This course deals with immigration, emigration and relations between immigrants and the elites and institutions of their countries of origin and destination. Throughout the year, we will talk about the various dilemmas faced by immigrants and refugees, as well as the governments and societies in the country they immigrated to and the country they emigrated from. We will examine these issues from a theoretical and generalized perspective, but we will also analyze specific historical and contemporary cases from different regions of the world.

The seminar will check if modern concepts of the individual freedom of worship - which “consists of the right to practice, to manifest and to change one’s religion and where the modern democratic state is neutral towards the variety of religions, but protects the right of citizens to practice their different religious beliefs” (https://brill.com/display/title/31824) - have their roots in ancient Roman civilization in spite of the close linkage between politics and religion in antiquity.
 

The recitation examines the history of the late Habsburg Monarchy – from the 1848 Spring of Nations to the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. In doing so, special attention is given to political, social, and cultural developments.

The seminar examines the life, work, and times of the Jewish jurist Jacob Robinson who was born in Lithuania in 1889 and died in New York in 1977. In doing so, special attention is given to his engagement for the protection of minority rights. The seminar’s approach is multidisciplinary, combining elements from history, law, and political science.

The seminar will look into key incidents in the history of the Roman Republic which were defined as extraordinary crisis events threatening the stability of the governing system. The institutional response mechanism which were invented or employed by the governing institutions in Rome to resolve several crises will be analysed.

The course will deal with legal proceedings in Israel and around the world that have become entrenched in the public opinion as exceptional or as ones that contributed to the construction of a national narrative, both in the manner in which they were conducted, in their legal outcome or in the extent to which they succeeded in achieving pedagogical goals.

Are religion and politics necessarily connected? How and why does one distinguish between religion and culture? And how do these categories determine rights and legal status? In this course we will examine inter-religious and inter-confessional tensions in the German territories in the 19th century, with an emphasis on the conceptualization and legislation of religious rights. We will examine how the definition of “religion” became a point of contention between liberals and conservatives, and how this affected religious minorities, primarily Catholics and Jews.

The recitation examines the history of the Bohemians Lands in the 19th and 20th centuries – from the 1848 Spring of Nations to the aftermath of the 1989 Velvet Revolution. In doing so, special attention is given to political, social and cultural developments as well as to the relationships between local Czechs, Germans, and Jews.

The seminar examines the historical development of key political theories in modern Europe. In doing so, special attention is given to social contract theory, liberalism, individualism, and socialism. The seminar’s approach is multidisciplinary, combining elements from history, political science, philosophy, and law.

The seminar examines the life, work and times of the Jewish jurist Jacob Robinson who was born in Lithuania in 1889 and died in New York in 1977. In doing so, special attention is given to his engagement for the protection of minority rights. The seminar’s approach is multidisciplinary, combining elements from history, law, and political science.