Eurowhiteness: culture, empire and race in the European project

Join us for this event in which the speakers will discuss Hans Kundnani’s latest book, Eurowhiteness: culture, empire and race in the European project.

The European Union is often seen as a cosmopolitan rejection of violent nationalism. Yet the idea of Europe has a long, problematic history—in medieval times, it was synonymous with Christianity; in the modern era, it became associated with ‘whiteness’. Eurowhiteness exposes the EU as a vehicle for imperial amnesia. Narratives of European integration emphasise the lessons of war and the Holocaust, but not the lessons of colonial history. The EU is about power as much as peace—and civic ideas of Europe are being displaced by ethnic and cultural ones. Since the 2015 refugee crisis, whiteness has become even more central to European identity—a troubling new turn in Europe’s long civilisational project. It is time to confront the relationship between ideas of Europe and ideas of race.

Meet our speakers and chair

Gurminder K. Bhambra (@gkbhambra) is Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, and a Fellow of the British Academy (2020). She was previously Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.

Hans Kundnani (@hanskundnani) is an associate fellow and former Europe programme director at Chatham House, and the author of Utopia or Auschwitz; The Paradox of German Power; and Eurowhiteness. Hans writes regularly for The Observer, The Guardian, The New Statesman and Foreign Affairs, among others.

Helen Thompson (@HelenHet20) is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century.

Mike Wilkinson, Professor of Law at LSE, studied at University College London, the College of Europe, Bruges, and completed a PhD at the European University Institute, Florence. Prior to taking up his post at LSE in 2007, Mike was lecturer at Manchester University, EU-US Fulbright Research Fellow at Columbia and NYU and was called to the Bar (Lincoln’s Inn) in 2000.

Simon Glendinning (@lonanglo) is Head of the European Institute and Professor in European Philosophy at LSE. He is the author of Europe: a philosophical history – beyond modernity.

More about this event

This event will be available to watch on LSE Live. LSE Live is the new home for our live streams, allowing you to tune in and join the global debate at LSE, wherever you are in the world. If you can’t attend live, a video will be made available shortly afterwards on LSE’s YouTube channel.

The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) is a centre for research and graduate teaching on the processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe.

LSE Law School (@LSELaw) is one of the world’s top law schools with an international reputation for the quality of its teaching and legal research.

Speakers

Professor Gurminder K. Bhambra, Hans Kundnani, Professor Helen Thompson, Professor Mike Wilkinson

Chair

Professor Simon Glendinning

This is event will be followed by a drinks reception.

The event is co-hosted by The European Institute

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEEurope