Talking Europe

The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) and the UCL European Institute host a debate with two irreverent philosophers on the European Union and its discontents. It follows the recent publication of their jointly authored book:

“Instead of a peace-project, the European Union is increasingly turning into a warzone: whether it be the expulsion of immigrants or riots in Paris and London, or European interventions to bring “more democracy” to Libya or Syria. But instead of leaving Europe to the enemies, Žižek and Horvat reflect on the fight for a different Idea of Europe.” (Istros Books, 2013)

Speakers:

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. His books include The Sublime Object of Ideology (Verso, 1989), Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (MIT Press, 1991), The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six. Essays on Woman and Causality (Verso, 1994), The Fragile Absolute, or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For (Verso, 2000), The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (MIT Press, 2002) On Practice and Contradiction (Revolution!) with Mao Zedong (Verso, 2007), Philosophy in the Present with Alain Badiou (Polity Press, 2010), The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (Verso, 2012), Less Than Nothing (Verso, 2013).

Srećko Horvat is a philosopher from Croatia. He is the author of After the End of History. From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement (Laika Verlag, Germany, 2013), a regular contributor to The Guardian and was one of the leaders of the Subversive Festival.

Chair: Dr Bojan Aleksov (SSEES)

From a conference hosted by the European Parliament Information Office in London, the Embassy of the United States, London, and UCL European Institute on how the UK, EU and U.S. can work together to promote open and transparent business practices in emerging markets.

The first panel discussion, “Promoting Transparency in Global Investment,” will focus on successful efforts to promote transparency. The second panel discussion, “U.S., UK and EU Transparency Efforts: how and where they can converge” will review American, British and European Union government perspectives.

A progressive alternative to the austerity policies which are being implemented across Europe and addressed the shortcomings of European integration. One of the most influential leaders of the ‘Other Left’ in Europe, he discussed the ‘historic failure’ of social democracy; its inability to shape a European Union based on solidarity and social justice. Followed by a question and answer session. Introduction by Prof. Philipe Maliere, UCL

In late 2019, an organism on the edge of life appears to have made the journey from the body of a bat into the bloodstream of a human, and shut down the global economy. Whatever else we may have learned from the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it has taught us that, before anything else, we are biological beings. Our lives and deaths are bound to the beings around us.

From the second event in the Annual Sakharov Debate series, a yearly public event exploring current developments on Human Rights in Europe. Co-hosted by the European Parliament Office in London, it coincides each December with the "Sakharov Prize" being awarded by the European Parliament to people and organisations playing a crucial role in defence of human rights and freedom of speech.

This year, one year on from the death of Václav Havel, and in the light of a contemporary reinvention of dissident practice in the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, Charter 08 in China, and the neo-dissidence of Pussy Riot and others in Russia, we formulated topics for discussion that picked up on themes from Havel: dissent as the ‘art of the impossible’ and as a point of intersection between politics and aesthetics. Themes present in the work of the two Iranian activists, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and film director Jafar Panahi, joint winners of the Sakharov Prize in 2012.