Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity

The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in European Capitals of Culture in practice. On all levels of the EU’s cultural policy, the rhetoric of European cultural identity and its ‘unitedness in diversity’ is related with the ideas and practices of fostering common cultural heritage.     

Rewriting Carlyle and Scottish cultural history

Carlyle and Scottish Thought. By Ralph Jessop (London: Macmillan, 1997) xvii + 266 pp. £40.00 cloth.     

From enlightenment to experience: cultural centres in Helsinki neighbourhoods

The article explores how key cultural policy objectives have been negotiated and realised in the urban cultural centres of three neighbourhoods in the city of Helsinki, Finland. We analyse how the ideological basis and the meaning of the centres for their users are related to the overall rationales of urban cultural policy: Enlightenment, Empowerment, Economic impact and Entertainment (Skot‐Hansen 2005 Skot‐Hansen, D. 2005. “Why urban cultural policies?”. In EUROCULT21 Integrated Report, Edited by: Robinson, J. 31–39. Helsinki: EUROCULT21.  [Google Scholar]). Based on our data, consisting of documents on the centres, interviews with decision makers, producers and other professionals, as well as a survey (N = 814) of the visitors to these centres, we argue that even though the roots of the centres date back to 1970s concepts about the democratisation of culture and cultural democracy, the centres are not old‐fashioned fortresses of outdated cultural forms. On the contrary, as providers of experiences, the cultural centres reflect the latest developments of society.     

Trade,culture and the European Union cultural exception

ABSTRACT

The article examines how the European Union has addressed the ‘trade and culture debate’ in its international trade agreements. From a cultural exception approach based on an attempt to detach culture from trade provisions, the European Union economic agreements seem to evolve to a broader and more holistic position aiming to promote cultural exchanges through cooperation, while still safeguarding policy space in cultural matters through its traditional cultural exception. The article provides an overview of the European positions to defend the specificity of the audio-visual services sector at the multilateral (World Trade Organization Agreements), regional and bilateral levels. It also examines how the implementation of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions has led the European Union to negotiate cultural cooperation provisions in parallel to some of its recent bilateral and regional trade agreements and the way this Convention may impact the understanding of the ‘trade and culture debate’.     

French cultural history from theory to practice

Rioux, J.‐P. and Sirinelli, J.‐F. (eds), Pour une histoire culturelle (Seuil, 1997), 456 pp., 185F., ISBN 2 02 025470 0

Rioux, J.‐P. and Sirinelli, J.‐F. (eds), Histoire culturelle de la France, vol 3, Baecque, A. de and Mélonio, F., Lumières et libertés: les dix‐huitième et dix‐neuvième siècles (Seuil, 1998), 390 pp., 340F., ISBN 2 02 019793 6

Rioux, J.‐P. and Sirinelli, J.‐F. (eds), Histoire culturelle de la France, vol. 4, Rioux, J.‐P. and Sirinelli, J.‐F, Le temps des masses: le vingtième siècle (Seuil, 1998), 404 pp., 340F., ISBN 2 02 013537 X     

European statistics on cultural participation and their international comparability

This paper will consider a number of issues. Section 1 will introduce the paper, establishing why reliable internationally comparable statistics on cultural participation are needed. Section 2 will address the major and various difficulties that arise in comparing national surveys, both over time and to each other. Section 3 will consider the problems that persist even with cross-national surveys for comparative purposes. Section 5 will conclude the paper with some policy recommendations.     

Communities of discourse: Ideology and social structure in the reformation,the enlightenment,and European socialism

In contrast to the conventional view of Ludwig Feuerbach as a left-wing Young Hegelian, this article argues that his primary contribution to philosophy is to be found in his later ethics, the basis of which may be discerned in his earlier writings. Over and above recent work on Feuerbach's aesthetics, his relation to Herder, and the relationship between aesthetics and ‘theological politics’ in his thought, Feuerbach's philosophy can re-evaluated, in relation to Epicurus and the French libertin tradition, as articulating an ethics of hedonism. In The Essence of Christianity (1841), the Nachlass fragment ‘Elementary Aesthetics’ (1843), and his Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843) Feuerbach moves towards the vitalist materialist position that culminates in his (proto-Nietzschean) insight in ‘Against the Dualism of Body and Soul, Flesh and Spirit’ (1846) into the world as an ‘aesthetic phenomenon’, thus laying the foundations for his recognition of the centrality of sensuous pleasure to the ethical life.