Ukraine at the borderlines of European universalism – lecture
Centre for Regional and Borderlands Studies at the Institute of Sociology (University of Wrocław) and the University of the Greater Region – Center for Border Studies (University of Luxembourg) cordially invite to the third lecture in a series called “Border Realities: Transformation of the border and new conceptual challenges”.
Wednesday, 16 November 2022, 16:00-17:30 – Online (Zoom)
the lecture in English
Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rc-ysrDIiHtwIKXgS3tokMXDfuZMT01sV
Łukasz Moll (University of Wrocław):
Ukraine at the borderlines of European universalism
In the face of Balkan wars of the 1990s, a French philosopher Étienne Balibar proposed his well-known thesis that these events manifest limitations of European universalism. At the time, diverse discourse mechanisms were applied by European authors in order to present inhabitants of the Balkans as undeserving of belonging to Europe, as violent, barbaric, oriental, premodern, backward, post-communist, etc. “The Balkanians” played the role of an evil and demonised Other that allowed to reshape the image of good and civilized Europe. During my lecture, I intend to revisit Balibar’s beliefs in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. My main question will be: how could Europe positively answer the challenge thrown down by Ukraine (about joining the European universalism) WITHOUT reviving Eurocentric and “civilizing” discourse about Europeanness and non-Europeanness, the interior and exterior, universalism and particularism. In order to face this question, I will refer to a poststructuralist perspective I have discussed in my recent book about the nomadic European identity.
dr Łukasz Moll – a sociologist and philosopher, an assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Wrocław. His scientific interests include: the idea of Europe, border studies, common goods. A member of the editorial office of the scientific journal Theoretical Practice (Praktyka Teoretyczna). The author of a monography about nomadic Europe and poststructuralist limits of the European universalism (Nomadyczna Europa. Poststrukturalistyczne granice europejskiego uniwersalizmu,Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń 2021).
Contact:
Sylwia Zawadzka
More information:
http://obrop.uni.wroc.pl/Border-Realities
Translated by Jakub Dziubek (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
