Intendierte Lernergebnisse
The students will gain the understanding of the genesis of the (Cross-)Border Studies and learn about some of the main concepts, topics, and methodological approaches used in the field. They will be able to link "theory" with historical and contemporary issues discussions on the issue of borders.
Lehrmethodik
Introductory lecture by the teacher followed by group discussion of the assigned readings.
Inhalt/e
Few things are are as politically important as borders. Wars have been fought in order to change or preserve them. Politicians, intellectuals, artists, scientists, and "ordinary" people alike have tried to establish and dismantle them. The meaning and perception of borders are not fixed; just like the position of borders, they change over time under the influence of various political, cultural, economic, or technological developments. Borders can seem very obvious, unmistakably visible in the physical and cultural landscape, but also imperceptible, arbitrary, and outright nonsensical. Depending on the context, crossing the borders can be a mundane or a life-threatening experience.The course will examine the notion and manifestation of borders in light of narratives that explain the natural and the social world. On various examples we will discuss how boundaries have been established, masked or removed and, since recently, reinstated.The course will include the following units/topics:IntroductionCross-Border Studies: A History of an Academic FieldConcepts: Place, (National) Space, Border, Boundary, Borderland, Frontier…Borders “Real” and “Imagined”(B)Ordering the Nation in Theory and PracticeCase Studies: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia...(B)Ordering Carinthia, Living in Alpen-AdriaThe Story of the European Union, part 1: Erasing BordersThe Story of the European Union, part 2: Shifting, Reinstating, Securing the BordersTransgressing the Borders by Traveling, Eating, and Speaking
Literatur
Agnew, John. “The Territorial Trap: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory.” Review of International Political Economy 1, no. 1 (1994): 53–80.Bakic-Hayden, Milica. “Nesting Orientalism: The Case of Former Yugoslavia.” Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (1995): 917–931.Ballinger, Pamela. “Liquid Borderland, Inelastic Sea? Mappin the Eastern Adriatic.” In Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, ed. Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz, 421–437. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.Barth, Fredrik, ed. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969.Coen, Deborah R. “Climate and Circulation in Imperial Austria.” The Journal of Modern History 82, no. 4 (2010): 839–875.Donnan, Hasting, and Thomas M. Wilson. Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State. 1999. Abingdon: Routledge, 2020.Duančić, Vedran. Geography and Nationalist Visions of Interwar Yugoslavia. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.Elden, Stuart. “Territory without Borders.” Harvard International Review, 5 Dec. 2019, https://hir.harvard.edu/territory-without-borders.Gerst, Dominik, Maria Klessmann, and Hannes Krämer, eds. Grenzforschung: Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2021.Hipfl, Brigitte, Anita Bister, Petra Strohmeier, and Brigitta Busch. “Shifting Borders: Spatial Constructions of Identity in an Austrian/Slovenian Border Region.” In Living (with) Borders: Identity discourses on East-West Borders in Europe, ed. Urlike H. Meinhof, 53–74. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.Paasi, Anssi. “Border Studies Reanimated: Going Beyond the Territorial–Relational Divide.” Environment and Planning A 44, no. 10 (2012): 2303–2309.Robinson, Richard. Narratives of the European Border: A History of Nowhere. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.Seegel, Steven. Mapping Europe's Borderlands: Russian Cartography in the Age of Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.Stefanov, Nenad, and Srdjan Radović, eds. Boundaries and Borders in the Post-Yugoslav Space. A European Experience. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.Wastl-Walter, Doris, ed. The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.Wilson, T.M., and H. Donnan, eds. A Companion to Border Studies. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.