The theme of the 29th International Conference of Europeanists is Europe’s Past, Present, and Future: Utopias and Dystopias. The conference takes place at the University of Iceland on June 27-29, 2023. Iceland sits precariously at the juncture of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, perhaps a geological metaphor for ongoing rifts, shifts, slides, crashes, and ruptures in the deep structure of Europe.
Amidst war in Europe and the global COVID-19 crisis, Iceland provides the ideal place for such reflection, given its centrality to trans-Atlantic space, a core concept to the founders of CES. It arguably represents a utopia of the European social model, and yet, at the same time, the dystopian heart of the financial crisis in 2008, and the liminal tension of Cold War politics, now resurgent in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Amidst war in Europe and the global COVID-19 crisis, Iceland provides the ideal place for such reflection, given its centrality to trans-Atlantic space, a core concept to the founders of CES. It arguably represents a utopia of the European social model, and yet, at the same time, the dystopian heart of the financial crisis in 2008, and the liminal tension of Cold War politics, now resurgent in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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