Ecology, Equality and Migration an Interdisciplinary Perspective Contemporary European Politics

Catalog description

The interdisciplinary course will examine three main political problems in Europe today; the environmental crisis, social inequality and migration from the Middle East. Prof. Ofengenden will begin with examining the ways of life and accepted thinking that these three problems undermine and challenge including consumerism, individualism, traditionalism, economic rationality, developmentalism, growth, globalization and nationalism. Prof. Ofengenden will survey the history of early challenges to accepted thinking including the challenges to exploitation and privatization of land argued by the thinkers of the Enlightenment (e.g. Rousseau) as well as early critics of industrialism. Prof. Ofengenden will use both literature and thought to show illuminate these critics. Prof. Ofengenden will then move to 20th and 21th European contributions to environmental thought and economic inequality as well as political movement and artistic expressions of both of these trends. These will include Martin Heidegger, Theodore Adorno, Arne Naess, Serge Moscovici, Bruno Latour, Thomas Piketty, Jacques Rancière, David Harvey. Finally this part of the course will look at two contemporary political protest movements the Yellow Vests in France and Extinction rebellion in the UK. It will look into how these movement were formed and the way they have transformed in the discourse around income inequality and environmental crisis in France and the UK. The second part of the course lead Prof. Nicosia by will look at the issue of immigration to Europe. After a first survey on the immigration phenomenon starting from the year 2010 through, course will pass to analyze social and political tensions caused by anxiety and phobias towards the Other, and the way it reshapes geographical spaces and cultural patterns of the hosting countries, with particular attention to the notions of borders (in the cities and the neighborhoods), citizenry (what and how to define a citizen at the margin), new ethics’ parameters (e.g. religion, welfare etc...), and ultimately the ideas of nation, nationality and nationalism. The second part of the course will be dedicated on the voices of the migrants and their representation through the new artistic phenomena related to migration in the Mediterranean countries (Italy, Greece), with particular attention to literature, video, (photography, video installations), cinema, as well as music creations.