20th Anniversary Documents

On the occasion of CEU's 20th Anniversary, all of the University’s academic departments have been asked to survey the most important intellectual developments of the past 20 years in their respective fields; assess the most significant contributions by the members of the faculty to their disciplines; and identify the emerging new academic challenges of their subject areas.

CEU community members are welcome to comment on the essays below. After logging in with your Novell password and ID, you may comment by clicking on 'add new comment' below the essay.

Department of Mathematics and its Applications

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 18, 2011
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The most interesting developments of the last 20 years and emerging/new developments in Mathematics

Mathematics is a special science with an impressively long history. Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), often said to be the greatest mathematician since antiquity, referred to it as the queen of sciences. While mathematics has its own internal development, usually known as pure mathematics, it is also an essential tool in many fields, including biology, chemistry, ecology, economics, engineering, medicine, physics and many others.

Twenty Years in Medieval Studies: Recent Developments and Departmental Contribution

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 18, 2011
in

Introduction

The present character of the Department of Medieval Studies developed organically from its original interdisciplinary mission and now covers a vast field: geographically (beginning with Western, Central and South-Eastern Europe via Byzantium to the East as far as the Caliphate, the Caucasus and even Southern India), and thematically (archaeology, art history, history, late antique studies, legal history, literature, the recently introduced Ottoman studies, Patristics, philosophy, theology, urban and environmental history and so forth).

Nationalism Studies Program

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 18, 2011
in

 The most interesting developments of the last 20 years in nationalism studies

Nationalism studies is an integrated interdisciplinary field of inquiry that embraces ethnicity and ethnopolitics, race and racism, and nations and nationalism in all the varied forms they have assumed through time.

Department of Philosophy

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 18, 2011
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20 years of CEU; 10 years of philosophy at CEU; 2500 years of philosophy

Profile of the department

Philosophy is one of the oldest disciplines in our intellectual tradition, and, unlike other ancient disciplines such as mathematics, for example, philosophy has always considered its history as an integral part of the discipline.

Department of Political Science

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 18, 2011
in

An overview of the fundamental developments of the last two decades and the department’s contribution to the field

Introduction

The apparent difficulty of summarizing the major developments within the field of political science betrays one of the fundamental current characteristics of the discipline: its impressive growth and its compartmentalization into a large number of almost self-sufficient sub-disciplines.

Methodology

For those within the field, the most spectacular changes have had to do with methodology.

Department of Public Policy

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 18, 2011
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Public policy is inherently a multidisciplinary subject. It addresses the just, legitimate and efficient delivery of public goods, by public, private or civil society organizations, at the local, national, regional or international level. The central questions concern what kind of political and social arrangements make for a just and well-functioning society. These questions have roots in the classical world and the enlightenment, and they have come to be addressed in modern universities across a range of disciplines.

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Submitted by iwinskaj on Mar 17, 2011
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The most interesting developments in sociology and anthropology in the last 20 years and the most interesting emerging developments

The development of social sciences happens in cycles rather than through incremental advancement or progress. Fundamental concepts tend to resurface in a slightly reconfigured context, so sociology and anthropology are prone to suspicion when it comes to scholarly innovations and discoveries. Sociologist Andrew Abbott argues that ideas and schools have a cycle of about twenty years, and some reappeared at twenty to thirty year intervals.