On 10 and 11 November 2023, a PICAIS-funded, international conference was held at the University of Passau under the title "À la recherche d'une patrie européenne. Cent ans de représentation de l'Europe dans la revue Europe / In Search of the European Homeland: One Hundred Years of Images of Europe in the magazine Europe ".
Over twenty academics from Germany, Austria, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Canada came to Passau for this event. The conference centred on the French literary journal Europe, which will celebrate its centenary in 2023. For the organizer, Prof. Dr. Marina Ortrud Hertrampf, who researches Romain Rolland and concepts of homeland, among other things, the question of the ideas, images and visions of a peacefully united Europe that the authors of the magazine have created since its inception was pivotal.
Against the backdrop of the highly topical nature of the journal's founding motivation, the colloquium set itself the goal of making the strong voices in favour of Europe heard (again). In addition to Romain Rolland, the individual lectures focussed on other personalities who shaped the Revue in the first decades of its existence, in particular Jean Guéhenno, Jules Romains, Panaït Istrati and Elsa Triolet.
This year's international conference is the second to be organised in cooperation with the renowned Sorbonne University in Paris. The proceedings of last year's conference, which dealt with the pacifist Romain Rolland as a transcultural thinker and author, were published in time for this year's conference in the academic book series "Romain Rolland Studien", edited by Prof Dr Hertrampf and published by the Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft München under the title Romain Rolland: un écrivain mondial. The proceedings of this year's colloquium will also be published there in 2024.
You can find the full conference report here.