2001
The Question of European Heritage Europe between Christianity and Enlightenment, the Critique of Scriptural Religion
A seminar series organised by Gopal Balakrishnan, Bo Stråth and Peter Wagner
This seminar will explore a current in European political thought in which Christianity, Scriptural religion more generally, is subject to various lines of critique: as an ecclesiastic order, as history, as a moral code and as theology. The authors under consideration wrote at a time in which it was exceedingly perilous to openly formulate some of these lines of criticism, and thus often touched these matters obliquely. The objective of this seminar will be to identify this anti-Christian dimension of their politico-theoretical agendas: What role did the authors envision for religion in a properly constituted polity? To what extent did they think Christianity could be reformed? Did any of them foresee the onset of a post-Christian era in European history? What were the limits of public enlightenment? And, lastly, was an atheist society really possible? These questions are relevant today in an intellectual context. In this respect the problem of a post-national European identity is often addressed within the frame of shared Christian cultural heritage, the problem of multiculturalism within the frame of inter-communal relations. A return to the foundational texts of modern political thought can open a critical perspective on the perimeters of the contemporary problematic of European identity by clarifying its ambivalent relationship to the conflicting poles of religion and enlightenment.
The format of the series is oriented towards bringing researchers and professors together in what is closer to a reflection or study group than a teaching seminar. Active participation based upon a careful consideration of the texts is assumed. The reading list itself, however, is limited as is indicated below.
Readers are available upon request from kaye@iue.it
Programme
Session 1, 27 March, 17.00-19.00, Sala Europa
Introduction
Session 2, 10 April, 17.00-19.00, Sala Europa
Leo Strauss
Persecution and the Art of Writing, p. 23-37
Niccolo Machiavelli
Discourses, 11-15, 25-27, preface to book 2, chapter 5 (II), preface to book 2, chapter 5 (II)
The Prince, chapters 8 and 11
Francis Bacon
An Advertisement Touching on an Holy War
The Great Instuaration, preface
The Essays, 'Of Unity in Religion', 'Of Atheism' and 'Of Superstition'
Session 3, 8 May, 11.00-13.00, Sala Europa
Thomas Hobbes:
Leviathan, Book II 'Of a Christian Commonwealth' and III 'Of the Kingdom of Darkness'
Session 4, 22 May 17.00-19.00, Sala Europa
Baruch Spinoza:
A Theological- Political Treatise, Preface, Chapters 1, 6, 15, 18, 19, 20
A Political Treatise, Chapter 2
Pierre Bayle:
Dictionaire historique et critique, Entries 'Socinus (Faustus)', 'Xenophanes' and 'On Atheists'
The Economy as a Polity European theoretical and historical perspectives
A seminar series at the Robert Schuman Centre, 2000-2001
organised by Christian Joerges (LAW), Bo Stråth (HEC) and Peter Wagner (SPS)
Outline
The relation of 'the economy' to other aspects of social life, in particular to 'politics', 'society' and 'culture', is a key theme of the social and historical sciences. It has been so ever since the argument for the beneficial logic of market exchange was raised in Europe in the eighteenth century and ever since laws about the freedom of commerce were introduced in European states, mostly during the nineteenth century. The very separation of economics from the other social sciences is an intellectual outcome of those interconnected legal, political and economic transformations and has persistently been raised as a problématique from Max Weber's time onwards.
In the current situation, 'globalisation' is often seen as the effective creation of a world market subjected to the laws of neo-classical economics. Political and legal regulation could then have only one of two purposes: either to facilitate the emergence of global market exchange or to deal with any undesired consequences of such exchange in a compensating fashion. If that were an appropriate analytical perspective, the intellectual controversies within and between the social sciences as well as the historical struggles over the political forms of modern societies, both of which characterised the past two centuries, would finally have been overcome.
In our view, however, any 'economic' theorising resides on presuppositions of legal and political philosophy and thus cannot achieve separation from those concerns. And any historically and empirically existing 'market' always shows analysable socio-cultural forms of what has been Ð somewhat infelicitously Ð called 'embeddedness'. The processes of European integration and 'Europeanisation' then, rather than merely modernising European political and economic life with a view to a global market era, are exactly the site at which issues of legal and political philosophy and of socio-cultural forms are at stake and re-emerge in a new guise.
The study of European integration and 'Europeanisation' is too narrowly conceived if it sees these processes as mere responses to globalisation processes driven by economic incentives and with a determined and rather limited range of adaptive possibilities. On the one hand, there is not just erosion of the politico-legal structures of the nation-state and of the socio-cultural forms of European 'life-worlds' due to 'globalisation', but rather a transformation of existing forms that entails creative-agential involvement of European actors. And on the other hand, a global market is as little self-sustaining as the markets of the nation-based economies have ever been. In politico-legal terms, transnational regimes and new patterns of juridification are emerging, and in socio-economic terms, the globalising transformations entail the development of new 'worlds of production' (Robert Salais and Michael Storper) that always have specific and often territorially based structures of networks and material engagement.
In this context, we propose to review some of the theoretical controversies about the political forms of market-based economic life Ð that is what we mean by proposing to see the economy as a polity Ð and to do so by means of a historical comparison of the current situation with European debates about the politico-legal embedding of the economy during the first half of the twentieth century, in particular during the inter-war period.
The seminar is thus intended to have a theoretical and historical axis, the interrelations of which are seen as twofold. First, a move beyond any futile continuation of abstractly discussing the relation between 'state' and 'market' has to provide a historical contextualisation to identify the specific issues at stake. And second, rather than proposing in any simplistic way that the inter-war debates and measures could provide Ð analytical or political Ð guidance for the present situation, we propose this historical comparison as a means to retrieve forms of conceptualising the economy as a polity. The few more detailed considerations that follow should be read in this light.
Theoretical perspectives
Historical perspectives
Multidisciplinary approach
Programme
Winter Semester 2000
26 October, Convento, 15.00-19.00
David Soskice, (Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin), Varieties of Capitalism
Peer Zumbansen (Law Faculty, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main), The Structure of the Modern Business Corporation and its Growing Importance as a Political Actor
14 November, Convento 15.00-19.00
Mabel Berezin (University of California,) Whose Century of Corporatism? From the Labour Charter to the Third Way Economy and Morality in European Politics
Alessandro Somma (Max Planck Institut für Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt/Main), Contents and Aims of the Totalitarian Project at the MPI in Frankfurt/Main
18 December, 9.30-13.00
Peter Wagner (EUI), Modernity, Capitalism, Critique: The Connection Between Analyses of Contemporary Society in the Relatively Novel Forms of 'Sociologies of Modernity' and Recent Investigations of 'Varieties of Capitalism'
Johann P. Arnason (Latrobe University, Melbourne), Modern Alternatives to Capitalism - Illusions and Realities: The Historical Experience of Soviet-Style Socialism
Spring Semester 2001
22 March, Seminar Room, Convento 17.00-19.00
Claus Offe (Humboldt University), Civil Society and Social Order: Demarcating and Combining Market State and Community
30 March, Seminar Room, Convento 17.00-19.00
Francis Sejersted (Oslo), Democratic Capitalism. Norway and Sweden Compared
21 May, 9.30-13.00
Laurent Thévenot (Paris) and Harm Schepel, (Kent/London), Standardising/Regulating
Writing History, A Collaborative Venture
seminar Autumn/Spring 2000-2001
Mondays 11.00-13.00 in Sala Triaria, Villa Schifanoia
This seminar is based upon the premise that contemporary research in history should not be perused in solitude. The development of problem formulation, source selection, analysis, methodological approach and argumentation is often far more productive as a collective enterprise. Group reflection is an efficient means of achieving a critical distance which is decidedly different from that arrived at in individual work or even the hierarchic dialogue of a supervisor-researcher context.
Recent developments in historiography have drawn increased attention to the value of joint enterprises in theoretical and methodological reflection. The many challenges to "conventional" historiography have been central to this development. Examples of such challenges appear in the formulation of macro stories, problems related to historical narration, the temporality and contextuality of any historical writing, the expanding role of philosophical and value-oriented issues in historiography and the growing awareness of the importance of argumentation.
We maintain that no history should be composed and published without an awareness of these challenges and a willingness to confront them. This is not to propose that they can or should be approached from any specific theoretical or methodological point of departure. On the contrary they should be problematised and reflected upon from plural points of view which make the author aware of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in each individual approach. One additional long-term goal is also to promote an awareness of philosophic historiography.
In many respects this seminar is a continuation of the seminar Rewriting History in the academic year 1999-2000. The form of publication of the papers on the web, one week prior to the session, and the opening of the session with discussants' criticism as well as their subsequent publication as a web debate will continue. It should be noted that active participation is open to all, this however, as the title implies, is connected not only with the presentation of a paper but also participation in the criticism of papers written by other seminar participants. The seminar is designed to offer researchers the opportunity to engage in a reflective process on how to rewrite history in their own work. This seminar will be augmented by an integrated workshop with the participation of external guests. We invite both participants in the seminar as well as all others to contribute to the web-debate in our on-line magazine Collaborative History.
Programme:
Winter Semester 2000
16 October:
Bo Stråth, Introduction
23-24 October
European States and Citizens: A Millennium of Debate (villa Schifanoia sala Europa)
Conference organised by: Quentin Skinner and Bo Stråth
6 November:
Hagen Schulz-Forberg, Locations of Liberty, London 1851-1939
Download
Discussants: Katiana Orluc and Sandra Maß
13 November:
Sybille Mohrmann, Das Russenbild im Feuilleton der Berliner Tagespresse 1945-46 (The Image of Russians in the "Feuilleton" of Berlin's Daily Press 1945/46)
Download
Discussants: Renate Huber and Augusta Dimou
20 November:
Katiana Orluc, Europe before Europe: The Transformation of European Consciousness after the First World War
Download
Discussants: Augusta Dimou and Carsten Humlebaek
27 November:
Katerina Andersson, Parliamentary Reform and the Construction of a Union in Scandinavia in the 1860s
Download
Discussants: Thomas Cayet and Thomas Jørgensen
4 December:
Morakot Jewachinda, The Significance of Architectural Heritage for the Construction of "The New Europe"
Download
Discussants: Thomas Fetzer, Eirinn Larsen
11 December:
James Kaye, The Salzkammergut, A Landscape after Salt and Materialism in the Immaterial, Heimat in "Heimatgaue" (pdf)
Download
Discussants: Renate Huber and Megan Metters
14-16 December
Collective Identities and Multiple Modernities
(Teatro, Badia Fiesolana)
Workshop organised by Shmuel Eisenstadt, Alessandro Pizzorno, Bo Stråth and Peter Wagner
Spring Semester 2001
5 March NB 9.00-11.00!
Thomas Jørgensen, National Roads to Socialism, The Left and the Nation in Denmark and Sweden 1956-66
Download
12 March
Chahnaz Kherfi, Le parti des Liberaux constitutionnels dans l'Egypte de l'entre-deux guerre (1919-1936); le modele liberal europeen pour l'Egypte (The Egyptian Liberal Constitutional Party in the Inter-war Years (1919-1936); The European Liberal Model for Egypt)
Download
Discussants: Rouzbeh Parsi and Nihan Yelutas
19 March
Nihan Yelutas, Otherness Doubled, Being Migrant and "Oriental" at the Same Time
Download
Discussant: Megan Metters
26 March NB. Rescheduled, the Seminar will take place on 27 April. See below!
Thomas Fetzer, European Civil Society after World War II - A Survey
Discussant: Thomas Jørgensen
2-3 April
Identity and Temporality Constructions of Continuity and Discontinuity
Workshop organised by Peter Apor, Renate Huber, and Carsten Humlebaek
5-6 April
Utopian Images of Peace and War in Europe
Workshop
9 April, NB. 9.30-13.00 in sala Triaria!
Images of Historical and Political Time
Special seminar with Reinhart Koselleck and Kari Paalonen
27 April, NB. Friday in the Framework of the Junepaper Presentations, at 15.00!
Eirinn Larsen, Chapter II: The Field of Business Education in the Past and Present (Project: Gender and Higher Education in France and Norway, The Importance of Gender in the "Feminisation" of Business Education in the 1970s and 1980s)
and
Thomas Fetzer, European Civil Society after World War II - A Survey
Discussant: Thomas Jørgensen
2 May, NB. 11.00-13.00, sala Europa! (Extraordinary Seminar within the framework of the research project The Modernity of Europe)
Richard Kearney, Nations and Narratives: Pax Romana , Pax Americana
7 May
Sabine Rutar, Cultural Practice in Trieste's Multinational Workers' Movement Prior to World War One
14 May
Thomas Cayet, Etude d'un milieu d'organisateurs-rationalisateurs durant l'entre-deux-guerres. Apport d'une approche internationale (Study of a Milieu of Promoters of "Scientific Management" During the Inter-war Years, An International Approach)
Text French pdf
Abstract English pdf
Discussants: Augusta Dimou and Megan Metters
15 May
War and Peace in a Cosmopolitan Perspective
with Gopal Balakrishnan
24-25 May
Bringing the Social and the Political back in Again
Revisiting Social History in the Light of the Recent Cultural Turn but Moving Towards a Processual Macro-history
Workshop organised by Bo Stråth and Sid Tarrow
28 May, NB. 9.00-17.00 Sala Europa
Inter-Media and the Practice of History
Workshop with Lars-Åke Engblom, Hans-Ulrich Jost, Giuseppe Lauricella and Hagen Schulz-Forberg