Unlike nations or blocks in pursuit of multi-lateral trade agreements, the EU distinguished itself through its commitment to accomplish cultural, in addition to economic and political, union. Recent events like the “crisis” of Brexit now in process, the influx of refugees and migrants, or the rise of anti-EU ultra-nationalist movements are discussed as much as a matter of culture as they are politics or economics. Yet in the study of Europe, culture and specifically cultural union has been the least explored of the three goals of the EU. Both inside and outside EU borders, European unionization has changed the idea of European culture

Informed by this dynamic European cultural map, this panel will explore European culture studies critically. “Critical” does not mean criticism in the sense of a negative rejection, but rather participants investigate various approaches to European Culture: anthropological, historical, literary, policy analytic, and academic institutional.

The panel will address questions such as: now do we approach “the arts and letters” of Europe in their multilingual polyphony and their multispatial relations? How do institutions, festivals, cultural capitals, fairs and conferences approach multiple forms of group cohesion and artistic production?? How is culture explored as vehicle to union; the way that particular groups produce themselves and find cohesion? Yet how do our approaches contend with a European cultural dis/union? How does European culture organize local, regional, and national communities?