With Sweden and Turkey as case studies, the course deals with relationships between family patterns, religiously articulated traditions, and national and international legal systems. The course provides you with general tools for understanding and dealing with relations and conflicts of values in the encounter between disparate family systems, religions, and legal traditions. The course focuses on precisely these encounters and how they find expression in Sweden today. It is also of great interest to examine what we can learn from changes in Turkish society, where similar encounters and conflicts between different traditions and attitudes are playing out. We will visit Istanbul, where the meeting of different traditions is most pronounced. Potential conflicts in
the interpretation of rights and responsibilities regarding the family will be investigated against the background of the state and legal system, EU regulations, and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The course starts with a three-day session with board and accommodation, followed by some distance teaching, one week of field work in Istanbul, and individual work worth 7.5 credits. The mixture of forms of instruction makes the course suitable for individuals who already come into contact with these issues in their professional careers. The course week in Turkey is arranged in collaboration with the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul.
Istanbul – between two worlds
When Turkey was declared a republic in1923, the ambition was to establish a modern, homogeneous, and secular nation state. Religious courts were abolished, the Latin alphabet was introduced, and women were granted suffrage. Switzerland served as the model for a new civil code, while the penal and administrative codes were adopted were adopted from Italy and France respectively. Today the governing Islamist Party is pursuing a reform policy that has opened the door to membership talks with the EU.
With its 15 million residents, Istanbul is Europe’s largest city. It is not only where Europe meets Asia but also where European secular society meets religious traditions. Field trips in the city provide unique insights into the issues addressed in the course.
| Study venues:Stockholm/Uppsala/Lund and Istanbul |
Contact |
| Language:Swedish/English | |
| Period: This course is no longer offered by USI | |
| Pace:Half | |
| Application: It is no longer possible to apply for this course |
011-363 211 |
