ABOUT

Fictions for the Future of the EU: Confronting Fears and Building Values in the European Union by way of Literature and Art

This project-course, which is supported by the European Union as a Jean Monnet module, intends to show students how literary and artistic fictions in general and fictions of fear in particular might be thought of as significant sources of shared value for the EU.

The students at both the graduate and undergraduate level take a course and contribute to an internet archive, which could be reached through this website. A brief description for the course and the archive is given below.

THE COURSE

As students interpret some important literary and cinematic examples of literary and artistic fictions during class discussions, they engage with questions of value, especially with a view to some of the most important issues that EU has been facing and is likely to face in the future such as democracy, equality, immigration and the environment.

They familiarize themselves with the discourse of values as invoked in EU documents such as Lisbon Treaty and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The students will obtain a “Jean Monnet certificate” upon successful completion of the course.

These are some of the questions that students investigate throughout the course:

How can we understand the role of literary and artistic fictions of fear in the project of building shared values in EU? How can we contribute to processes that concern “the becoming of the Union” by way of engaging with literature and art? How can literary and artistic fictions in general and fictions of fear in particular make us wonder about and reflect upon the future of EU, as well as motivate us to work towards finding solutions to its problems?

The course is offered both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Undergraduate students carry out individual projects while graduate students carry out individual ones.

THE ARCHIVE

Part of the requirement for completing the course is the preparation of a project where the students choose and work on the interpretations of a number of artistic fictions in view of the values mentioned in the foundational documents of the EU such as Lisbon treaty and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. These interpretations are then published in an ARCHIVE which is intended to serve as a collection of recommendations for the present and future EU citizens, who would like to find out which particular fictions may be of interest for considerations of value regarding the future of the EU. Note that the archive lists those fictions for which interpretations are available using two subcategories, which include “literary works” and “films & visual works and other media.”