A Polarizing Europe
Identity, Aesthetics, and Radicalism in the Post WWII Era
Matrix is located on the 8th floor of Barrows Hall, on the UC Berkeley campus, near Telegraph and Bancroft Avenues, just up the hill from Sather Gate. There are entrances at both ends of the building, but only one of the elevators on the eastern side goes directly to the 8th floor. You can alternatively take the stairs to the 7th floor and walk up the stairs.
This conference, delivered by the Institute of European Studies and organized as part of a Social Science Matrix Research Team, will consider to what extent Europe appears to be polarizing along national, historiographic, social, economic, political, ethnic, and religious lines. The first panel, “Politics of Identity: Collective Memory, Conflict, Legality, and Solidarity,” examines the individual and collective aspects of identity in a changing Europe, the borders of which are constantly extending themselves beyond the initial EU countries.
The second panel, “Political Economy: Nation and Identity in Europe,” will address relations between economic and political institutions and their influence on culture and the political ideology of a nation-state.
The final panel, “Myth and Memory: (Re)Writing History in the Hands of the Artist,” engages with memory, aesthetics, and the arts in posing questions regarding cultural and national heritage, history, and political organization in the post-war era. The conference will conclude with a keynote panel discussion—“All things considered: How do academics negotiate rigorous study with contemporary crisis in Europe?”—focused on today’s political and social climates in Europe.