WiSe 2025/26

“Driving Europe” – Transport Infrastructure and Automobility in Europe: Fuel Past and Green Futures

The aim of the seminar is to analyze Europe, its past and future from a specific angle – that of transport infrastructure and automobility. The argument for this view refers to the importance of transport infrastructure as “society constructed and society shaping” (T. Hughes) and creating both integration and disintegration, as well as different identities. The history of the constitution of “Europe” and European unification cannot be fully understood without the analysis of transport routes – roads and highways, their social functions and symbolic meanings. This history is inevitably linked to the development of automobility, which, in addition to its pragmatic uses, becomes a symbol of such modern European values as freedom, autonomy, mobility, individual consumerism, etc. However, the contemporary situation poses challenges to the spread of automobility - climate changes and the categorical need to reduce carbon emissions. Do these challenges change the attitude and vision of automobility, what does sustainable transport mean, should individual desires be limited at the expense of public transport? In turn, what does this mean for regulations in a united Europe?

These are the questions that the seminar poses for discussion. It relies on student activity and discussions. The course assessment will depend on one presentation of selected texts from the indicated literature, two short reaction papers and a final essay.