Europe and the Rest

On Wednesday May 13th the ICPS and the AHRC-sponsored 'Postcolonial Europe' network co-hosted a spectacularly well-attended public dialogue between Etienne Balibar (Emeritus Professor at Paris X Nanterre and the University of California, Irvine) and Zygmunt Bauman (Emeritus Professor at the University of Leeds).

The dialogue --a lively dialogue between two of Europe's foremost public intellectuals-- revolved around the current status of Europe in a globalised world, the perceived qualifications for being European, and whether or not Europe could be considered as a postcolonial space.

A follow-up workshop the next morning (May 14th) featured the work of international members of the 'Postcolonial Europe' network, with Balibar in attendance. Papers given at the workshop were on topics as diverse as the colonisation of Scotland, the rethinking of Europe as a post-imperial polity, the figure of the immigrant woman as a disputed (European) boundary-marker, and the relevance of Balibar's understanding of Europe as global  interpreter/translator to Micahel Ondaatje's work. The dialogue and the workshop were inaugural events for 'Postcolonial Europe', and all involved were agreed that they got the network off to an excellent start!

- View the Europe and the Rest video on LU Tube