Europe and the World: World War I as Crisis of Universalism, December 4-7, 2014
Department: European Languages and Studies
Date and Time: December 4, 2014 - December 7, 2014 | 8:00 AM-12:00 PMEvent Location: Humanities Gateway 1030
Event Details
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Contact: Professor David Pan (UC Irvine / European Languages and Studies) (dtpan@uci.edu)
While World War I initiated an era of conflict that reverberated across the globe, its enduring significance remains a key question a hundred years later. While the rise of nationalism motivated many of the conflicts that sparked the war, the ideological claims on all sides also invoked universalist ideals about civilization and culture. A reevaluation of World War I thus immediately raises questions about the conflicts between nationalism and cosmopolitanism that have continued to frame inner-European relations in the last century. At the same time, 1914 marked the beginning of a fundamental shift in the relationship of Europe to the world. The goal of this conference will be to evaluate the significance of World War I as a defining moment in the relationship of Europe to the rest of the world, both politically and culturally. The two main focuses will be the conflicts between nationalism and cosmopolitanism within Europe and between imperial politics and universal ideals outside of it that have defined World War I as the transition point to new structures of global relations and alternative understandings of cultural identity.
