Ralph Weber and Silvana Târlea

At a more intellectual level, these new global realities of European Studies might lead to changes in how we think of European Studies. Is it still - if it ever has indeed been - a privileged object of study that differs importantly from area studies? Or has it become an area study like African Studies or Latin American Studies? "Area studies" have been criticized heavily in recent decades and understanding European Studies as an area study would almost seem regressive. More recent re-conceptualizations of European Studies range from various regional approaches to Global Studies. Of course, there are also European Union Studies, which is globally in any case a more realistic label if one follows the money funding the various institutions. Here, our guiding conceptualization follows a relational approach, which would advocate a change away from European Studies understood in a container view to European Global Studies.

The project is committed towards keeping an open eye towards the status of research about Europe outside of Europe. On the one hand, there is a risk of unduly culturalizing and othering European Studies outside of Europe as always only providing a view on Europe and never ascending to constituting proper academic research about Europe. On the other hand, the risk is to turn a blind eye towards economic, political and other interests that obviously drive European studies (its existence, promotion, funding and purpose) outside of Europe. Openness in this regard means to keep the possibility of one or the other risk in mind as a methodological check against bias and premature assessment.

Working Paper: The Study of Europe in Asia (under review)

Noura Abu Ghrieqanah

PhD-Project (Committee: Ralph Weber, Wiebke Keim)

The study of contemporary Europe has experienced growth of interest in mainstream political science and international relations (Wallace, 2000). Beyond Europe, European Studies has gone through intensive development in the last two decades, also in the MENAT region (Santagostino, 2004). The MENAT region has been of great geopolitical and economic significance to the EU (EUISS, 2017). An immediate geographic neighbour, a crucial passage for goods traveling to and from Europe (in particular energy resources), and its potential to export instability make it strategically an important area for Europe. This explains the Union’s desire to contribute to regional stability through different tools such as the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), the Barcelona Process and the Union for the Mediterranean (EUISS, 2017). The specificity of the meaning of European history, politics, and culture to different parts of the world make the development and growth of European Studies a multifaceted and complex global affair (Calhoun, 2003). This requires as much critical effort as is undertaken in other Area Studies and Social Sciences disciplines. This research attempts to analyze the recent state of European studies in the MENAT region as an area of increasing academic interest in various universities and research centers. It outlines the process in which the profile of European studies has undergone changes in terms of both scholarly publications and teaching activities and investigates the relationship between research and the political realm. 

Noureddine Wenger

PhD Project (Committee: Ralph Weber)

This dissertation project deals with the diverse images and perceptions of "Europe" articulated in academic and intellectual discourse in the Arab world of the past and the present day. In addressing such a broad and expansive subject, focus will be placed on a specific case, namely the case of "Postmodernism" in the Arab world. A closer examination is to be conducted of the scholarly engagement and the different stances adopted by Arab intellectuals towards the influence of European "postmodern" thought since the 1970s.

Although the dissertation builds on the disciplinary foundations of "intellectual history", at the same time it seeks to enhance the scope of discussion, incorporating the analytical sensibilities that have been brought to the fore by more recent research within the domain of "Global Knowledge Production". In doing so, particular attention will be paid to the following two analytical premises:

First, in order to avoid one-dimensional and culturally biased patterns of interpretation, this thesis will put an emphasis on tracing what may be considered the multilayered, multidimensional and multilateral nature of entanglements between Europe and the Arab world.

Second, to avoid analytical parochialism and regionalism, an attempt will also be made to adopt a global frame of reference that goes beyond the geographical boundaries of "Europe" and the "Arab region".

In adopting such an analytical approach, this project will consider both the more conceptual and epistemological aspects of global knowledge production as well as the more practical and material ones.