Facing Europe in Crisis: Shakespeare’s World and Present Challenges Erasmus Project

Project Title

Facing Europe in Crisis: Shakespeare’s World and Present Challenges

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The NEW FACES project brought together teacher-researchers, researchers and students from 9 European universities. The good coverage of the European territory made it possible to take into consideration cultural differences and research fields: France, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Netherlands.

In addition to the 9 partner universities, members of other European universities and members of non-governmental and governmental organizations were invited to speak at conferences or discussions. The students also met local NGOs working for social inclusion or for the protection of the environment.

The NEW FACES project idea emerged with the observation of a need for collective and intergenerational reflection given the complexity of current crises in the world and in Europe. Its purpose is to promote the historical and literary understanding of cultural, linguistic, political, social, religious and economic crises, but also to provide our society with tools to deal with them.

The project can be summarised in 3 types of activities :
– Development of a NEW FACES corpus gathering panels and papers of teacher-researchers and students
– 3 intensive programmes (bringing together around 20 teachers and 180 students over 3 years)
– 3 conferences and discussions

Activities resulted in 6 intellectual outputs :
1. A presentation of the teaching materials of the 3 intensive programmes
2. The videos of panels during the “PreFACES” conference (“Why NEW FACES” videos)
3. Panels videos organized in Szeged during the first intensive programme
4. A selection of the best student essays from the 3 cohorts who participated in the intensive programmes
5. The creation of a first volume translated into French “What can we do with Shakespeare»: it brings together all 13 articles produced as well as a video interview.
6. The production of a second volume available in several languages “Facing Europe in crisis: Shakespeare’s World and Present challenges” in which the work of 8 teachers-researchers is compiled

Thanks to the high-level teaching modules combined with the creation of interactions between students and partners of the civil society, actors in the resolution of the current crises, NEW FACES encourages future European citizens to face crises by drawing from the study of Shakespeare’s world the tools necessary to analyse and influence present and future political decisions. This project has provided the decision-makers of today and tomorrow with tools to contextualise, decipher and rethink the challenges that Europe is experiencing and to contribute to the cohesion of the Europe of tomorrow and to promote respect for diversity.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 437671,22 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITE PAUL-VALERY MONTPELLIER3 & Country: FR

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD DE MURCIA
• UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLONSKI
• UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN
• SZEGEDI TUDOMANYEGYETEM
• UNIVERZITA KARLOVA
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FERRARA
• UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT