CfP: 'Imagining Europe: Perspectives, Perceptions and Representations from Antiquity to the Present'

[Coen Maas]

IMAGINING EUROPE - PERSPECTIVES, PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS 
FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE PRESENT
Call for Papers - LUICD Graduate Conference 2011

Leiden University Institute for Cultural Disciplines
27 and 28 January 2011 



Confirmed key note speakers: 

Professor Edith Hall, Royal Holloway, University of London
Professor Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University


THE CONFERENCE

‘Qui parle Europe a tort. Notion géographique’. Otto von Bismarck's elliptic 
remark, scribbled in the margin of a letter from Alexander Gorchakov in 1876, 
would go on to become one of the most often-quoted statements about 
Europe. But was Bismarck right? Is Europe nothing but a geographical notion? 
Even the briefest glance at history shows that more often than not 
perceptions and definitions of Europe go beyond the mere geographical 
demarcation of a continent. In 1919, for instance, Paul Valéry imagined Europe 
as a living creature, with ‘a consciousness acquired through centuries of 
bearable calamities, by thousands of men of the first rank, from innumerable 
geographical, ethnic and historical coincidences’. Of course this is only one of 
a multitude of different representations. Europe has always signified different 
things to different people in different places – inside Europe as well as outside. 
Europe meant, for instance, something different to Voltaire, l’aubergiste 
d’Europe, at Ferney in the 1760s than to Athanasius Kircher in Rome a century 
earlier or to Barack Obama in Washington today.

This conference explores the different ways in which Europe has been 
imagined and represented, from inside as well as outside Europe and from 
classical antiquity to the present day. This wide scope reflects the historical 
range of the LUICD’s three research programmes (Classics and Classical 
Civilization, Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Modern and Contemporary 
Studies) as well as the intercontinental focus of many of the institute’s 
research projects. The conference aims to present a diachronic perspective of 
some of the many images of Europe, with particular attention to the historical, 
cultural and economic contexts in which these images were created and the 
media and genres in which they have been presented. 

Although the emphasis of the conference lies on different and changing 
perspectives, perceptions and representations, it also wants to explore the 
notion of similarity – are there any aspects that keep recurring in the different 
visions, aspects that might even be said to be intrinsically European? 

The conference aims to provide a platform for graduate students in the 
humanities, from Leiden as well as other universities in the Netherlands and 
abroad, to present and exchange their ideas in an international and 
interdisciplinary environment. The organising committee is honoured that 
Professor Jonathan Israel and Professor Edith Hall have accepted our invitation 
to act as keynote speakers and participate in discussions during the 
conference.  

PROPOSALS

The LUICD Graduate Conference aims to reflect the institute’s interdisciplinary 
and international character and as such welcomes proposals from graduate 
students from all disciplines within the humanities, from universities from the 
Netherlands as well as abroad. The conference wants to present a variety of 
different perspectives on Europe (from within as well as outside the European 
continent) and those working in fields related to other continents are 
particularly encouraged to submit a proposal. 

Subjects may include historical events, processes and discourses, textual 
and/or visual representations, literary or art canons, colonial and post-colonial 
relations, philosophical developments and political issues. Questions that could 
be raised include: how did (and do) oppositions such as barbarism versus 
civilization, Christianity versus paganism or old versus new worlds relate to the 
conceptualization of Europe? What role does (perceived) cultural superiority 
play in these oppositions? What ideas might be regarded as predecessors of or 
alternatives to the concept of Europe? In what ways did (and do) forms of 
universalism and regionalism compete with identity formation on a continental 
level? How have individual artists represented Europe? How do different 
(literary) genres, such as travel literature, historiography or letters, construct 
a particular image of Europe or Europe’s relations with other cultures? Is it 
possible for art collections to imagine Europe or to question existing 
perceptions of Europe? How do migrant literature and cinema reflect the 
changing identity of Europe today? 

Please send your proposal (max. 300 words) for a 20-minute paper to 
C.Maas at hum.leidenuniv.nl.  The deadline for the proposals is 1 November 
2010 – you will be notified whether or not your proposal has been selected 
before 15 November 2010.  

After the conference, the proceedings will be published either on-line or in 
book form. More information on this will follow in due course. 

If you have any questions regarding the conference and/or the proposal, 
please do not hesitate to contact us at the above e-mail address. More 
information about the conference will be published on the conference 
webpage, which will go online this summer.



The organizing committee:

Drs. Thera Giezen
Drs. Jacqueline Hylkema
Drs. Coen Maas

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