[H-verkko] Helsinki, What Past for What Future? =?UNKNOWN?B?lg==?= What History for What Europe?

[agricola at utu.fi]

Agricolan tapahtumakalenteriin on lähetetty uusi ilmoitus:

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What Past for What Future? – What History for What Europe?
Helsinki 22.05.2011  - 24.05.2011 

A series of reflection meetings on the prospects of Europe organized
by The Network for
European Studies, Helsinki University, the Central European
university, Budapest, the Max Planck Institute for Legal History,
Frankfurt/Main and University College London

Meeting 2. The European Foundation Myth. A Critical Assessment and a
Relativisation of the European Origo

22-24 May 2011

Please register to the conference at the website linked below. Last
day to register is May 19th, 2011.

Convenor: Johann Arnason
Panel: Sverre Bagge, Garth Fowden, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Christoph
Harbsmeier, Peter
Heather, Patrick Olivelle, Jonathan Shepard, Bo Stråth.

Trigger of the reflection at this meeting will be Garth Fowden,
Before and after Muhammad: The
First Millennium refocused. (forthcoming)

This book confronts the well-known thesis by Rémi Brague (2002)
arguing that Europe emerged
through the incorporation of values established in what today is
called the Middle East. Europe
began in what is seen as outside itself with an Asian foundation myth
(Europa and the Bull) and an
Asian religion. The exocentric definition of Europe, as Rémi Brague
sees it, through continuous
alienation from its own Asian origins, at the end became centric when
the look backward and
eastward changed in the direction of forward and westward after the
discovery of America. 

The crusades were an important step in this process. Garth Fowden
argues for a history which does not move from Asia to Europe and at
the end make Europe the centre of the world. He suggests a
new periodization, during which the ancient world was gradually
transformed and there came into
being, across Europe and West Asia, a triad of sibling civilizations,
successors of Rome, whose
commitment to revealed monotheism either Biblical in Greek and Latin
Christendom, or Qur’anic in
the Muslim world, was to varying degrees tempered by the rational
principles derived from Greek
and Roman Antiquity. 

Fowden undertakes a re-contextualization of Late Antiquity in time as
wellnas space.In the dimension of space, the conventional
Mediterranean framework of late antique
history is superseded by the triptych of the Iranian plateau and the
Eastern Mediterranean basin flanking the “Mountain Area” in other
words the area embraced by the Amanus, Taurus and
Zagros Mountains, the highlands of South Arabia and Ethiopia’s rugged
plateau in the South, and
to the West the mountains flanking the Red Sea and backing the
Eastern Mediterranean littoral.

Fowden challenges the idea of Europe as the centre of modernity and
looks for a more entangled
Eurasianafrican understanding where the role of Islam is seen as not
less important than
Christianity.

This meeting aims at a debate between the perspectives of Brague and
Fowden involving Fowden
as well as other experts of the period on the East Mediterranean
cultures but also on Western and Eastern Europe and the Nordic
Pre-Christian Millennium and - in a more global perspective - the
neighbouring Buddhist and Hindu cultures. 

The meeting will be organized by a leading world
expert on civilizations, Johann Arnason, who is going to edit a book
as a result of the meeting.

Programme

22 May Arppeanum, auditorium (Snellmaninkatu 3)

18.00 Key note 'Towards a world historical perspective on the first
millennium?' Johann
Arnason

23 May The National Museum of Finland, auditorium (Mannerheimintie
34)

09.30 “Contextualizing Late Antiquity: The First Millennium”. Garth
Fowden

10.30 “Byzantium in the First Millennium”. Jonathan Shepard

12.00 L u n c h b r e a k

13.30 “The East Mediterranean World, Islam and Christendom in the
First Millennium”.
Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila

14.30 “Western and Eastern Europe in the First Millennium”. Peter
Heather

15.30 C o f f e e

16.00-17.00 “The Nordic Pre-Christian Millenium”. Sverre Bagge

18.00 Reception by the Rector of the University of Helsinki
(Lehtisali, University’s Main
Building, Unioninkatu 34)

24 May The National Museum of Finland, auditorium (Mannerheimintie
34)

09.00 “Indian Culture in the First Millennium”. Patrick Olivelle

10.00 “China and Buddhism during the First Millennium”. Christoph
Harbsmeier

11.00 “Foundation Myths and Origins of Cultures and Civilizations:
Towards New
Historical Perspectives on the World”. Bo Stråth

12.00 Concluding discussion

What Past for What Future? What History for What Europe? (
http://www.helsinki.fi/nes/wpwf2_information.html )

Ilmoitus lähetetty: 11.5.2011 14:50

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