RUB Europadialog constitutes a network of early career scholars and PhD students from different parts of the continent who want to engage with the past, present, and future of the European project. Facing the current propagation of simple narratives, stereotypes and the omnipresence of a discourse of confrontation, we wish to encourage a return to the European virtue of the conversation. In doing so, we would like to discuss our research on… Read More
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is a PhD candidate at the University of Seville and is interested in history and memory in German literature since 1989.
investigates the inevitable question of what unites or can unite the European citizens amidst a crisis which spreads divisions.
currently works at the German-Italian Centre for European Excellence Villa Vigoni.
is an Italian philosopher and postdoctoral research assistant at the Law Department of the University of Salento.
is a PhD candidate at the University of Kiel, where she obtained her Master of Arts in European Ethnology, Archaeology and Economics.
is an Associate in the International Security Division of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
is a PhD candidate at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU, Beer Sheva – Israel) with particular interests in the historical and cultural concept of Central Europe.
is a PhD candidate at the Complutense University of Madrid, focusing on the Spanish-German diplomatic networks since 1871.
is a historian and Assistant Professor in History at Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
works at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück (Germany).
RUB Europadialog Blog is featuring a special series of essays on the politics of history in contemporary Europe. These essays have been written by students of the MA in European Studies programme at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. They are revised versions of papers written within the course Post-War Europe: Political and Societal Transformations. The essays include: Linda Weigl, Commemorating Communist Rule in Hungary: The Role… Read More
Acknowledging the importance of a continuous examination of the abhorrent crimes committed during the Third Reich, German Holocaust commemoration policy has been nothing to compromise on for the last decades. Nevertheless, with the rise of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), one can observe an increased tendency to question the importance and adequacy of the established Holocaust commemoration. Is the power of the past to shape the present fading away? By… Read More
The 2017 French presidential election revealed a returning obsession with France’s Vichy Past, as many politicians once again denied France’s responsibility in the deportation of the Jews during the Second World War. This essay explores the factors that led to the resurgence of nationalist revisionism in the political rhetoric and discusses how this illustrates the limits of Pierre Nora’s ‘devoir de mémoire’. By Florian Bikard Introduction The debacle of June 1940 marks… Read More
Carl Peters, Adolf Lüderitz and Gustav Nachtigal were once colonial heroes of the German Empire. But as colonialism came to be recognized as an inherently unjust endeavor, a group of activists started a movement to rename the streets in Berlin honoring them, thereby sparking a fierce debate about historical and racial narratives that is symptomatic of the current state of race relations in Western societies at large. By Elias Hartmann Introduction The… Read More
Current political developments in Hungary and the country’s path towards democratic consolidation after the collapse of State Socialism prompt the question of how the past is reinterpreted in Hungarian politics today. How does Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s current Prime Minister, use history to shape the public discourse in his most recent public memorial speeches? Besides gaining knowledge of the past in order to understand the present, it is similarly important to understand its… Read More
