Mellon Teaching Fellowships 2008-09

MICHAELMAS TERM 2008

International Political Economy since 1945: Bargaining over Ideas and Interests

Professor Martin Daunton, History
Dr Amrita Narlikar, Centre of International  Studies

This pilot course seeks to develop an integrated theoretical framework to the subfield of International Political Economy by providing an interdisciplinary lens that draws on existing analytic frameworks of historical institutionalism and negotiation analysis.  It begins with the assumption that the current economic system cannot be understood without a close analysis of the institutional bargains that underpin the system. These bargains are not one-off deals; most international institutions have formal and informal flexibility provisions that facilitate re-negotiation to adapt to new international imperatives, domestic interests and ideas. This process of re-negotiation and adaptation explains the evolution of the international economic system from the post-war years to the present day. Mainstream accounts in IPE, by focusing exclusively on political developments or historical narrative, usually miss the insights that our interdisciplinary approach promises to provide. Our entry points into this approach to the study and teaching of IPE are through frameworks of historical institutionalism and negotiation analysis. We examine –  theoretically and empirically – the intersection between international and domestic factors and the impact this intersection yields on bargains resulting in international economic institutions.

For more information, please click here. 

LENT TERM 2009

Al-Andalus and España: Translatio and Tolerance 

Dr Louise Haywood, Dept of Spanish & Portuguese
Professor James Montgomery, Dept of Middle Eastern Studies

In Verdi’s Don Carlo, the Princess Eboli sings a Canzone del velo (A Veil Song), ‘Nei giardin del bello,’ describing how, in a garden in Granada, a Muslim king, Muhammad, sings a love song to a veiled woman, declaring that he no longer feels love for his Queen, and proposing to make the veiled woman his new queen in the Alhambra. The veiled woman of the song turns out, of course, to be the Queen, and the King paradoxically both declares and recuses his love in one and the same canzone.

Muslim al-Andalus, and its successor Christian España, are sites of contestation, where conflicting memories and narratives of identity often collide. Verdi’s Moorish king and queen are exotic and romantic, optimistically presaging what Eboli hopes will be Carlo’s recognition and avowal of his love for her and recusal of Elisabetta. They are also indices of the fate of al-Andalus, which, in the aftermath of the Reconquista, rapidly became emblematic of both possession and loss, of triumph and nostalgia.

We have identified two primary tropes in terms of which al-Andalus and España are construed as phenomena: translatio and tolerance. Other (cognate) tropes are adduced to account for them, chief among them being influence and transmission, and their study is often characterised by a circularity of reading and reasoning. We propose to consider the imbrication of these tropes and practices which characterises the current study of the literary heritage of al-Andalus and España in our respective disciplines. This pilot course will thus explore how disciplinary stagnation has become further entrenched through widespread acceptance of the ideas and theories of Maria Rosa Menocal and will investigate whether an integrated study of this literary heritage is possible.

For more information, please click here. 

Return to top Return to top
Print Page Print Page