The Idea of Europe: The Clash of Projections#
Institute of Slavic Studies, University of Vienna#
with support from the Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalism (University of Amsterdam) and the Institute of Jewish Studies (University of Antwerp) under the auspices of Academia Europaea.Venue: Aula at the Campus
Date: 8-10 September 2017
All members of Academia Europaea are cordially invited to attend the conference.#
Recent developments within and outside Europe have challenged the very idea of Europe, calling it into question and demanding reconsideration of its underlying assumptions. Since Aristotle’s times, Europeans have habitually associated themselves with dialogic openness and inclusiveness, as opposed to the despotic exclusiveness and violence that has marked other regimes and societies. The tradition of highlighting a peaceful, cosmopolitan European self-perception against a background of bellicose, non-European provincialism is well documented. This assumption has tended to occlude the – no less well-documented – fact that the unification of mankind and the growth of a global world system, triggered by Renaissance colonialism, was accompanied by exclusions and atrocities: plantations, factories, and colonies were among the principal laboratories of a European-centered concept of humanity. This conference raises the question whether this legacy at the present moment translates into power asymmetries. Does this humanity constitutively rely on a gap which serves to keep interests apart? Was the democratic freedom of the European political space purchased at the expense of violence applied beyond its borders and the concomitant normative pressures intensified toward its frontiers?
Organizational Committee (in alphabetical order):#
Vladimir Biti (University of Vienna)
Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam)
Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp)
Speakers#
Arsenijević, Damir
Assmann, Aleida
Avineri, Shlomo
Belge, Murat
Biti, Vladimir
Boldrini, Lucia
Cohen-Solal, Annie
Delanty, Gerard
Dominguez, César
Gasché, Rodolphe
Hansen-Löve, Aage
Inaga, Shigemi
Leerssen, Joep
Li, Yinbo
Liska, Vivian
Mork, Andrea
Programme#
FRIDAY 8 Sept.#
14:00 Registration/WelcomeSession One
Chair: Vivian Liska
14:30 Rodolphe Gasché (New York): An Idea Beyond the Idea: Europe in a Post-European Era
15:15 Gerard Delanty (Sussex): Can the European Heritage be Redeemed? Confessions of a Europeanist
16:00 Coffee
16:30 Joep Leerssen (Amsterdam): «The Campfire and the Hearth»: Europe’s Domestic Self-Image
17:15 Lucia Boldrini (London): Rock, Mirror, Mirage: Europe, elsewhere
19:30 Dinner in Zur goldenen Kugel
SATURDAY 9 Sept.#
Session Two
Chair: Joep Leerssen
09:00 Vladimir Biti (Vienna): Speaking for Europe? Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Reversed Ventriloquism
09:45 Andrea Mork (Brussels): The House of European History: Presenting Europe in the Museum
10:30 Damir Arsenijević (Leicester): Europe is Always Elsewhere
11:15 Coffee
11:45 César Dominguez (Santiago de Compostela) and Nikol Dziub (Mulhouse): The Other Europe: Post-Internal Colonies, Cultural Division of Labour and the European Union
12:30 Murat Belge (Ankara): The Rising Danger of Populist Politics in Europe
13:15 Lunch
Session Three
Chair: Vladimir Biti
14:45 Li Yinbo (Wuhan): The Recent Chinese Idea of Germany
15:30 Shigemi Inaga (Kyoto): A Pirate’s View of the World History and Commerce: Beyond the Maritime View of Civilisations
16:15 Aage Hansen-Löve (Munich): East Looks West and West Looks East: Images of Russia
19:00 Dinner in Heuriger Zimmermann
SUNDAY 10 Sept.#
Session Four
Chair: Lucia Boldrini
09:00 Shlomo Avineri (Jerusalem): The Historical Deficit of the European Union
09:45 Aleida Assmann (Konstanz): Learning from History? The Crisis and Future of the European Project
10:30 Coffee
11:00 Annie Cohen-Solal (Paris): In Search of an Ethical Compass: Sartre’s Relentless Concern with the «Other Ones» (1945-1965)
11:45 Vivian Liska (Antwerp): «This Leeway bestowed by Freedom»: Walter Benjamin’s Idea of Europe
12:30 Concluding discussion
