The Fourth Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions Again

13 – 14 November 2015

Palazzo Bernardini, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

Keynote Speaker: James E. Block (DePaul University, Chicago, USA)

 
Conference Description:
 
Some say that the 21st Century or modernity altogether made humans more concerned with doing rather than being. As the classical Greek civilization valued most the reflexive thinking as a form of freedom from natural necessities, contemporary times profoundly involve individuals and the imaginary accompanying social practices in a restless logic of consumption, competition and engagement that profoundly – or some would say, radically – suspends or indefinitely postpones the autonomous capacity of human beings to question and reflect upon the social order and the meaning of social practices. The fast advancement of a peculiar logic of post-industrial societies, the gradual dissolution of alternative models to the capitalist logic and a multitude of other alerting factors pushed ahead a global spread culture of one-dimensional productions of meaning that advances a closure rather than a constant reflexive re-evaluation of cultural and social practices.
 
The Fourth Euroacademia Global Forum of Critical Studies aims to bring into an open floor the reflexive and questioning interaction among academics, intellectuals, practitioners and activists profoundly concerned with evaluative understandings of the world we’re living in. The focus of the forum is to initiate an arena where no question is misplaced and irrelevant as long as we acknowledge that evaluation, critical thinking and contestation are accessible trajectories to better understand our past, present and alternative scenarios for the future. The Forum is also an open stage for sharing existing or ready formed intellectual visions and expose them to dialogue and scrutiny in a critically reflective environment.
 

Conference Panels

Keynote Presentation: From Scarcity to Emancipation: Renewing the Promise of Post-Industrial Liberation

Politics of Visual Representation: From Artistic Collectives to Deconstructed Identities in Performing Arts

Urban Transformations: Personal Urbanities, Public Spaces and Historical Readings of Urban Image Construction

Performing Identity: Reflecting on Artist’s Constitution, Stewardship, and the Social Reception of Artistic Performance

Urban Transformations, Transition and Change in Urban Image Construction

The Sequential Art: Comics as a Cultural Nexus

Society, Politics and Economies: Critical Evaluations of Systems, Movements, Markets and Social Practices

Art History and Representations of Identity

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Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (Third Edition)

19 – 20 June 2015

Palazzo Bernardini, Lucca, Italy

The Third Euroacademia International Conference ‘Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities’ aims to scrutinize the state of the art in collective identities research, to bring once more into debate the processes of identity making, identity building in both constructivist or de-constructivist dimensions. It is the aim of the Euroacademia conference to open the floor for dynamic multi-dimensional and inter-disciplinary understandings of identities in their historic formation or in the way they shape the present and future of organizations or communities.
 
Euroacademia aims to bring together a wide network of academics, researchers, practitioners and activists that are willing to share and open to debate their research on identity related topics. Disciplinary, trans and inter-disciplinary approaches, methodological assessments and recommendations, single case studies or cross-sectional analyses, reflective essays, experience sharing or works addressing new puzzles are all welcomed.
 

Conference Panels

Art and Identity Making: Self-Representation, Self–Projection and Life Practices

Cultural Belonging, Collective Identities and Politics of Representation through Difference

Identities and the Cities: Urban Transformations, Transition and Change in Urban Image Construction

History, Memory and Identity: Re-Invention of the Past through Artistic Narratives

Performing Identities in Writing: Literature and Textual Strategies of Identity Making

Identity and the Visual: The Role of Visual Representation in Shaping Identitarian Signifiers

Society, Politics and Identity Making Practices

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Re-Inventing Eastern Europe (The Fourth Edition)

24 – 26 April 2015
4* Metropolitan Hotel
Krakow, Poland

With a visit of Auschwitz – Birkenau on 26th of April

 
Eastern Europe was invented as a region and continues to be re-invented from outside and inside. From outside its invention was connected with alterity making processes, and, from inside the region, the Central and Eastern European countries got into a civilizational beauty contest themselves in search of drawing the most western profile: what’s Central Europe, what’s more Eastern, what’s more Ottoman, Balkan, Byzantine, who is the actual kidnapped kid of the West, who can build better credentials by pushing the Easterness to the next border. A wide variety of scholars addressed the western narratives of making the Eastern European ‘other’ as an outcome of cultural politics of enlightenment, as an effect of EU’s need to delineate its borders, as an outcome of its views on security, or as a type of ‘orientalism’ or post-colonialism. Most of these types of approaches are still useful in analyzing the persistence of a East-West slope. The region is understood now under a process of convergence, socialization and Europeanization that will have as outcomes an ‘ever closer union’ where the East and the West will fade away as categories. Yet the reality is far from such an outcome while the persistence of categories of alterity making towards the ‘East’ is not always dismantled. The discourses on core/non-core, new Europe/old Europe, pioneers/followers, teachers/pupils, centre/periphery, cosmos/chaos are often maintaining significant ground within the arena of European identity narratives often yet not exclusively voiced by the EU.

The Fourth Euroacademia International Conference ‘Re-Inventing Eastern Europe’ aims rather than asserting to make a case and to provide alternative views on the dynamics, persistence and manifestations of the practices of alterity making that take place in Europe and broadly in the mental mappings of the world. It offers an opportunity for scholars, activists and practitioners to locate, discuss and debate the multiple dimensions in which specific narratives of alterity making towards Eastern Europe preserve their salience today in re-furbished and re-fashioned manners. The conference aims to look at the processes of alterity making as puzzles and to address the persistence of the East-West dichotomies.
 

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The 5th Euroacademia Conference ‘Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers’

27 – 28 March 2015, Barcelona, Spain

 
What is Europe and its place in the world? Is there something particular that sedimented in time and through a controversial history a European way? How does Europe see itself and how do others see it? Is Europe inclusive or club-based exclusive? Is Europe becoming a normative power or just envisages itself as one? Is the European multiculturalism a fact or an ideal? Is the European Union a reflection of Europe or an appropriation of it? These are just few questions out of an enormous space for inquiry that are to be addressed and confronted within the topic of the conference.

 
The 5th Euroacademia Conference ‘Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers’ became a regular event to take place in every year in a different European location. After four successful editions – the first one in Vienna, the second in Paris, the third in Prague and the fourth in Athens – Euroacademia moves the stage of reflection, sharing, dialogue, debate and research dissemination on Europe to one of its most amazing cities: Barcelona. Join us!
 

New Panels

Thinking Europe: Philosophy, Autonomy and Culture

Histories and Imaginaries: European Art versus American Art

Performing Identity: The Relationship between Identity and Performance in Literature, Theater and the Performing Arts

(En)Gendering Identity: Gender in Culture, Education and Society

Urban Transformations, Transition and Change in European Urban Image Construction

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The Third Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions Again

6 – 7 February 2015
 

Villa Vittoria – Palazzo dei Congressi
Florence, Italy

Keynote Speaker: Mark Neufeld, Trent University, Canada

 
Conference Description:
 
Some say that the 21st Century or modernity altogether made humans more concerned with doing rather than being. As the classical Greek civilization valued most the reflexive thinking as a form of freedom from natural necessities, contemporary times profoundly involve individuals and the imaginary accompanying social practices in a restless logic of consumption, competition and engagement that profoundly – or some would say, radically – suspends or indefinitely postpones the autonomous capacity of human beings to question and reflect upon the social order and the meaning of social practices. The fast advancement of a peculiar logic of post-industrial societies, the gradual dissolution of alternative models to the capitalist logic and a multitude of other alerting factors pushed ahead a global spread culture of one-dimensional productions of meaning that advances a closure rather than a constant reflexive re-evaluation of cultural and social practices.
 

 
The Third Euroacademia Global Forum of Critical Studies aims to bring into an open floor the reflexive and questioning interaction among academics, intellectuals, practitioners and activists profoundly concerned with evaluative understandings of the world we’re living in. The focus of the forum is to initiate an arena where no question is misplaced and irrelevant as long as we acknowledge that evaluation, critical thinking and contestation are accessible trajectories to better understand our past, present and alternative scenarios for the future. The Forum is also an open stage for sharing existing or ready formed intellectual visions and expose them to dialogue and scrutiny in a critically reflective environment.
 

See Conference Details and Program 

Continue reading 

 

Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities

The Second Edition of the Euroacademia International Conference

Identities and Identifications

Politicized Uses of Collective Identities

17 – 18 October 2014

Florence, Italy

 
The Second Euroacademia International Conference ‘Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities’ aims to scrutinize the state of the art in collective identities research, to bring once more into debate the processes of identity making, identity building in both constructivist or de-constructivist dimensions. It is the aim of the Euroacademia conference to open the floor for dynamic multi-dimensional and inter-disciplinary understandings of identities in their historic formation or in the way they shape the present and future of organizations or communities.

Continue reading 

 

The Third Euroacademia International Conference: The European Union and the Politicization of Europe

The Third Euroacademia International Conference

The European Union and the Politicization of Europe

26 – 27 September 2014

Lisbon, Portugal
5* Eurostars Hotel das Letras

 
Is the EU becoming an increasingly politicized entity? Is the on-going politicization of Europe a structured or a messy one? Do political parties within the European Parliament act in a manner that strengthens the view of the EU as an articulate political system? Are there efficient ways for addressing the democratic deficit issue? Can we find usable indicators for detecting an emerging European demos and a European civil society? Does a Europeanization of the masses take place or the EU remains a genuinely elitist project? Did the Lisbon Treaty introduced significant changes regarding the challenges facing the EU? Can we see any robust improvements in the accountability of the EU decision making processes? Are there alternative ways of looking at the politicization processes and redistributive policies inside the EU? These are only few of the large number of questions that unfold when researchers or practitioners look at the EU. It is the aim of the Third Euroacademia International Conference ‘The European Union and the Politicization of Europe’ to address in a constructive manner such questions and to offer o platform for dissemination of research results or puzzles that can contribute to a better understanding of the on-going process of politicization within the European Union.
 

Conference Panels

The Politicisation of Europe: EU as a Political System, Supranational Order or Ever Closer Community

The Persistence of the Democratic Deficit in the European Union

Assessing the European Union’s External Influence: Foreign Policy and Normative Actorness

Cultural Diplomacy and Performing Identities: From Literature to Visual Urban Spaces

European Union’s External Perception and Impact as a Transformative Power

Educational Policies of Europeanization, Mobility ad Internationalization

European Politics and Economic Development: Domestic and Regional Dimensions

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The 4th Euroacademia Global Conference ‘Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeaness Exposed to Plural Observers’

23-24 May 2014, Athens, Greece

5* Electra Palace Hotel

 
What is Europe and its place in the world? Is there something particular that sedimented in time and through a controversial history a European way? How does Europe see itself and how do others see it? Is Europe inclusive or club-based exclusive? Is Europe becoming a normative power or just envisages itself as one? Is the European multiculturalism a fact or an ideal? Is the European Union a reflection of Europe or an appropriation of it? These are just few questions out of an enormous space for inquiry that are to be addressed and confronted within the topic of the conference.
 
The 4th Euroacademia Conference ‘Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeaness Exposed to Plural Observers’ became a regular event to take place in every year in a different European location. After three successful editions – the first one in Vienna, the second in Paris and the third in Prague – Euroacademia moves the stage of reflection, sharing, dialogue, debate and research dissemination on Europe to its origins where the specificity of European thinking and world vision has emerged: in Athens. Join us!
 

New Panels

Art as Cultural Diplomacy

Thinking Europe: Philosophy, Autonomy and Culture

The European Way – Identitarian Representations of Europe in Visual Arts, Performing Arts and Literature

Europe and the European Union: Politicizing Europeaness

Histories and Imaginaries: European Art versus American Art

See Conference Details and Program 
 

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Re-Inventing Eastern Europe (The Third Edition)

The Third International Conference

Re-Inventing Eastern Europe

28 – 29 March 2014
Berlin, Germany
 

The Third Euroacademia International Conference ‘Re-Inventing Eastern Europe’ aims rather than asserting to make a case and to provide alternative views on the dynamics, persistence and manifestations of the practices of alterity making that take place in Europe and broadly in the mental mappings of the world. It offers an opportunity for scholars, activists and practitioners to locate, discuss and debate the multiple dimensions in which specific narratives of alterity making towards Eastern Europe preserve their salience today in re-furbished and re-fashioned manners. The conference aims to look at the processes of alterity making as puzzles and to address the persistence of the East-West dichotomies.