V. FORTUNATI, F. CATTANI (a cura di)

Questioning the European Identity/ies

Deconstructuring Old Stereotypes and Envisioning New Models of Representation

Collana "Fonti e studi sul federalismo e integrazione europea - Crie"

pp. 256, (€ 18,00) € 14,40
978-88-15-14718-9
anno di pubblicazione 2012

Starting from the premise that it is essential to include Comparative, Cultural and Literary studies within European Studies, this volume aims to tackle the complex theme of European identity from an interdisciplinary perspective. It comprises essays which deal with the issue from a diachronic perspective, as well as the results of sociological investigations. The very notion of European identity has been changing in time according to different social and historical contexts, creating a juxtaposition of continuous movements which has implied a constant breaking and crossing of borders. The various contributions highlight how it must not be thought as a monolithic entity, but as being fluid, mobile and in a perpetual state of metamorphosis. Europe is a complex system in which cultures and people interact, speaking different languages, and its identity calls for difference and inevitably involves otherness. This volume also underlines how Europe suffers from an excess of economic, bureaucratic and administrative ties and from a deficit of common values, because Europe is above all a mental attitude which needs a common cultural project.

Vita Fortunati has coordinated many European projects such as Cultural Memory in European Countries and Interfacing Sciences, Literature and Humanities. She has focused her research on Utopian studies and she has promoted a trans-cultural investigation of the relationships between utopia and national cultural identity. She has extensively published books and essays on modernism, women’s writing, verbal and visual representation of body and on memory and trauma. Francesco Cattani, PhD, is Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, Italy. His research interests cover Postcolonial and Postmodern culture, and especially the relationship between narration/construction of space and migration in literature and visual culture. He has written on black Britain, postcolonial London, Ingrid Pollard and the British landscape, Aravind Adiga and Ornela Vorpsi.