Lectori salutem!

You are welcome on the TEMA Student Blog! This is a web 2.0 site for the present and future students of TEMA Erasmus Mundus Master Program. For the present students so that our community not to be just an imagined community. And for the future TEMA applicants and students it would serve as a useful source of information about what TEMA is at all.

  

In the next semesters at our blog You are going to find brief reports by present students participating at the academic program about the courses of all partner departments and articles about other projects of the TEMA students. We hope that You can get an exciting insight to our academic work and university life! If You find interesting our program, You can read about how to become a TEMA student on the official homepage:
http://www.mastertema.eu

TEMA Intensive Week

Amir HAMZA

The TEMA consortium creates the opportunity for all students to know each other by getting involved in the Intensive Week. The first day of the intensive week began with the dinner at a cruise and every student got to know each other quite quickly as they had been waiting for this occasion for so many days. It was also surprising for me when I noticed the sitting plan and arrangement of dinner tables. Every student had to make some effort to find his/her seat and when I arrived at my seat I found three strange faces on my table. Indeed, they were my class fellows and after some time we did not remain strangers for each other. After introducing ourselves, we started discussing and chatting as at the usual meetings of old colleagues. The tour of the historical buildings of Budapest made my dinner unforgettable.

In front of the Danube and the Hungarian Parliament

It was a very nice and wonderful experience to get a formal and detailed orientation about the sessions in the seminar room among all students and teachers involved in the TEMA. It was also a very good experience for me when I realized the expertise of the program’s management with which it decided about the mobility track, the student participation and solved all these matters according to the needs of all students.

The visit to the Szentendre Skanzen “Open Air Ethnographic Museum” was a very useful and unique exposure for understanding the culture and living traditions of a country, after this visit everybody was well aware about the evolution of the different aspects of life in Hungary. For us history majors it was a very educating experience to hear about all of this in a very systematic way.

Tour at Szentendre Open Air Museum

I also would like to discuss about the lunch and dinner arrangement of students, as it also served as an occasion to understand and to get to know each other better. It was also a good chance for all of us to understand the local food of the Hungarian Culture.

To sum up, I feel that it is a very good tradition of TEMA consortium to make students get to know each other and provide them some knowledge about where they come from and what they have been doing in their career as well as what they are going to do in future.

Charles University @ Prague # Fall 2011

Priscilla HIDALGO

How is it to be a TEMA student at Charles University?

First of all, we should mention that the Faculty of Arts could not have a better location. It is just in the city center, so everything is near. Charging your phone, the bank, restaurants, all types of transportation are just a few steps away. So, whenever you feel stressed just go out and have a look at the Castle or take a walk to the Old Town Square… this is the best way of realizing how lucky you are of having the opportunity of studying in a fairy tale city.

Sometimes you might be lost in translation though, but don’t get desperate. Taking basic Czech classes might help you, and if not, remember the importance of body language and mostly remember that smiles are universal. Apart from some bureaucratic procedures like opening a bank account, police and migration, and so on, you can survive in English; just remember to ask for help from the Erasmus Coordinating department when you are not sure about an administrative procedure or you have any other.

Last but not least, Charles University has a lot of Erasmus students, so you will definitely have the chance of experiencing a multicultural environment not only in lectures, but also at the cafeteria, library, etc.

The building of the Faculty of Arts on the riverbank of the Vltava

COMPARATIVE HISTORY

The Comparative History subject mainly focuses on exploring comparative history as a tool of systematic analysis and interpretation. But, how do we do this? Reading and class discussions are the basic tasks in order to get familiarized with Comparative History.

The readings are particular, since the approach is of Central Europe; this means that you will have the opportunity to get to know new authors that might have different ways of thinking, compared to the classical Western Europe approach.

Another interesting point is the feedback you get from classmates -some of them are Czech, which helps you indirectly to get to know better Charles University, and the Czech vision and history.

INTRODUCTION TO EUROPEAN STUDIES

As its title states, this is an introductory course about what Europe is as a concept and as an idea, from a European point of view. It is based mainly on a historical voyage through the Industrial Revolution until the post-WWII context.

With the European studies lectures you will be able to level your knowledge regarding Europe (economic, political, military and cultural general aspects) in case you are not too familiar with it. Also, it also helps you to get to know in details the process of identity building in Europe, and at the same time, it makes you understand better the people and the continent you will be living in for the next two years.

TEMA METHODOLOGICAL SEMINAR

The aim of the methodological seminar is to help you to realize that actually you have to write a MA thesis, and that in this process every week improvements, changes and step backs do count in order to accomplish your goal.

You will mainly have to talk about the books you read, about the structure of you work, the steps in which you are constructing your object of study, with a very interesting variable: sometimes you will have to do this with your MA thesis director, other times with visiting professors.

This is without a doubt a great tool for a social researcher, because it involves a lot of feedback, allowing you to decide which critiques, ideas and opinions you are willing to include in your work, and which not. In this way you get to know better your work and what you want your research to become, it will help you to shape your thesis and delimitate it.

The general reading room of the Czech National Library [Klementinum]

TEMA SEMINAR

The TEMA Seminar is the theoretical complement of the Methodological Seminar. It is the time of the week when you get the chance of focusing on key concepts of your thesis and for the TEMA program as well. Different approaches to the notions of Nation, Civilization, Region and City region will help you to set the conceptual bases for your work, as well as to know different tendencies in epistemology and social theories.

Also, there is a great amount of transfer of ideas when the visiting professors explain their works and how they use these concepts.

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW: UNDERSTANDING CIVILIZATION

The main point in this subject is to understand civilization. How? By getting to know in a deeper way the “image of the other”, which would lead to the better understanding of one’s own place in the world at the same time.

In other words, the main point of the Old and the New World is to establish the pertinence the Czech and Moravians had when the American conquest and colony took place. It is an excellent way of establishing the mutual influence America and Europe have upon each other.