructing the Postmodern Self: Identity, History, and Global Change
- Usual semester
- Autumn
- ECTS
- 6
- Language
- en
- Learning outcomes
- Course Description This course explores how identities are constructed, imagined, and contested in different historical and cultural contexts. From nation-states and empires to indigenous communities and digital cultures, we will examine how symbols, narratives, and practices create belonging and exclusion. The course combines theoretical foundations with case studies from around the world.
- Course content
- CONTENTS: Introduction Identity as a concept: definitions and theories USA: the paradox of the “melting pot” Rwanda: identity on paper and genocide Bolivia: coca leaves as a symbol of identity and sovereignty Mozambique: tribal society and the nation-state project. Yanomami: The paradox of the "wild people" India: caste, religion, and the Hindutva project The internal orientalism of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy The European Union and Switzerland: identity building and exceptionalism China: the national project of the "Civilization State" Digital identity: memes, online "codes," and "new loyalties"
- Assessment method
- EVALUATION: Class participation and contributions Presentation Essay
- Bibliography
- BIBLIOGRAPHY: Albert, Bruce. “Territoriality, Ethnopolitics, and Development: The Indian Movement in the Brazilian Amazon.” Cultural Survival Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1990): 6–9. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Bakić-Hayden, Milica. “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia.” Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (1995): 917–931. Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity.’” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 1–47. Bruter, Michael. Citizens of Europe? The Emergence of a Mass European Identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Byrappa, Ramachandra. 2023. Making Sense of India’s History. Istanbul: TUİÇ Akademi. Open-access e-book. Cahen, Michel. “The MNR and RENAMO of Mozambique: A Comparative Analysis.” African Affairs 82, no. 326 (1983): 163–193. Castells, Manuel. The Power of Identity. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004 [1st ed. 1997]. Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Checkel, Jeffrey T., and Peter J. Katzenstein, eds. European Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Church, Clive H. The Politics and Government of Switzerland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Conklin, Beth A., and Laura R. Graham. “The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics.” American Anthropologist 97, no. 4 (1995): 695–710. Delanty, Gerard. Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality. London: Macmillan, 1995. Des Forges, Alison. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999. Erikson, Erik H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968. Farthing, Linda, and Benjamin Kohl. Evo’s Bolivia: Continuity and Change. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014. Feichtinger, Johannes – Prutsch, Ursula – Csáky, Moritz 2003: Habsburg postcolonial: Machtstrukturen und kollektives Gedächtnis. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck Geffray, Christian. La Cause des armes au Mozambique: Anthropologie d’une guerre civile. Paris: Karthala, 1990. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991. Gingrich, Andre 2015: The Nearby Frontier: Structural Analyses of Myths of Orientalism. Diogenes 60(2) Gootenberg, Paul. Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Grisaffi, Thomas. Coca Yes, Cocaine No: How Bolivia’s Coca Growers Reshaped Democracy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. Hall, Stuart. “Who Needs ‘Identity’?” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 1–17. London: SAGE, 1996. Hodkinson, James R. – Walker, John – Mazumdar, Shaswati – Feichtinger, Johannes 2013: Deploying Orientalism in Culture and History: From Germany to Central and Eastern Europe. Boydell & Brewer, Suffolk Honwana, Alcinda. Child Soldiers in Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Huntington, Samuel P. Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Kopenawa, Davi, and Bruce Albert. The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. Translated by Nicholas Elliott and Alison Dundy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Kreis, Georg. Switzerland and the European Union: A Close, Contradictory and Misunderstood Relationship. Bern: Swiss Confederation, 2011. Laserna, Roberto. “The Political Economy of the Coca Debate in Bolivia.” Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 4 (1996): 60–79. Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Morales, Evo. “Speech at the United Nations on the Coca Leaf.” UN General Assembly, 2009. Mounk, Yascha. The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. New York: Penguin Press, 2023. Newitt, Malyn. A History of Mozambique. London: Hurst, 1995. Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia. Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization. Translated by Brenda Baletti. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020. Rumford, Chris. European Cohesion? Contradictions in EU Integration. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978. Straus, Scott. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Thapar, Romila. The Past as Present: Forging Contemporary Identities Through History. Ranikhet: Aleph Book Company, 2014. Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Varshney, Ashutosh. Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Zhang, Weiwei. The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State. Hackensack, NJ: World Century Publishing, 2012.