Volatility of all sorts has characterized contemporary European economic, social and political arenas. To list just a few of these sources of volatility: the debt crisis has intensified; the issue of refugees has developed into a full scale humanitarian crisis, religious boundaries are more sharply drawn than ever, and Russia under Putin has threatened a shift in the center of gravity back to the East. A major fallout of these various crises has been a renewed commitment to national priorities and values as opposed to cosmopolitan and European ones. The general theme of the conference is appended to the end of my message.
I am inviting an interdisciplinary group of scholars who work on diverse dimensions of these “volatilities” towards the end of developing a cross disciplinary conversation that addresses the multiple challenges that confront Europe today.
