Euroacademia Conferences
Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers (9th Edition)April 24 - 25, 2020
Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (9th Edition)June 12 - 13, 2020
8th Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions AgainJanuary 24 - 25, 2020
Re-Inventing Eastern Europe (7th Edition)December 13 - 14, 2019
The European Union and the Politicization of Europe (8th Edition)October 25 - 26, 2019
Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (8th Edition)June 28 - 29, 2019
The European Union and the Politicization of Europe (7th Edition)January 25 - 26, 2019- 7th Forum of Critical Studies: Asking Big Questions AgainNovember 23 - 24, 2018
Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness Exposed to Plural Observers (8th Edition)September 28 - 30, 2018- Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities (7th Edition)June 14 - 15, 2018
Papers
“YOLOCAUST: You Only Live Once.” Holocaust and New Form of Representation
Since the Nineties Berlin has become the public space for several monuments and memorials to commemorate the extermination of the Jews. In this paper, starting from Yolocaust, I intend to analyse the relationship between Holocaust and new forms of representation. At the same time, through this analyse I’d like to observe the perception of the Holocaust in the society, especially in the post-memory era.From Barbaric Noise to Beloved Melodies – An Organ Grinder and Sonic Identity of the City in Nineteenth-Century Soundscape of Warsaw
Since my research project is about Warsaw at the turn of nineteenth and twentieth century, I will draw examples from this particular soundscape.Not surprisingly, the distinction of how the inhabitants would approach an organ grinder is of a class. One more aspect is worth examining, which makes a Warsaw organ grinder different from, say, the London one: in the context of the city without autonomy under the Russian authority, an organ grinder – unintentionally, I guess – turned at times into a national hero, when playing religious songs and church antiphons.Cultural Diplomacy “of Great Propagandistic Value”: The First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin 1922
The First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1922 was by then certainly the major event of official Soviet cultural diplomacy in Germany. It was a materialization of the Treaty of Rapallo, signed between Soviet Russia and Germany in April 1922, that marked the beginning of a German-Soviet special relationship within the cultural sphere. In my paper I intend to contextualize the exhibition within the development of Soviet cultural diplomacy in Germany and to give an insight into the institutional possibilities and restraints for Soviet artists that varied within the 1920s.The New Phenomenology: Re-discovering Emotions through Atmospheres
In the modern age, among all the cultural and societal conquers, we are all spectators as well as victims of a deep solipsistic isolation and a sort of "disembodiment", i.e., the dissolution of the own body as the sounding board of emotions in collective contexts. The present talk wants to propose again the phenomenological lesson on the lived body, conceived as "the real core of subjectivity" , both from Merleau-Ponty's works and the New Phenomenology, which is a totally new project in philosophy aiming at exploring the atmospheric, pre-cognitive dimension of existence, against all the technological self-alienation.Enlightenment Reloaded: How to Become Better as Individuals and Humankind?
With Kant, who was an academic teacher for more than 40 years and also a philosopher-educator of the enlightenment, my attempt is to show how we can do our best to teach freedom. If you are interested in the question how we as humans can become better, you are invited to re-think Kant’s thoughts on morality and to find helpful equipment for your autonomous thinking to re-ask the big questions in the new contexts of our days.Recurring of Enlightened Dark Ages: Rethinking the Discourse of Democracy through the Nietzschean Framework of the Death of God
This paper aspires to argue that democracy gradually becomes an alienated kind of religious belief that serves as the absolute truth of the postmodern age for those political protesters. Following these premises, this paper aims at rethinking the discourse of democracy through contextualizing it under the prism of the death of god. It argues that democracy actually takes up the former position of the theist god, becoming a sophistic kind of truth that forms the belief of postmodernism.Ideology and Creation in Marx´s Historical Materialism: A Problem of Justification
I consider three interpretations of Marx´s claim that the materialist answer to the question of Creation will be clear under communism, but argue that all fail because Marx does not give any independent reasons for believing that people´s beliefs under communism enjoy any epistemic superiority to the ones that are held now. I finally conclude, in line with Daniel Brudney, that Marx´s failure to provide such a justification could be indicative of Marx´s general incapacity to provide abstract justification due to his rejection of philosophy.
On the Edge of ‘Europe’? A Polish Bridge Between East and West?
The paper will consider the extent to which Poland’s geographical position on the edge of the Euro-Atlantic security community influences its relations with its neighbours in both east and west. It has been observed that Poland’s eastern policy is its ‘specialism’, and that it can potentially act as a bridge between Eastern Europe and the European Union. While Poland has clearly been supportive of Ukraine’s efforts to regain control over its eastern territories, differences between the way the two countries’ view their respective histories, and disputes over the way each other’s minority communities are being treated, has complicated their relations. From the perspective of many Western European countries, Poland’s potential for promoting democracy in Eastern Europe has been weakened given the controversies that have surrounded the current government’s constitutional reforms.The Conflict of American and Russian Influence on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia
The territory of former Yugoslavia has historically been marked by a lasting conflict of civilizations and religions, to which nowadays the conflict of geopolitical interests of Russia and the USA, respectively, adds its share. With the fall of communist regimes in the 1990’s and the ensuing dismemberment of former Yugoslavia, new national states came into existence, destabilizing the whole region and ultimately leading into chaos which took the shape of the sanguinary Yugoslav Wars. This paper analyzes the momentary relationships and potential future developments concerning the American and Russian influence on the territory of former Yugoslavia. With respect to this, it poses several questions. What are the ways in which Russia attempts to keep its influence in the region? Who are the main actors in related struggles for political power? What are the principal instruments by which the USA and Russia, respectively, seek to promote their interests?European Integration Through Pragmatic Considerations: A Complex Relationship Between its Wanted and Unwanted Aspects
The paper discusses political and intellectual elites and populations’ discourses on European Integration in Georgia. It focuses on Georgians’ pragmatic expectations related to European integration in terms of protecting human rights and safeguarding the country against Russian threats. The research is based on the mixed-method approach integrating both qualitative and quantitative components. The target group consists of, on the one hand, political and intellectual elites who have been inquired based on in-depth interviews, and on the other hand, population residing in the capital and main cities of Eastern and Western Georgia, who have participated in focus group discussions.
