Cultural Politics and Political Culture in Postmodern Europe

Erscheinungsjahr 1997
ISBN: 978-90-420-0317-0
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 24, 452 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 696 g

Reihe: Postmodern Studies

The present volume assembles essays from a broad cultural and professional spectrum around the question of European cultural identity. The heterogeneity of the contributors — their differing points of departure and methods — attests to a tension in intellectual communities which today is more intense than ever. Europe’s identity crisis is not merely an empirical matter. It reflects a far deeper, and far older, discursive crisis. The mandate of Europe’s traditional intellectual institutions to preserve and police their own cultural heritage has proved incapable of evolving in a manner sufficient to account for the mutation in its object: European culture. It is not merely that Europe’s identity, like any identity in the flux of history, has changed. Rather, the notion of identity, the very basis of any questions of who we are, where we are going, and the appropriate political forms and social institutions for further existence, all rely on a logic of identity which has, at best, become extremely problematic. It is this problematization which provides the common thread unifying the following essays. Each contributor, in his/her own way and with respect to his/her own research object, confronts the adequacy of the concept of cultural identity. The hidden presuppositions of this concept are indeed remarkable, and the logic of cultural identity prescribes that they remain undisclosed.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Burgess, J. Peter

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments. Preface. I. ORIGIN(S) AND END(S) OF EUROPEAN CULTURE. J. Peter BURGESS: On the Necessity and the Impossibility of a European Cultural Identity. Uffe ØSTERGARD: The Many Houses of European Values: European Humanism and Cultural Relativism. Theodor BARTH: Memories of the Gaon: Ethnographic Documents, Social Organization and Regions of Humanity. II. FINDING/MAKING CULTURAL IDENTITY. Trond BERG ERIKSEN: The European Self-Image. Iver B. NEUMANN: Russia as Europe's Other: Barbarians at the Gate, Gatekeeper and Golden Gate to the Future. Peter N. WAAGE: The Division of Integration of Europe from the Perspective of Cultural History. Anders JOHANSEN: Fellowmen, Compatriots, Contemporaries: On the Formation of Identity within the Expanding 'Now' of Communication. III. AT HOME AND ABROAD (IN EUROPE). Ola TUNANDER: With the World Spirit on Horseback - A Round-trip to Berlin. Oscar HEMER: The Adventurer at the World's End. Thomas HYLLAND ERIKSEN: In Search of Brussels: Creolization, Insularity and Identity. Dilemmas in Post-National Europe. IV. THE ORIENTAL WEST. Peter SLOTERDIJK: Eurotaoism. Iver B. NEUMANN & Jennifer M. WELSH: The Turk as Europe's Other. Ole WÆVER: After Neo-Medievalism: Imperial Metaphors for European Security. V. NATION AND CULTURE. Jean-Marie GUÉHENNO: The End of the Nation. Max GALLO: Forgetting the Nations: A Dangerous Mirage. Ulla HOLM: The Struggle between the Political Nation and the Cultural Nation. VI. EPILOGUE. James DER DERIAN: Sim/Dissim War in Europe. Contributors.