XTO-12806 Society, History & Globalisation

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Contents:

This course attempts to integrate knowledge of the social, economical and environmental sciences in explaining temporal differences in the organization of tourism and the relationships between tourism and its social, cultural, political, economical, technological and ecological environments. The lectures will provide the students with an introduction to the main global historical transitions since ancient times, with an emphasis on the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries as far as they are relevant for tourism. Each lecture will focus on one specific transition: the economic transition (societal change from an agrarian into a post-industrial society); the demographic transition (falling down of high birth and death rates to low ones); the political transition (from oligarchy to the nation-state and upcoming democracy and citizenship); the social transition (from social classes to configurations that attempt to achieve class, ethnic, religious and gender equality); the cultural transition (cultural impacts of Enlightenment, secularization and fundamentalism); the spatial transition (from local to global and back).
In each lecture explanations from social, economical and environmental sciences will be compared and analyzed. In the workshops students will discuss and analyze specific tourism transformations. They will be as asked to connect these changes with the more general historical transitions.

Learning outcomes:

After the course the student is able to:
- recall the main historical transitions since ancient times, with an emphasis on the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries;
- interpret the general mechanisms of change in these transitions;
- connect specific transformations in tourism with these historical transitions;
- assess new events against the background of long term development.

Activities:

- lectures;
- workshops.

Examination:

- written examination (75%);
- group essay (25%).

Literature:

Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt and J.Perraton (1999). Global transformations. Politics, economics and culture. Stanford, Cambridge.