After Eurocentrism. The rethinking of Europe has only just begun

International author workshops

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Jussen

Project description

Since the end of the Cold War, the discussion has – in principle – been omnipresent: Latin Europe or “the West” can no longer claim global interpretative sovereignty, provincializing Europe is – again: in principle – the intellectual and political challenge. “Modernity” is now only considered one of multiple modernities in the context of a world reorganization, for which the term post-colonial has rapidly gained acceptance since the end of the Cold War. The secularization paradigm, which is deeply rooted in the so-called “Enlightenment”, i.e. the hypothesis of ever-increasing secularization that has become a matter of course, has also long been regarded as a forecast that is no longer useful – even for the “West”. In short, the framework of thought that has guided almost all historical and cultural – and therefore also political and economic – interpretations has become dysfunctional. Neither science nor politics doubt that we are experiencing the fundamental reorganization of the world that has been enforced globally since the beginning of European expansion in the 16th century. Its current transformation into a post-Eurocentric (or post-Western) order is the classic case of a paradigm shift.

So much for the consensus. But what does this broadly shared insight mean in detail? What about the work on the practical and – for science primarily – conceptual consequences? Which areas of knowledge are affected and how are they being reorganized?
In some fields, reconceptualization is now a broad public topic – for example in the discussion about the restitution of cultural assets from former colonies, the revision of the Western concept of art and the Western formats of the political that have been made a global principle. In many other fields, however, new concepts are still marginal phenomena, for example in the interpretation of the history of Latin Europe, and therefore also in the university organization of research and studies in the humanities. If you study history, German studies or art history, for example of the “Middle Ages”, does the history of “Europe as a world province” really have to look different from the history of Europe that our teachers still took for granted? Of course it has to look different. But so far, students have had no problem getting through without coming into contact with the fundamental cognitive problems of post-Eurocentric humanities. How can that be – a whole generation after the end of the Cold War?

The aim of the project “After Eurocentrism” is – initially with a view to the subject of “Europe” – a systematic overview of the fields of knowledge and categories of interpretation affected in the humanities and social sciences, the respective state of discussion and the status of institutional reorganization (denominations, curricula, dealing with museum collections, etc.). The aim is to provide a basis of argumentation for scientific, educational and cultural policy interventions.

Author workshops

Workshop
“Posteurocentrism“
November 8, 2019, Frankfurt am Main