Imagining Europe: Perspectives from East and West

FaculteitFaculty of Humanities

NiveauBachelor

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

What does Europe look like from the outside? This course will study Europe as perceived by its interlocutors to the East and to the West, with a specific focus on Russian and American narratives. We will use an interdisciplinary approach to examine imaginaries of Europe as they manifest in culture: intellectual discourse, political rhetoric, the popular press, literature, visual and popular culture, film and television.

Learning outcomes

Develop your interdisciplinary and critical analytical skills to explore collective images using a range of cultural sources, including intellectual discourse, political rhetoric, the popular press, literary and visual arts, and popular culture;

Investigate significant developments in Russian and American perceptions of Europe from the early modern period to the present, tracing the historical context in shaping collective images between the past and the present;

Apply and engage critically with key concepts such as national identity, cultural nationalism, cultural transfer, settler colonialism, race, and othering to analyze and interpret collective images.

Develop your academic research and writing skills by working on a research paper in which you engage critically with the course material, practice with the use and analysis of cultural primary sources, as well as key conceptual and theoretical frameworks central to the secondary literature in this course.

Content

This course examines constructed imaginaries of the “Old World” in both the United States and the Russian Empire (and later, the USSR), which helped define these polities in relation to the political and cultural traditions of Europe. We will analyze, contexualize, and trace diverse American and Eurasian imaginaries of Europe between the past and the present, drawing from a wide range of cultural expressions such as art, popular culture, literature, film, political rhetoric, activism, and so on.

Collective images of Europe played a formative role throughout American history, from the inception of the United States as a settler colony, to American slavery, American imperialism, American racial relations, and American identities, with lasting effects on the present. In particular, we will pay closer attention to such creative expressions in the context of often silenced and marginalized American communities and their histories. The key question guiding this US-focused part of the course is: How did such diverse American imaginaries of Europe shape the identity of the United States as a nation grappling with deep tensions and contradictions when it comes to justice, race, power, and democracy?

In parallel, we will explore how the Russian imperial intelligentsia oscillated between attraction and deep rejection of European cultural forms and norms between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries. Within the Soviet Union, too, the relationship with European culture was complex and dynamic: on the one hand, in the so-called non-European republics, European dress and furnishings were used as a proxy measure of loyalty to the regime, on the other hand, contact between European culture and the Soviet masses was strictly monitored and curtailed. You will engage with the many cultural constructions of Europe that resulted from massive historical changes such as modernization, socialist revolution and geopolitical competition.

Additional information

This course is part of the minor America and Russia (previously the minor Transatlantic Europe).

Early Exit option for international exchange students (5 ECTS)
Exchange students who are required to return to their home university before January, are allowed to choose an Early Exit option for this course. The Early Exit option means that students can finish the course before Christmas break, receiving 5 ECTS for the course. Students must make arrangements with the course coordinator at the start of the course.

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