Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands
The academic and research focus of the Euroculture programme at the University of Groningen centers on the notion of cultural identity and its relation to European integration in all its dimensions. The staff is trained in different disciplines: History, Cultural Studies, Law, Political Sciences, International Relations. Concepts such as “Europeanisation” and “Citizenship” are debated. Trans-Atlantic relations and Asia feature prominently in Groningen too.
In the second semester Euroculture in Groningen offers two research seminars: one focuses on a comparison of integration processes between Europe and Asia (“Changing power configurations in the 21ste century: Integration processes in East Asia and in Europe”), the other, taking cultural analysis as point of view, on representations and constructions of European identity in a globalized context (“ Fortress Europe’: a prison house of representation?”).
The thesis topics are not limited to these geographical areas though, nor to a particular perspective. Thesis topics cover a wide geographical area and a large variety of dimensions, as the topics are closely related to the interest and expertise of the students (European culture, history, politics, foreign relations, literature, arts, European law, religion, sociology). Necessarily, every thesis has an interdisciplinary character. Since the start of the exchange programme with the four Euroculture partner institutions outside Europe, it has become clearly noticeable that this experience has an important bearing on the choice of the thesis topics.
Official website: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands
last update: 28.9.2011
