The Heart of Europe: The Power of Faith, Vision and Belonging in European Unification
Conference, Germany, 15 – 17 June 2009 (Imshausen)
2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Adam von Trott. Today he is often seen as the one of the most gifted thinkers on foreign affairs to have worked within the German resistance against Nazism. A patriotic German, who was convinced that the assassination of Hitler was necessary for Germany´s future, he also possessed a strong vision of a federal and peaceful Europe. Executed after the failed attempt to kill Hitler in 1944, he did not live to see how much of his vision would become reality in the decades that followed.
Adam von Trott himself was accustomed to discussing some of the ‘blueprints’ for the future Europe of his time. Although he and his friends of the Kreisauer Kries developed elaborated political, economic and strategic plans for the future of Post- War Germany von Trotts biography also shows that the history of the European integration is not only a matter of formal political and economic plans and structures. For European unity is a cause sustained by the head, but also nourished by the heart. It has encompassed utopian dreams and visions of the future, historical narratives and mythologies, and the emotions of belonging and attachment. When Jacques Delors called for a “Soul for Europe” he was speaking to this need, invoking the only realm which can breathe life into the dry structural bones of political and economic Europe.
The Adam von Trott Foundation wishes to call together scholars from across Europe to discuss these, and associated themes at a conference at Imshausen, the von Trott’s former manor house, on 15-17 June 2009. The aim of this conference is not so much to look at the formal politics of institutions, as to explore the ideals and visions which inform the history, and future, of European integration.
Papers which explore the following themes are particularly invited:
- Adam von Trott and his legacy for Europe
- Ideas of Europe among the Resistance (especially the “Kreisauer Kreis”), the Allies and the Axis during World War Two
- The unity of all Europe as it endured as a dream behind the Iron Curtain
- Ideas of Europe in Religion, Philosophy, Scholarship and Arts
- Teleologies, mythologies and lost golden ages in historical narratives of Europe
- The place of Gender in such European thinking
- Structures of feeling and emotional economies in the history of European unification
- Minority groups and Europe
- Europe as concept against the Other (e.g. the ‘Orient’, Africa, America…)
The organisers will also welcome submissions in any other relevant topic area.
Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short CV no later than 31 January 2008 to: email@example.com
Please send all other questions at the same address.
Accommodation and meals will be provided to speakers without charge. Travel costs will, subject to prior approval, be reimbursed.
PD Dr. Katharina Kunter
Stiftung Adam von Trott, Imshausen e.V.
D - 36971 Bebra-Imshausen
Mail: firstname.lastname@example.org Email: email@example.com
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