Engaging Europe

Rethinking a Changing Continent

Edited by Evlyn Gould, George J. Sheridan

Not available to order

Publication date:

05 May 2005

Length of book:

272 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742537804

What and where and who is Europe? This unique collection contends that Europe cannot be defined as simply a particular geographic location or a group of citizens who inhabit the same place and share a culture. Instead, Europe is a question to be answered by the teachers and students who study it. A collaborative and multidisciplinary collection, Engaging Europe explores Europe through history, literature, philosophy, music, and ethical narratives. A set of imaginative contributors investigates European identity through a variety of cases, including Greece and Rome, the Bible, the Enlightenment, and the Shoah. Scholars of literature, history, and classics, as well as a composer, grapple with students' doubts about Europe's future relevance. The complexity of the topic leads to creativity in each chapter, from a musical composition in words to poetry to a dialogue between Baudelaire and Adam Smith. Engaging Europe is a major part of an experiment that hopes to find more intellectually exciting ways to teach Europe to students in American higher education.

Contributions by: Evlyn Gould, Joseph Krause, Robert Kyr, Massimo Lollini, Alexander B. Murphy, John Nicols, Steven Shankman, George J. Sheridan Jr., and Malcolm Wilson

Chapter 1: The Idea of Europe: A Collaborative Pedagogical Project
Part I: What Is Europe?
Chapter 2: A Story of Europe
Chapter 3: The Idea of Europe, Levinas, and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
Part II: Where Is Europe?
Chapter 4: Relocating Europe
Chapter 5: Idea of Rome, Idea of Europe
Chapter 6: Provincia Gallia Narbonensis
Part III: Testimony and Witness
Chapter 7: Listening and the Art of Survival
Chapter 8: Primo Levi's Testimony, or Philosophy between Poetry and Science
Chapter 9: Europe in the Wake of the Shoah
Part IV: Disciplines, Borders, Crossings
Chapter 10: Autonomy and the Mistress Discipline in European Thought
Chapter 11: Does Baudelaire Read Adam Smith?
Chapter 12: On Charting Europeanness
Further Reading: A Bibliographical Essay

Taking a welcome interdisciplinary approach, this brief yet insightful book succeeds in its stated ambition of making readers contemplate 'rethinking a changing continent.' Highly recommended.