Adrian Pabst on Germany's Future, Twenty-Five Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

On The Agenda with Steve Paikin, Telos Associate Editor Adrian Pabst and others discuss the transformation of Germany since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, which took place twenty-five years ago this month, as well as Germany’s future as a dominant political and economic force in Europe.

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The Future of Europe in the Age of Empires

Speaking at the 2014 Telos in Europe Conference, Neil Turnbull considers the prospects for the European project as we move from the Westphalian age of nation-states to a new age of empires. What kind of empire is now emerging in Europe, and what form will it take in the future?

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Europe, the Idea as Exception

I thank very much the organizers for this opportunity to discuss “The Idea of Europe.” Among the several specific topics for discussion suggested in the conference outline, my paper will address the question: “Universalism or exceptionalism?” Now, in the context of this conference, this question might be understood either in historical-political or in philosophical terms, or somehow in both. And it is my contention that, in “the Idea of Europe” the historical-political and the philosophical as such substantially converge. In other words, in “the idea,” with its philosophical complexities, we should be able to find the trace of the decisive rupture in historical time—event, exception—that gave rise to modern Europe and conferred a particular direction, a primordial bias to its temporal unfolding; a bias not opposed to modern reason’s universalism, and inherently beyond the reach of its critical powers.

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Phillip Blond on Universals, the Good, and the Future of European Politics

In this video from the 2014 Telos in Europe Conference, Phillip Blond of ResPublica proposes that the future stability of representative democracy, particularly in Europe, depends upon a new understanding of universals that would provide the basis of the good.

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Susanna Rizzo on the History and Future of European Identity

In this video from the 2014 Telos in Europe Conference, Susanna Rizzo discusses her work on the complex history of the idea of Europe, how it has been shaped by discourses about place and the other, and then considers what the future will be for an increasingly pluralized Europe in which the notion of European identity has been reformulated.

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Benjamin Martin on European Culture against European Civilization

In this video from the 2014 Telos in Europe Conference, Benjamin Martin talks about his research on the idea of European culture, arguing that its emergence among intellectuals after World War I and its subsequent embrace by the Nazis and Italian Fascists serves as a cautionary historical lesson.

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