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Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute (TASI)
Class, Church, Community—The Historical Origins of Current European Social Policy
Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute in European Studies—Graduate Student Fellowship Program
June 10 - June 22, 2012, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
Application deadline: April 19, 2012
Presented by the Center for German & European Studies at the University of Minnesota, which is funded by the University of Minnesota and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Crucial additional funding for the 2012 Institute is provided by other University of Minnesota units, including the Institute for Global Studies. We thank all sponsors for their generous support.
Working Schedule & Documents
Working Schedule/Draft Program. Full program content is available for registered participants in the Summer Institute after admission to the program. If you are a registered participant and need to access this page, please e-mail Jessica Oakes .
Overview
Since 2001 the Trans-Atlantic Summer Institutes (TASI) provide a unique forum for advanced graduate students from North America, Germany, and other European countries to explore together topics relating to Germany's and Europe's history, politics, and society. Each summer, 10-12 European and 10-12 North American graduate students work intensively for two weeks and explore in depth questions that will enrich their dissertations in German and European Studies. The Summer Institutes are co-taught by a multi-disciplinary team of faculty and aim to make a major contribution to the training of the next generation of experts on Germany and Europe. They introduce European students to the American university; North American students will acquire a similar familiarity with the European setting. They foster the international discussions and collaborations that are fundamental to the scholarly enterprise. As a student in the Summer Institute, you will learn how to combine the best aspects of training in both settings—the close attention to archival sources and their interpretation in Europe with the broad trans-disciplinary readings that characterize North American scholarship.
TASI is a non-credit seminar for advanced graduate-level students in all fields; the 2012 Institute will convene on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (USA).
Topic
Today's Western European countries have the world's most extensive social welfare systems. Yet even among these countries, with their high levels of social spending, enormous structural differences remain. They are the residue of historical political conflicts over states and markets, over religious and cultural identities, and over the territorial reach of the nation state. The 2012 Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute explores the historical development of European social policy programs, particularly in the area of education, which has recently become a topic of great concern in all the social sciences. We will draw from a broad range of academic fields – including anthropology, economic history, political economy, political science, social history, and sociology – and address an array of intriguing questions: Why do modern European countries differ so sharply when it comes to the roles played by families, governments and businesses in the provision of social services and education? How did religion, regionalism, and ethnicity shape the trajectories of national education systems? How beholden are modern governments to choices made in the distant past? Can the history of European education policy and social policy help us understand the development of schooling and social programs in the developing world today?
TASI 2012 provides fellows an excellent opportunity to explore and analyze these and other questions across disciplinary fields. The Institute offers fellows a diverse mix of seminar discussions of key readings, research presentations by guest faculty and fellows, and informal discussions of fellows' research projects. The international faculty team solicits applications from young scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are eager to situate their own projects at the intersection of several fields.
Faculty
Ben Ansell is assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His work covers issues of inequality in comparative politics. He is the author of From the Ballot to the Blackboard: The Redistributive Political Economy of Education (Cambridge University Press, 2010), which won the 2011 Riker award for best book from the APSA Political Economy section. He has published articles on education policy in World Politics and International Organization. Together with David Samuels he has written on inequality and democracy, including an article published in Comparative Political Studies. Some of his most recent short work centers on the interplay between the housing market, public opinion, and social policy.
Johannes Lindvall is senior lecturer in Political Science at Lund University, Sweden, and works on issues related to comparative politics and political economy. His main expertise is European economic and social policy. He is the author of Mass Unemployment and the State (Oxford University Press, 2010) and has published articles in journals such as Comparative Politics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and World Politics. In 2011, he received a Starting Independent Researcher Grant from the European Research Council for a four-year project called "The Reform Capacity of Governments." His most recent work, with Ben Ansell at the University of Minnesota, is concerned with the historical origins of primary education regimes. Before moving into his current position, he held post-doctoral fellowships at Lincoln College, Oxford, and at the European University Institute in Florence.
Fellowship Information & Application Materials
The Institute is intended for advanced graduate students working toward a Ph.D. or other terminal degree at a North American or European university. Preference will be given to students who have already defined a dissertation topic. The language of instruction is English. Competency in English and a reading knowledge of another European language are required. Logistics: arrive in Minneapolis on Sunday, June 10 for the TASI opening dinner; class starts on Monday, June 11; class ends on Friday, June 22 at 1 p.m.; depart from Minneapolis on Friday, June 22 after 2:30 p.m.
Pending final budget approval, all fellows will receive a fellowship to cover most expenses:
- Institute tuition
- Housing and meals for the duration of the Institute
- Access to library and archival materials and Internet resources
Fellowships for advanced graduate students enrolled at North American universities will also include up to $350 in support of round-trip airfare to Minneapolis. This support will be granted on a matching fund basis. The fellows' home department will need to provide at least $200 to trigger the University of Minnesota match. Unfortunately the tight fiscal situation at US universities at present precludes a similar arrangement for the European university fellows.
Complete applications for admission to the Institute must be received by April 19, 2012. Applications may be submitted electronically to cges@umn.edu. If you choose this option, please put "2012 TASI Application" in subject line. Decisions will be made by April 30, 2012.
A complete application consists of 1) a letter of interest, 2) a two-page dissertation abstract, or a two-page statement about the relevance of this topic to the applicant's research, 3) a curriculum vitae, 4) an unofficial graduate transcript, and 5) one letter of recommendation. The letter of interest should include information on the applicant's scholarly background, interests, and career goals. The statement should address how the Institute topic fits into the applicant's program of study, and what the applicant hopes to gain through participation in the Institute. Please send applications to:
Professors Ben Ansell and Johannes Lindvall
Center for German & European Studies
University of Minnesota
214 Social Science Building
267— 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
USA
