European Borderlands

This course provides a long historical perspective on the making of Europe, as an intellectual construct and as a geographical and cultural space. The course problematizes areas, peoples, markets, and borders, as well as practices of knowledge circulation. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach and examines the histories of a set of borderlands-that is, places characterized by rapid changes and fluidity, defined by contests and negotiations over societal rules and norms, and situated in between legal and cultural regimes. A focus on the histories of key European borderlands—such as the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, or the Elbe marshes—will provide students with the tools to analyse how movements of peoples, goods, and ideas shaped the differentiated process of European integration and border-making. A thorough understanding of borderlands and their lasting importance will also lay bare the complex interconnections between centres and peripheries as well as between the local and the continental throughout European history.