Calendar

“The Idea and Futures of Europe”, Conference in Siena

From Tuesday, May 23, 2023
To Thursday, May 25, 2023

In May 2023, The Center for European Studies, Rutgers University, Simon Fraser University’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies, in collaboration with Universita per Stranieri di Siena will host a conference in Siena with the title, “The Idea and Futures of Europe”.

Siena is an ideal space for such a conference for two reasons. Its status as a Medieval city puts it in an angled relation with a certain narrative of Europe as the endpoint of civilization, which requires a line from antiquity to Renaissance to Enlightenment. At the same time, because of its location asthe site of the University for Foreign Students (founded 30 years ago),Siena has a tradition of hosting students from all over the world—in more recent times also thousands of migrants. This makes it a perfect location for a conference reflecting on how Europe has transformed in the last few decades and try to make sense what it is becoming and where it is going and adds to its appeal as a space to host the workshop’s investment in immigration and refugee issues as central to Europe’s future.

Comprising historians, literary and cultural critics, linguists and anthropologists, this workshop invites scholars from diverse disciplines and methodological orientations to reflect on the idea of Europe, as well as on the challenges facing Europe as ethnonationalism rises, the political-economic crises precipitated in the European South and East by the neoliberal capture of the European union, and the crises precipitated by the refugee and migrant presence in the absence of an adequate reckoning with Europe’s colonial past and its continuing colonial practices in Africa.

A list of participants will be announced shortly.