Conference: "Reimagining Europe from Its Peripheries"

About the Conference

“The European Union, given the level of its integration and ambition, cannot be in the short term the only means of structuring the European continent,” French president Emmanuel Macron declared in 2021, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The goal of “Reimagining Europe from Its Peripheries,” is to examine the political and cultural “structuring” of European belonging, from the perspective of its ever-shifting, often-precarious, peripheries—and its peripheral subjects. As historian Richard Ivan Jobs has recently noted, “there are currently efforts across the Schengen zone to reinstitute border controls to slow the movement of immigrants, who have grown in number and visibility in the last decade as conditions of daily life have deteriorated on the southern and eastern peripheries of Europe.” Participants in our conference will consider how various forms of sectarian conflict, nationalism, and imperialism have shaped and reshaped who is isolated, integrated and excluded from Europe, as conceptions of “the European continent,” and its “peripheries,” have changed over time and space.

Though historical in scope, this conference will be multidisciplinary in character, and will bring in policymakers and other practitioners as well. Presenters will discuss the role of the environment and geography in guiding refugees and mass-migration into Europe. Panels and keynotes will analyze the complex legacies of empire and white settler colonialism, demonstrating how these histories interrelate with popular, dehumanizing, misuses of the past. Finally, several presentations will illuminate the broader literary and cultural dimensions of these topics and themes, by analyzing how portrayals of racial (and other forms of) difference have influenced the tenets of Europeanization in the modern era.

Attending the Conference

All sessions are free and open to the Notre Dame community.

Registration is recommended. Please complete the registration form to mark your reservation.

Register to Attend

Schedule

Thursday, April 27, 2023

5:30 p.m. - Opening Keynote Address & Reception - "Building Europe Elsewhere: Restoring the World"
McKenna Hall, Room 215
Zahia Rahmani, Director of the Art History and Globalization Research Program, National Institute for Art History (INHA-Paris)

Friday, April 28, 2023

9:00 a.m. - Session I - Marking Difference
McKenna Hall, Room 215
Chaired by: Francisco Robles, Assistant Professor of English and Concurrent Assistant Professor of Gender Studies, Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Latino Studies

Tommaso Manfredini, Department of French and Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University, “The Clandestine and the Making of Illegality at Sea."
Edwige Tamalet Talbayev, Associate Professor of French, Director, Middle East and North African Studies, Tulane University, “Water Borderization in the Mediterranean.”
Lauren Stokes, Assistant Professor of History, Northwestern University, “Jet Age Refugees and Racial Profiling in European Aviation.”

11:00 a.m. - Keynote Address - "Goethe and Black America"
McKenna Hall, Room 215
Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English, Emeritus, Harvard University
with an introduction by Korey Garibaldi

1:30 p.m. - Session II - Social Contracts
McKenna Hall, Room 215
Chaired by: Perin Gürel, Associate Professor of American Studies and Concurrent Associate Professor of Gender Studies, Faculty Fellow, Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Liu Institute for Asia & Asian Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies

Cynthia Porter, Assistant Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, “German Policing, Power, and the People: Shifting Needs and Expectations in the International #BlackLivesMatter Era.”
Jean Beaman, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara; Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, “Suspect Citizenship.”
Jean-Pierre Gauci, Arthur Watts Senior Fellow, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, “Migration Policy in Europe: Peripheralizing Migrants, Rights and States.”

3:30 p.m. - Keynote Address - “The Unsettling of Europe – further reflections on migration in/to Europe since 1945”
McKenna Hall, Room 215
Peter Gatrell, Professor of Migration & Economic History, University of Manchester
with an introduction by Francisco Robles

7:00 p.m. - Film Screening of KLONDIKE (2022) with virtual remarks by Maryna Er Gorbach, writer and director
Browning Cinema, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Not Rated, 100 minutes, In Ukrainian, Russian, Chechen, and Dutch with English subtitles
Free event, tickets required

Saturday, April 29, 2023

9:00 a.m. - Session III - Slavery, Borders and Empire
McKenna Hall, Room B02
Chaired by: Korey Garibaldi, Assistant Professor of American Studies, Faculty Fellow, Nanovic Institute for European Studies

Tessa Murphy, Associate Professor of History, Syracuse University, “Organizing Empire: The Creation of Slave Registries in British Crown Colonies.”
Emrah Sahin, Center for European Studies, University of Florida, “Frankestan: An Ottoman Story of Europe”

10:40 a.m. - Session IV - Uncollected Memories
McKenna Hall, Room B02
Chaired by: Chanté Mouton-Kinyon, Assistant Professor of English

Julie Morrissey, Postdoctoral Scholar, Maynooth University, “Art Practice and Shifting Laws and Borders in Ireland”
Vanessa D. Plumly, Assistant Professor of German, Wittenberg University, “Fasia Jansen’s Fight: From Forced Labor to the Labor Movement.”
Daniel Makonnen, European Commission, “An Image and a Voice: Shaping the Narrative of Roma in Europe.”
Chandra Frank, Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati, “We Take Pride in You: Tidal Politics, Amsterdam Gay Pride and Myths of Progress.”

Organizers

Korey Garibaldi
Assistant Professor of American Studies
Faculty Fellow, Nanovic Institute for European Studies

Francisco E. Robles
Assistant Professor of English and Concurrent Assistant Professor of Gender Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Latino Studies

Perin Gürel
Associate Professor of American Studies and Concurrent Associate Professor of Gender Studies
Faculty Fellow, Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Liu Institute for Asia & Asian Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies

Additional Contributors

Alison Rice
Dr. Scholl Professor and Department Chair, Romance Languages and Literatures, Concurrent Professor of Gender Studies, and Faculty Fellow of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Tetyana Shlikhar
Assistant Teaching Professor of German and Russian Languages and Literatures and Concurrent Assistant Teaching Professor of Film, Television, and Theatre

Chanté Mouton Kinyon
Assistant Professor of English