Next fall, UNC will introduce a new major concentration — Central European studies — that will be the first of its kind in the country.
Though the concentration is within the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, it was conceived as interdisciplinary — incorporating history and language courses — and will focus on the history, culture and language of Germany, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
“There’s a lot of faculty excitement for people that work in these discrete areas — it gives them an opportunity to teach students who are really interested in a more integrative approach,” said Jonathan Hess, a professor in the department.
Hess said faculty started discussing the new concentration about 18 months ago, when the separate Germanic and Slavic departments merged because they weren’t graduating enough students individually.
“Once we were merged, it seemed like an opportunity to think about the ways we can create new curriculum,” he said.
In addition to taking classes for two languages chosen from Hungarian, Polish, German and Czech, students in the concentration will take two core classes taught by professors Hana Pichova and Chad Bryant.
Pichova’s class, GSLL 260, is the only new course for the concentration. It will be offered for the first time next spring. The course focuses on the cultural production of Berlin, Warsaw, Prague and Budapest from World War I to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“We’re going to zoom in on those works of literature and film where you can see how history affected this part of the world and how the people and artists responded to it,” Pichova said.
Bryant’s class, HIST 260, deals with the Habsburg monarchies from the 18th century to the present. The course is not new, he said, but the concentration will attract more students interested in Central Europe to the course.
