European Identities and Cultural Imaginaries

Abstract

"Although a geographically small continent, Europe has fostered, over the past millennia, the emergence of an impressive number of languages, cultures and civilizations. This constitutes its richness and also its challenge: how should all these local, regional and national cultural identities be harmonized and integrated, without destroying, but rather conserving and enhancing them? A seminal concept in the investigation of the cultural, literary and artistic representations is “the imaginary” (the equivalent of the French term l’imaginaire), as opposed to the traditional concepts of “imagination” and “fantasy”. Cultural imaginaries express the relations between individuals and groups, their representations of the self and the others, of the geographical and historical milieus, of the planet and the universe. The images of Europe, positive or negative, global or fragmented, define the conscious and unconscious attitudes and comportments, hopes and fears concerning the individual and common destiny of European peoples."