Contemporary Europe

Faculty Coordinators: Patricia Mazon (History), Vasiliki Neofotistos (Anthropology)

 

The focus of this Research Workshop is the exploration from a variety of disciplinary perspectives of social, political, economic and cultural processes that have been unfolding in the European continent since the 1990s. Questions that we aim to explore include the following. How does European contemporary European historiography tackle some of the difficult events of the recent past, such as the unification of Europe and the wars in the Balkans? What are some of the implications of the financial crisis that struck Europe almost six years ago? What are the opportunities and challenges of migration in Europe? What role does gender play in public life? What kind of changes have appeared in the cultural systems in Europe since it has entered the postsocialist era? Specifically, how has the global neoliberal turn changed the cultural production in the region? The participants to the Research Workshop will help identify additional broad questions of interest to them. Our goal is to undertake, through meetings and lectures by a couple of invited speakers, a comprehensive review of a wide range of interdisciplinary issues relating to contemporary Europe. The proposed Research Workshop, in addition, aims to provide an opportunity, through monthly write-ins, for faculty and graduate students to produce written work.

 

Events

Spring 2015

Friday, February 20, 11:00AM
Book Discussion
Location: 830 Clemens Hall
“Poor but Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West” by Agata Pyzik
Discussion led by Katja Praznik

Friday, March 27, 11:00AM
Location: 830 Clemens Hall
Uli Linke, Rochester Institute of Technology

 

Fall 2014

Friday, September 19, 11:00AM
Location: 830 Clemens
Book Discussion: The Moral Neoliberal: Welfare and Citizenship in Italy by Andrea Muehlebach (2012, Chicago University Press)

Friday, October 17, 11AM
Faculty Presentation
Location: 830 Clemens Hall
Barbara Wejnert, Department of Transnational Studies
“The Road of Tears: The Stories of Post-war Immigrants in Europe”