Field Trip in International Exchange Studies B

1Grade

2.00Credits

semester not specified

OSVATH TAMAS LASZLO

English (keywords of the course materials are going to be translated into Japanese)

Togane Campus

The main aim of the ‘International Exchange Study-abroad Program B - Traveling to East-Central Europe’ is to give a broad overview of East-Central Europe and especially focus on the Visegrad Group (Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland). Although only virtually can be done the course would like to recall the experiences of a group study tour.

The course offers rather broad and synthetic knowledge about East-Central Europe but less in-depth analyses. Thus, a lot of different issues are going to be discussed, like the geographical location, the natural beauties, and concerns, the people’s attitude, the basis of cooperation, the settlements, the cultural heritage, the religion, the languages, etc. The different topics are built up from the historical processes which help to understand the current situations and challenges of the future. The regular comparison with Japan and East Asia offers the possibility to discover the possibilities and challenges in the bridge-building between these further cultures in the lessons.

Lectures are regularly interrupted by student activities and group works. A lot of maps, charts, and images help the understanding during the lessons.

Naturally, during a travel (even if it is only virtual) interesting things, natural and cultural beauties, impressive buildings and monuments, good tastes, and music are hunted. So will be this on the course.

The student group on the course is also invited to find similarities or contrasts in their own cultural background and to look for their position compared to the East-Central European people.  Knowing and understanding other cultures better fosters people also know and understand themselves better and this would be the ultimate goal of this course.

East-Central Europe created by history is a hidden treasure box to be discovered. A lot of different nations without the European colonizers’ past and richness but with millions of cultural beauties and stories follow a thousand year’s program which is to survive between the great empires all around them. Most people of the world even do not know the names of the frequently changing different aggregations of the states here. East-Central Europe is extremely diverse. Some found that a cake called ‘Strudel’ is the only common ground between the people living here. This region is everything but boring. Something is always happening here.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Compared to Japan nature seems far more peaceful in East-Central Europe. There are no bigger earthquakes, no tsunamis, no monsoon-caused floods, and soil slides, as well as typhoons, are also missing. As a consequence of this, unlike in Japan, huge, massive house blocks made of bricks are common, and some pieces of furniture are even on the upper side of the walls. Natural beauties are all over the area. Białowieża forest in Poland is one of the biggest ancient original forests in Europe, High Tatra Mountains in Slovakia and Poland show the beautiful lacy shapes formed by the ancient icecap, in Bohemian Switzerland in Czechia bizarre sandstone forms can be admired, under Budapest a huge limestone cave system can be walked around, ancient extinct vulcanos called ‘witness mountains’ can be discovered in West Hungary next to the biggest lake in Central Europe called Balaton.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Firstly surviving and secondly catching up with the developed European regions are the two main motives of the last millennium's history in East-Central Europe. Most of the time, in these nations there were only very narrow possibilities for independent decisions under the rule of inside the influential zone of far greater empires which typically were to the West, East, South-East. Fighting for freedom against the World's biggest armies is a regular and recurring event in their collective memory.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Roughly 700 years ago (in 1335 AD) the Czech, the Polish, and the Hungarian king met in a castle in the picturesque Danube Bend to make an alliance for common prosperity and against their common enemies. This historical event was a cultural frame of the meeting of the Czechoslovak, Polish, and Hungarian prime ministers in 1991 right after the transition from Socialism to finding a new alliance between themselves which fostered access to the European Union. Now the so-called Visegrad Group or V4 is one of the most stable and successful alliances between countries inside the EU.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Although East-Central Europe is the least developed region of the European Union the capitals are modern highly developed cities with far higher development levels than the European Union average. The EU actively supports the improvement of these countries via Regional Policy. This helps to modernize the infrastructure and renew the historical cities. East-Central European countries have been showing the most dynamic growth in the European Union for the last decade.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

National conflicts and wars unfortunately are common all over the world. In East-Central Europe where country borders only exceptional cases surround only one single nation, these kinds of conflicts are even more frequent. However, on the contrary of these, outer spectators can also discover mystical and incomprehensible links between some nations which would seem to have absolutely different cultural roots. One example of this is the Polish – Hungarian eternal friendship.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Budapest – Prague – Bratislava – Krakow – Novi Sad – Zagreb – Ljubljana -Trieste – Sarajevo - Vienna were in the very same country in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at the beginning of the 20th century. Now, they are all in a different country which means 10 independent states. It could be a surprising fact that the Hungarian Parliament is the third biggest in the world. To understand this should be known that this building like the Hungarian capital, Budapest was built for a country that was three times bigger than now with far more big cities in an even greater empire at that time but this does not exist anymore.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

A popular strategy among young students recently is to temporarily settle in beautiful, safe, developing but cheaper East-Central European cities to discover all over Europe from this place. This is a real possibility thanks to the cheap flights which also prefer these cheaper cities, like Budapest which is one of the biggest hubs of cheap flights in Europe.
It is an interesting contrast that while the Hungarian railroad network was improved in one country its elements are now in seven countries, the Polish railroad network was formulated in three different countries and none of these was Poland.
East-Central Europe is a good example of that not only the existence but the lack of infrastructure can reveal a lot of things. While the greatest amount of trade in the World is between East Asia and Europe very weak transcontinental links are on the mainland between East Asia and the eastern part of Europe though this is the closest part. Although Istambul is one of the biggest European cities the links towards there are also very weak.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Antonín Dvořák – Frédéric Chopin - Franz Liszt – Zoltán Kodály – Béla Bartók – Gustav Mahler were all genial composers who enriched the world’s culture with eternal pieces of music.  All of them were born in East-Central Europe. While in music culture Central Europeans were leaders in history, in other cultural branches East Central Europe artists often tried to follow Western Europe or transform the Western trends complemented with their national character.
While a lot of different nations and ethnic groups (like Jews and Gypsies) were continuously influencing each other’s culture, art was also important in emphasizing the national character of a folk at the same time. Art and religion were crucial during the national tragedies in inheriting the values to the next generations, too.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

While European people are proud of their rational thinking thousands of people make a pilgrimage to holy places like Czestochowa (Poland) or Csíksomlyó (Hungarians’ holy place in Romania). Hungarians carry the real hand of their first king (Stephen lived a thousand years ago) in the streets of Budapest every year and the Holy Crown is exhibited in religious respect in the middle of the Parliament of this republic(!). Christians believe in one God but a woman, the mother of God's son (Mary), has the highest respect as the defender of nations in more countries in East-Central Europe. Both the biggest Jewish synagogue and Buddhist stupa in Europe can be found in Hungary.
Religious freedom in law was first enshrined in Transylvanian (then it was a Hungarian state) in 1568 which made this region the shelter of a lot of persecuted religious thoughts and denominations. That had been more than 200 years before the French Revolution in which the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was created.
It is also interesting that the most religious Poland and the neighboring highly atheist Czechia are both the result of a very similar historical environment.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Europe is dominated by Indo-European languages. In East and East-Central Europe, the Slavic nations and Slavic languages are dominated. In the middle of the Indo-European 'language-sea’, Hungarian is a little ‘island’ that originated from the Finno-Ugric language family. In a multi-language environment, a common language has a significant role not only in practical communication but in transmitting a certain culture. These ‘Lingua Franca-s’ were sometimes chosen by the locals and sometimes forced by the dominant superpowers. These were the Latin, French, German, Russian, and now the English in this region.  

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

The East-Central European higher Education historically improved in parallel with the Western European universities up to Socialism. After the EU accession in 2004, rapid modernization and internationalization are the current tendencies both in material infrastructure and methodology. As a consequence of this, most of the universities have old historical buildings which are modernized recently. This region’s higher education is getting more and more popular among the students because they can receive diplomas recognized all over the EU (and as a consequence of this all over the world) but life and education are cheaper than in Western Europe. Moreover, they can discover the whole of Europe via the cheap flight network which also prefers the cheap East-Central European airports as a basis. Not only the EU but the countries like Hungary also offer different kinds of scholarships for foreign youths to accelerate the internationalization in higher education.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

This is the time for the summary and organization of the course information as well as direct preparation for the final assessment.

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Review (online work): topography (practicing), PPT and own notes (learning), text content (learning), video link (watching and understanding)

Final evaluation

Preview (online work): Preliminary materials uploaded for students: PowerPoint file (look through for English words), topography (learning), text (reading), music link (listening)

Continuous evaluation of the group work participation, homework assignments, group presentations, and total portfolio.

Assessment scale

S – Excellent 90-100 %
A - Very good 80-89 %
B – Good 70-79 %
C – Pass 50-69 %
F – Failed 0-49 %

Concerning assignments, feedback is given regularly.

Class handouts

László Osváth

There is no single textbook for this course; all required reading and viewing materials will be provided either by means of printouts or else through digital files.

1. 『ヨーロッパ文化—その形成と空間構造』、テリー・G. ジョーダン (著), 山本 正三 (翻訳), 石井 英也 (翻訳)　（大明堂、1989年）
The European Culture Area: A Systematic Geography (Changing Regions in a Global Context: New Perspectives in Regional Geography) Alexander B. Murphy （著）、Terry G. Jordan-Bychkow（著）, Bella Bychkova Jordan（Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc; 第7版 , 2020）
2. Hobbs, J. J. (2017) Fundamentals of World Regional Geography. Cengage Learning, Fourth Edition
3. Other reference works and recommended materials for the specific issues are suggested during the lessons.

There is no single textbook for this course; all required reading and viewing materials will be provided either by means of printouts or else through digital files.

Togane Campus H416

Monday 2nd period 11:00-12:45
Wednesday 2nd period 11:00-12:45

Visegrad Group -  https://www.visegradgroup.eu/
Eurostat - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
Seterra - https://online.seterra.com/

Introductory video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hxDHSwOMEMvd-XdW6ttelN81m2pPiUeg/view?usp=share_link