European Leadership and the Making of Europe

ongoing

A JM Module on the History of European Integration. European Leadership and the Making of Europe [EURLEAD] is intended as a research course for master’s students in history. The course studies European integration and its policies through the action of European leaders. Leadership (and the weakness or lack thereof) is a topic that is crucial to policymaking today. Through teaching and research on critical personalities that have promoted in a fundamental way the European project and some of its signature policies (Europe’s global role, the priority of the rule of law and human rights, the guidelines for the protection of the environment, this course (Jean Monnet module) aims at reinforcing the awareness of the importance of inspired policymaking in European action. Being a research seminar structured as a continuation of a tradition of intense cooperation with the Historical Archives of the European Union dating back to 2014, the course also promotes original research. While lectures will focus mainly on famous leaders and promoters of European integration, research on archival sources of different kinds (including oral history interviews) will enable the students to discover less well-known personalities and their fundamental contributions to the project. The product of their original research will then be discussed in a graduate conference setting and eventually made public on a dedicated webpage. As a result, students will become protagonists in writing new chapters of the history of European integration.