The aim of the seminar is to propose a reflection on the concept of Europe and its contradictory founding narratives – from its Christian and Hellenic roots, to its Enlightenment values - confronting them with the effective multiculture (Paul Gilroy) of the ‘old continent’. How is difference/ culture produced, enacted, contested and negotiated? How are boundaries drawn through political discourses or cultural practices? What is the role of academic discourse in giving sense to them? Drawing on a set of representative texts that include examples from a diverse range of disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, and visual and film studies, we shall discuss the mentioned items in order to consider the ways in which academic work may be able to contribute to dislocate classic notions of Europe and reframe European concepts of the nation, and its ‘others’. |
