During the fall of 2007, the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University hosted a series of six debates with ambassadors from Poland, France and Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Spain, and Greece. The events, which were generously funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington DC, took place as part of a larger project of the Institute entitled Getting to Know the European Union: Member States in Focus. The project was conceived as a way to bring knowledge of the European Union, its policies, and institutions as they function on individual country level to a broader public. The debates with European Ambassadors centered on the question: “What does it mean, in practice, to be a member of the European Union?” While many of the Institute’s previous activities, including lectures by European Commissioners and policy experts, addressed this question from the vantage point of Brussels, these debates – in an effort to engage ordinary citizens and to highlight local economic, social, and cultural connections to Europe – brought individual member state perspectives into focus.

As part of the project we have launched our new EU for YOU website, featuring audio and video transcripts of IHS event and a forum in which we invite you to discuss European topics of interest. Please visit our CONNECT page and get invovled in our activities.

Other noteworthy happenings at the Institute were a discussion of Poetry and Politics with Tomasz Rozycki, the Polish poet and translator, recently nominated for the Nike award, and Major Jackson, American poet, Associate Professor of English at University of Vermont and a faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and a lecture by Slovenian sociologist, postmodern philosopher, and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek entitled Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself: Antinomies of Tolerant Reason. it launches a new website – www.euforyou.org – featuring audio and video transcripts of IHS events and a forum to facilitate ongoing discussion of the European Union.

Photo essay by Tereza Novotna, PhD candidate, Boston University; Junior Visiting Fellow, IWM, Vienna