CONGRESSO INTERNACIONAL IDEIAS DE EUROPA / IDEIAS PARA A EUROPA
Chemnitz - Alemanha
6-8.mai.2009
http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/europastudien/swandel/europe/index.php
The notion of Europe is associated with a vast range of intellectual, cultural, and political possibilities. Research on Europe tends to invoke biases and a high degree of ideological reductionism that undermines efforts to pursue nuanced and productive forms of reflection.
The conference organisers ask whether there is a way of approaching the essence of the European character without reducing the discussion to essentialism. Is there a way of navigating the mazes that separate questions from answers when we think about Europe?
The aim of the international conference, Ideas of Europe / Ideas for Europe, is precisely to map a better and deeper understanding of Europe, without relinquishing reasoned discourse and ethical dialogue.
The conference will address the double meaning of its title, bearing in mind that the object of reflection intersects with multiple fields of theoretical representation. We thus ask the speakers to centre their analyses on the following five panel topics.
The conference will take place in Chemnitz, 6-8 May 2009, under the patronage of the President of the European Commission, Mr. José Manuel Barroso. Mr. Barroso will officially close this conference.
Prof. Dr. Viriato Soromenho-Marques
President of the Scientific Committee
Panel Topics:
1 – Europe before Europe
What was the conceptual status of “Europe” prior to modernity – i.e. during Antiquity and the Middle Ages? How were ideas about Europe shaped and what was the geographical understanding of Europe’s place on the globe?
2 – Early modern Europe
How did the thinkers of modernity conceive of their own European identity and of the historical and spiritual implications of such a profound shift in the European mentality?
3 – Europe between Enlightenment and the Holocaust
What were the implications for European identity and for the future during the period that stretched from the hopeful Enlightenment and the twilight of rationality to the planned hubris of the Holocaust?
4 – Europe as seen by others
For centuries, Europe was dominated by an internalised law of expansion, aiming to replicate itself in vast areas of the world. How has Europe tended to be seen by peoples on other continents?
5 – Europe and its future prospects
Vacillating between constitutional designs, along the lines of long envisioned European Federalism, and demands for devolution and national identity - what are the prospects for the European future in a world subject to global hopes and even more widespread fears and imminent dangers?
Organising Institutions
Chemnitz University of Technology
CLEPUL – Centre for Literatures in Portuguese of the Universities of Lisbon
CompaRes – International Society for Iberian-Slavonic Studies
European Institute for Cultural Sciences Padre Manuel Antunes
Scientific Committee
President:
Viriato Soromenho-Marques (University of Lisbon)
Members:
Vanessa Agnew (University of Michigan)
Ulrike Brummert (Chemnitz University of Technology)
Beata Elżbieta Cieszyńska (Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz)
José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli (University of Salamanca)
José Eduardo Franco (University of Lisbon)
António Sampaio da Nóvoa (University of Lisbon, the Rector)
Teresa Pinheiro (Chemnitz University of Technology)
János Riesz (University of Bayreuth)
Annabela Rita (CLEPUL / University of Lisbon)
Helmut Siepmann (RWTH Aachen University)
Margaret Tejerizo (University of Glasgow)
Bernard Vincent (École des Hautes Études En Sciences Sociales, Paris)
Executive Committee
Beata Elżbieta Cieszyńska (Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz)
José Eduardo Franco (University of Lisbon)
María Isabel Morán Cabanas (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Teresa Pinheiro (Chemnitz University of Technology)
Paulo Mendes Pinto (University of Lisbon)
Mariagrazia Russo (University of Viterbo)
Jörg Seidel (Chemnitz University of Technology)
Ignacio Pulido Serrano (University of Alcalá de Henares)
Christine Vogel (University of Rostock)
Invited Associated Institutions
• Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw
• Centre for Philosophy, University of Lisbon
• Centre Jean Monnet, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin
• Department of Culture and Identity, Roskilde
• Departamento de História da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
• École des Hautes Éstudes, Paris
• Europainstitut Klaus Mehnert, Kaliningrad
• European Research Institute, Cluj-Napoca
• European Studies Institute at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Moscow
• European University Institute, Florence
• Forschungszentrum Europäische Aufklärung, Potsdam
• Institute of European Studies, Budapest
• Institute of European Studies and International Relations, Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence, Bratislava
• Institute of International Studies at Charles University, Prague • International Committee of Slavists, Skopje
• London School of Economics and Political Sciences, London
• Madariaga European Foundation, Brussels
• The European Studies in Asia, Singapore
• The Institute for European Studies at International University Audentes, Tallinn
• The Institute of European Studies, Ljubljana
• The School of High Comparative European Studies, University of the West Timisoara, Timisoara
• Willy Brandt Zentrum für Deutschland- und Europastudien, University of Wrocław
Invited Speakers
• Aleida Assmann (University of Konstanz)
• Zygmunt Bauman (University of Leeds), confirmed
• Ingrid Baumgärtner (University of Kassel), confirmed
• Lucian Boia (University of Bucharest), confirmed
• Erhard Busek (Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe, Austria), confirmed
• Norman Davies (Wolfson College, Cambridge)
• Mary del Priore (University Salgado de Oliveira, Rio de Janeiro), confirmed
• Umberto Eco (University of Bologna)
• Manuel J. C. Ferreira (University of Lisbon)
• Michael Harbsmeier (Roskilde University), confirmed
• Charles Kupchan (Georgetown University)
• Halina Janaszek-Ivaničková (University of Silesia), confirmed
• Eduardo Lourenço (Vence)
• Valmir Muraro (Federal University de Santa Catarina), confirmed
• János Riesz (University of Bayreuth), confirmed
• Gian Enrico Rusconi (University of Turin)
• Fernando Savater (Complutense University of Madrid)
• Jean-Frédéric Schaub (École des Hautes Études En Sciences Sociales, Paris), confirmed
• Jorge Semprún (Académie Goncourt, Paris)
• Helmut Siepmann (RWTH Aachen University), confirmed
• Peter Sloterdijk (Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe)
• Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek (Northeastern University), confirmed