Summer School 2025
Questioning a continent from within and without
The following public events are part of a Summer School taking place at Saarland University from 4 to 8 August 2025.
Organised by Evgenia Dourou, Philipp König, and Dr Alexander Stoeger – members of the Early Career Trainee Group of the Cluster for European Research – the Summer School brings together invited experts and 30 participants from across Europe and beyond. Together, they explore different perspectives on Europe, its role in the world, and how this shapes our identities – both as Europeans and as non-Europeans.
While the workshops are open only to registered participants, we warmly invite you to attend three free public events. You can find more information below.
We will kick off our Summer School with an exciting keynote lecture by acclaimed historian and political scientist Anthony Pagden. Join us for a unique delve into Europe’s evolving identity through the lens of history and political science and explore how Europe’s past shapes its present and future, offering fresh perspectives on its potential roles in an interconnected world.
The lecture is scheduled for 4 August 2025, 5 pm. It is free and open to the public.
Anthony Pagden is Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Political Science and History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has held positions at Oxford, Cambridge, The European University Institute, Harvard and Johns Hopkins, the École des hautes études and the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. His research focuses on Europe and its overseas empires, federalism, international law and global governance. He is the author of over a dozen books that have been translated into a large number of European and Asian languages, including, The Idea of Europe from Antiquity to the European Union and most recently, The Pursuit of Europe. A History (2022) and Beyond States. Peoples, Powers and Global Order (2024)
Join us for a reading and conversation with Gazmend Kapllani, the Albanian-born polyglot author, journalist, and scholar who has been based in Chicago, USA, in recent years.
Kapllani’s literary voice offers a unique, kaleidoscopic view of Europe, seen through the lenses of the Balkans, the U.S., China, and beyond. His writing explores themes of identity, migration, and borders, placing the immigrant experience at the very heart of Europe.
Kapllani is best known for his acclaimed literary works A Short Border Handbook and Wrongland, from which he will read during the event.
Gazmend Kapllani is an Albanian-born polyglot author, journalist, and scholar. He lived in Athens, Greece for over twenty years. He was graduated in Philosophy from The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and received his PhD in Political Science and History from Panteion University in Athens – where he also taught classes in Albanian modern history and culture. From 2001-2011 Kapllani contributed weekly columns and editorials to the Greece’s largest-circulation newspaper, TA NEA.
He is the author of two collections of poetry in Albanian and four published novels written in Greek and Albanian. His literary work centers on themes of borders, totalitarianism, identity, and how Balkan history has shaped public and private narratives and memories. Kapllani’s first novel A Short Border Handbook (2006) has been translated and published into ten languages. It has been adapted for the stage by Bornholm Theater in Denmark and The National Theater of the Deaf in Greece. In 2017 it won the International Literary Prize of the City of Cassino in Italy.
His other three novels, My Name is Europe, The Last Page and Wrongland have been published so far in French, Italian, Albanian, Greek and English; The Last Page was short-listed for the French Cezam Prix Litteraire Inter CE 2016 and awarded the literary prize of the Salon du Livre des Balkans in Paris, France. WRONGLAND, his second novel translated and published in English, was adapted for the stage by the Greek award-winning theater director Pantelis Flatsousis and performed in Athens, Greece in 2022.
Since 2012 Kapllani has been living in the US, where he was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and writer-in-residence at Brown University and Wellesley College. He taught creative writing and European history at Emerson College in Boston, MA (2013-2018). In 2021 he became an American citizen through naturalization. From 2019 he lives in Chicago where he directs the Hidai “Eddie” Bregu Endowment in Albanian Studies at DePaul University and The DePaul Albanian and Southeastern European Studies Program.
Our second keynote will focus on culture and politics from the point of view of literature. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of the Mediterranean as a dynamic space of exchange and interaction, challenging traditional Eurocentric narratives. Dr. Ceyhun Arslan will guide us through innovative perspectives that reframe the Mediterranean in relation to European Studies and World Literature.
The lecture is scheduled for 7 August 2025. It is free and open to the public.
C. Ceyhun Arslan is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Koç University and co-editor of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures. He was also an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (Georg Forster Fellowship for Experienced Researchers) at Saarland University and Forum Transregionale Studien. His works have been published or are forthcoming in journals and edited volumes such as Comparative Literature Studies Utopian Studies, Cambridge History of Middle Eastern Modernism, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, Sea of Literatures: Towards a Theory of Mediterranean Literature, and Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry. His book, The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Arabic and Turkish Literatures, has appeared in the Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire. He is currently working on the book project tentatively entitled Becoming Mediterranean: The Sea Reconfigured via Arabic, French, and Turkish Narratives.
Evgenia’s dissertation focuses on contemporary literary texts that examine Europe from diverse vantage points. Drawing on memory studies and postcolonial theories, she explores how literature critically engages with European historical and literary archives. In our Summer School, she invites you to take up a kaleidoscopic lens with her to explore how literary texts irritate conventional ideas about Europe by amplifying hidden voices and revealing surprising solidarities and alliances.
Philipp’s dissertation focuses on quantitative and qualitative methods to unravel the complexity of individual identification with Europe, its differences, determinants and consequences. In particular, he is interested in their relationship to Eurosceptic and right-wing populist attitudes. With the Kaleidoscoping Europe Summer School, he is looking forward to diving into the cosmos of all the different meanings of Europe.
Alexander’s current postdoc project investigates how 19th-century European metropolitan museums constructed narratives of epistemic superiority by displaying objects from their colonies by analysing how museums acted and still act as multi-dimensional entities shaping our understanding of European ideals of scholarship today. Alexander is looking forward to discussing colonial practices and non-European epistemic concepts with you.
The Summer School’s key questions connect with the research conducted at the Cluster for European Research (CEUS) at Saarland University, where distinguished scholars from diverse fields and countries examine how concepts of Europe are projected, transformed, and reflected on the global stage.
Rooted in Saarland University’s specific location in a multi-national border region, its research traditions and expertise, the Cluster explores the reciprocal influences between Europe and the wider world across culture, literature, technology, science, economics, politics, law, and philosophy, among others. In an era where global political and economic attention is shifting rapidly, CEUS researchers foster fresh insights into Europe’s evolving international role. Through interdisciplinary, historical, and transcultural approaches, their work highlights Europe’s dynamic and ever-transforming position within the global context, setting the stage for the Summer School’s exploration of these vital themes.
