Minutes of the Meeting of Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Jake Pasternak
1)
Professor
Mahoney handed out a packet on
Bosnia.
The packet contained a brief history of the country, preparing us for
our
lecture next class.
Subsequently
Professor Mahoney passed out the working titles of our seminar papers,
having
an open discussion on certain students’ titles.
The class was able to comment and critique the titles, proving
as a
helpful guide for everyone to gather ideas for the revision process.
Professor Mahoney then spoke about the
European Studies Program panel discussion on our seminar papers on
April 28th
at
3:30pm.
The
class then
picked partners to exchange research papers with. (Justin- Angi) (Jake
–Pat)
(Deng- Cherise) (Julia-Rose) (Darrah- Lija)
2)
Professor Mahoney then agreed to go
outside
for our class and enjoy the first warm spring afternoon.We began by
discussing the “Idea of Europe” considered
negatively,
recognizing that one way of defining a word is
saying something that it is not.
Rose
brought
up the point that the European Union, in regards to identity, attempts
to be more
inclusive towards others.
From this we
moved on to the idea that Europeans should be willing to trade
individual
freedoms to pool resources in order to come up with a superior system.
Cherise added that in order to be a member of
the Union, one must give to the greater good of the Union, bending and
flexing
for the good of everyone.
Professor Mahoney brought up the point that people and
countries of
Europe fancy to be a part of the
European
Union.
The E.U. at this day in age is
considered somewhat glamorous, creating a stir of countries backing the
E.U.
Furthermore, a prevalent civic
tradition is found throughout
Europe.
The cultural tradition established in
Europe
derives from regional as well as local entities.
Example:
no death penalty throughout
Europe
and the concept of a European passport allowing any European to travel
anywhere
in
Europe.
3)
We then turned our attention to an article
by Tony Judt on "Europe vs. America" in the February 10, 2005 issue of
The New York Review of Books which
was written about the same time Bush underwent his 2
nd
inauguration.
This
article
depicted the differences between
America
and
Europe through their views on the death
penalty.
A class favorite was the quote
“Europeans stay in the cafés all day and drink cappuccino”.
Darrah brought up the point about the
differences in medical coverage in terms of health insurance between
Europe
and the
U.S. The article depicts Americans as
irresponsible and delinquent in regards to the money we spend and the
lack of
results that ensue,
basically saying
that Americans spend money on no substance.
Louis the
15th ‘s
infamous quote “after me the flood” was brought up; following Louis’s
death his
dynasty ended and his son was beheaded.
4)
Lastly, the notion of more international
treaties
limiting industrial pollution was discussed
,
concluding that Americans have a phobia when it comes totaking advice
from other countries.
“We don’t need
anyone to tell us what to do”. Present-day American mirror the old
European
nations states and the E.U.
mirrors modern 20
th
century civilizations. Cherise made a comment regarding how
Mexicans
used to look at the
U.S.
with admiration and now are somewhat anti-U.S.