European Culture as a Mirage

• • 
  • Presentation speakers
    • Diederick Slijkerman, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
  • Download presentation
    • Diederick Slijkerman - European Culture as a Mirage.pdf

  Abstract:

  Is there a European culture? For this question research is done in literature about the history of the United Kingdom, France and Germany in the 20th century. How do politicians, journalists and scientists think about Europe? Can we speak of European traditions and mentality? Or, are national traditions still dominating? Which kind of perceptions exist about Europe? There are different kinds of motives for striving towards a European identity, such as economic, political, cultural and social ones. It is argued that a European culture in effect does not exist. If we speak of a European culture we, at the utmost, mean Western culture. Europe is a chimera. E.g. in health, immigration or policy each Member State makes a choice of its own. European unity is cooperation for economic and political motives, strategic in origin and purpose. The European institutions do not have legitimate grounds. In that sense, Brexit can be conceived as a natural reaction and exemplary of the meaning of European culture at a national level.

 

Related Presentations

 

Globalization and Foreign Policy in Southern Europe

• Pedro Ponte e Sousa

European Historicism Out of Fashion?

• Natalia Danilkina

“Europe” in the Minds of Eastern European Intellectuals

• Anamaria Remete

European Photographic Surveys and Man-Altered Landscapes

• Chiara Salari

Cassidy and the Relief of the Stage Irish Trope: Boucicault’s Critique of the British Empire

• Vanessa Maramba

Understanding National snd Political Identity in Germany and Soviet Russia through Theatre

• Hannah Meiklejohn