Europe in a Changing World

“Rethinking (Eastern) Europe: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Beyond”April 1^st, 16:00

In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, giving rise to the largest European war since 1945. This military attack was accompanied by a campaign of epistemic violence, denying Ukraine’s agency and attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The horrors of the war, in addition to the atrocities committed by the Russian army, revealed ethical and intellectual challenges in understanding, studying, and approaching Eastern (and Central) Europe. This lecture will reflect on the contemporary idea of Eastern Europe, the implications of Russia’s war for this region and Europe more broadly, as well as the need to challenge Russo- and Western-centrism in our understanding of (Eastern) European politics.

“Borders and Solidarity: Understanding EU Migration & Asylum Law” April 1^st, 17:30

This presentation will focus on the framework for immigration and asylum policies of the EU. Under Article 80 TFEU these policies and their implementation shall be governed by the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility, including its financial implications, between the Member States. Whenever necessary, EU legislation shall contain appropriate measures to give effect to this principle. The presentation will look into the application of this principle within the existing and coming legislative framework.

“The Ambivalence of Solidarity: Against Fortress Europe”April 2^nd, 10:00

In recent decades, scholarly and public debates on ‘Europe’ have focused on the notion of European solidarity with a predominantly positive connotation. However, much like the concept of ‘solidarity’ itself, European solidarity is inherently ambivalent in nature. It can be both inclusive and exclusive, fostering justice or reinforcing group loyalty and cohesion at the expense of outsiders. European solidarity may also manifest in regressive ways, as often shown with immigration policies, or ideologically with the idea/myth of ‘Fortress Europe’, as a cultural, ethnic and military stronghold. Paradoxically, at a time when Europe seeks greater autonomy and self-awareness in response to recent global events, the spectre of Fortress Europe may become even more pronounced due to structural features of today's discourse and future geopolitical trends. 

“Liberal Egalitarianism and Immigration: A Fraught Relationship”April 2^nd, 11:45

Western liberal democracies cherish the values of freedom and equality. The values entail, for example, freedom of movement and prohibition of discrimination based on factors over which individuals have no control, such as their ethnicity. How can these liberal values be reconciled with the fact that states control strictly who can cross their borders and who are granted citizenship? In my presentation I introduce some arguments that attempt to reconcile liberal political philosophy with strict immigration policies, such as appeals to the importance of cultural cohesion or the state’s right to self-determination. Although the arguments can be criticized, I acknowledge that immigration can pose difficult moral problems with no easy answers, not least because of our moral psychological makeup. 

“The Philosopher in Opposition”April 3^rd, 10:00

From its inception in the Greek Polis, the western philosophical tradition has placed itself into varying relations with the rough and tumble of real politics and statecraft. This hasn’t changed. Philosophers continue to grapple with questions of truth in politics, ideal vs non-ideal theory, as well as questions of democratic legitimacy and the crisis of democratic institutions. In this lecture we will look at two (phenomenological) ideas of the relation between philosophy, the philosopher and politics. The first is drawn from Hannah Arendt’s reading of Socrates’ death in Ancient Greece; the second from Arendt’s contemporary, the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka and his reading of the Prague Spring and the period of “normalisation” that followed. Respectively, the philosopher as midwife and the philosopher as opposition. 

“The Ambivalence of European Memory”April 3^rd, 11:45

The lecture will address the question of how Europeans should collectively deal with their past. Is there a European master narrative that can properly account for its past in terms of justice and democracy in a globalised world? The answer is uncertain, given the contradictory nature of European narratives, which combine a rich heritage of humanism with the atrocities of totalitarianism, exploitation, wars and colonialism. An analysis of the upsurge of memory in European politics and culture in recent decades reveals its merits, but also its many shortcomings and neglects. The lecture discusses the dialogical, multidirectional and transformative models as complementary alternatives for a just European memory, capable of taking responsibility for the past and the future.

Katsiaryna Lozka is a PhD fellow in Political Science at Ghent University. Previously, she was a research fellow at the Oxford Belarus Observatory, a visiting researcher at the University of Vienna (Austria) and the University of Tartu (Estonia). Public defense of her doctoral dissertation titled “The politics of life and death: Expressions of violence and resistance in Belarus and Ukraine” will take place on 28 April. Katsiaryna’s research interests include politics in Eastern Europe, political violence and resistance, necro/biopolitics, and visual analysis. Her research appeared in East European Politics, European Security, Problems of Post-Communism, and The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, among others.

Dirk Vanheule is Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp and member of the research group Government and Law. From 2012 to 2018, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Law. He is also a member of the Ghent Bar, having appeared before the European Court of Human Rights, Constitutional Court, and the Supreme Administrative Court of Belgium. His main research interests are migration and asylum law from a European, constitutional and human rights perspective. He is editor of the Belgian Journal for Migration Law.

Alessandro Volpe is a Researcher in Moral Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan. He is member of the European Centre for Social Ethics. He has conducted research in Milan, Frankfurt, Antwerp, and Berlin. His work focuses on social ethics, contemporary critical theory, and the relationship between philosophy and Europe. To explore his research outputs, visit his ORCID page at https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-1953-1501. 

Maija Aalto-Heinilä works as a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Law at the Law School of University of Eastern Finland. She has a background in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language and has since specialized in the theory of legal interpretation. Recently, she has studied the role of virtues in the context of Finnish constitutional interpretation. She also leads a work package in the Finnish Research Council’s project “Disability and Dignity” and is the former chair of the Finnish Association for the Philosophy of Law.

Darian Meacham is Professor of Philosophy at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. He holds the Chair of Practical Philosophy and is currently also Chair of the Philosophy Department. He is also Principal Investigator for Ethics and Responsible Innovation at the Brightlands Institute for Smart Society. His current research interests are in political philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of technology, and bioethics, especially the political, ethical and anthropological issues raised by new technologies, as well as questions surrounding the concept of Europe and post-national political institutions.

Antonio Gómez Ramos is Professor of Philosophy at the University Carlos III in Madrid, and Head of the Master in Critical Theory of Culture. He studied Philosophy at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Germanistik at the Humboldt Universität Berlin. He has been a visiting professor in various universities in Europe and Southamerica. His research interest are memory studies, philosophy of history, social and political philosophy. He has translated German philosophy (Hegel, Gadamer) and authored several books and articles on Hannah Arendt, Benjamin, German Idealism and Koselleck, among others.