Catalog
Bates Fall Semester Abroad, Austria
Professors Decker (German) and Associate Professor Ásgeirsdóttir (Politics)
During the fall semester of 2014, Bates students, including entering first-year students, can experience the excitement of living and learning in Austria. The program is based in Vienna and includes extensive travel in Austria and the Balkans. Courses consider political and cultural developments in Austria during the last century and the legacy of empires and superpowers in Eastern Europe. No prior knowledge of German is required.
The city of Mozart, Schubert, Freud, and Klimt, Vienna has a rich intellectual heritage and remains a center for the arts in Europe. The former seat of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, today Vienna's close proximity to Budapest, Prague, and Sarajevo has given the city a unique role in the post-cold-war emergence of a new Europe.
The program begins in late August with a month-long intensive German language immersion at Cultura Wien in the center of the city. In late September students begin their regular classes in German and their courses with Bates faculty. The program ends in mid-December. The program fulfills the requirements of General Education concentration C082 (German in Vienna).
BSAV 001. From Habsburg to Haider: Austria in the Twentieth Century.
This course explores major political and cultural developments in Austria from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, devoting particular attention to the changing role Vienna has played in those developments. Through a variety of cultural artifacts, students examine the decline of the multiethnic Habsburg Empire and the outbreak of World War I; the ill-fated First Austrian Republic ("the state that no one wanted"), which emerged from the Great War: Austro-fascism and the National Socialist Anschluss; and the establishment of a stable and affluent democracy in the post–World War II period. Students consider is devoted to the birth of modernism in turn-of-the-century Vienna, post–World War II attempts come to terms with Austria's fascist past, and evolving concepts of Austrian national identity. Visits to sites in and around Vienna complement classroom instruction. Open to first-year students. C. Decker.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
BSAV 003. Intensive German I.
Open to first-year students. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
BSAV 004. Intensive German II.
Open to first-year students. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
BSAV 006. The European Union.
This course examines the formation, evolution and expansion of the European Union, the most significant effort of international institution building since World War II. The course considers, theories of integration and their application to political and economic development, including the single European currency and the inner workings of EU institutions and policies. We discuss the benefits and challenges of Union membership, the development of a European identity, the ongoing economic crisis facing the Union and countries that are "reluctant" participants. Finally, we pay special attention to relatively recent entrants to the EU such as Austria and countries in Eastern Europe. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. Instructor permission is required. One-time offering. Á. Ásgeirsdóttir.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations