Conference: "Transcending Europe"

12.4.2012 till 13.4.2012

TRANSCENDING EUROPE

NB. KEYNOTE ADDRESS OF DENIS GUÉNOUN IS CANCELLED

for health reasons !!!!

conference starts on tursday 12 april at 13.00

A conference organised by the "University of Helsinki Network for European Studies" project "Rethinking Cultural Diversity in Europe"

Date: 12. - 13. april 2012
Venue: University of Helsinki

Europe, today, is at pains with its universality. On the one hand, it appears as a universal construction that cannot satisfy particularistic passions within, and on the other hand, it appears as only a particular culture that cannot match the universality of the global world.

But what is European universality? In the conference "Transcending Europe" it will be studied as a philosophical concept: as the paradox of a "situated universality". Maybe European universality cannot be understood as a model that could be used as a source of identification, but rather as a regulative principle with ethical and political dimensions? Maybe Europe is not a particular idea imposing itself on a global framework of thought, but a desire of universality that can only be realöoised as a constant self-transgression and openness towards what is other to it?

The conference 'Transcending' Europe looks for new philosophical articulations of European universality, its way of being supranational without being global and of being ideal without being merely cultural.

The keynote speakers of the conference are Rodolphe Gasché, who has recently published "Europe, or the Infinite Task. A Study of a Philosophical Concept", and Denis Guénoun, whose "Hypothèses sur l'Europe: un essai de philosophie" will soon be published in English.

Program:

thursday 12. april
·      10-12 keynote adress Denis Guénoun: Active or passive transcendence? CANCELLED!!!

·      12-13 lunch
·      13-14 Sergei Prozorov, What is the Other of Europe
·      14-15 Susanna Lindberg, Uprooted Europe
·      15-15.15 coffee
·      15.15-16.15 Peter Trawny, Europe and Revolution
·      16.15-17.15 Jayne Svenungsson, Christian Europe: Borders and
Boundaries  of a Mythological Conception

friday 13. april
10-12 keynote adress Rodolphe Gasché: "Is "Europe" an Idea in the
·      Kantian Sense?"
·      12-13 lunch
·      13-14 Matthias Flatscher: Different Ways to Europe. Critical
Remarks on Habermas and Derrida
·      14-15 Timo Miettinen: Crisis and Utopia
·      15-15.15 coffee
·      15.15-16.15 Mika Ojakangas: European Union: A Polity without Sense
·      16.15 - 17.15 Ari Hirvonen

For further information, contact Susanna Lindberg
(susanna.lindberg at helsinki.fi) or Tuomas Parsio
(tuomas.parsio at gmail.com)