Summer School of Interdisciplinary Polish and German Studies 2018 “People on the Move in Twentieth Century Europe”

The Center for Interdisciplinary Polish Studies (ZIP) will hold its the fifth annual Summer School of Interdisciplinary Polish and German Studies from June 4 - July 13, 2018. This program is designed for up to 30 university-level (post-doctoral, doctoral, graduate or advanced undergraduate) researchers interested in Polish/German studies broadly defined. In addition to providing the equivalent of one academic year of language instruction, the summer school also offers graduate level seminars on Polish/German studies (in English, German and Polish) by the academic staff of a renowned university.

The Summer School is designed for academically driven students in the advanced phases of their research (advanced BA, MA, and PhD students, as well as Post-Docs). In previous years, we have had students from four continents and from the best international universities spend six weeks in Frankfurt/Oder and Słubice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Wende Museum, the Summer School will be offered at reduced costs or free of charge to up to 30 students.

The focus of this year’s Summer School is “People on the Move in Twentieth Century Europe.” This Summer School focuses on different aspects of the mass movement of people in our region (and beyond), and shows how societies in Europe dealt with the influx of different populations. Be it for work, refuge, or simply vacation, the twentieth century has been one of mass mobility in Europe. At the beginning of the century, few people traveled outside of their region. But by 2000, tourism in Europe had become one of the largest industries. The “problem” of mass migration from war zones is not unique to the recent conflicts in the Middle East: millions of people from all nationalities were forced from their homes during the two world wars. During the Cold War, governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain accepted political refugees as a matter of principle. The ways in which societies react to mass migration—from the physical destruction of buildings and monuments belonging to the would-be “foreign enemy,” but also to the erection of tourist villages to cater to rich visitors from abroad—reveals how complicated and complex the issue is. In the era of Schengen, the mass movement of people has become perhaps the most salient symbol of European integration, just as the creation of populist parties to “protect native culture” shows the societal disconnect across the European Union. The Summer School focuses primarily on history, but the scope ranges from economics to anthropology. It is an attempt to explain the plethora of ways in which societies have reacted to modern mass mobility.

The Summer School is made up of four main parts: language instruction, advanced research seminars, excursions, and specialist lectures.