Ideological Storms: Intellectuals and the Totalitarian Temptation
Ideological Storms: Intellectuals and the Totalitarian Temptation
14-15 November 2011, 9:00 – 4:30 p.m.
The Wilson Center, Embassy of Romania
The Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies at the University of Maryland, College Park and the Romanian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with the Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project began, in 2007, a series of conferences in Washington D.C. focused on providing, by means of reflection on watershed moments of post-1945 history, an overview of the global dynamics characteristic for the 20th century and its lessons and impact upon the 21st. In the previous years, the central topics were centered on the Sovietization of Eastern Europe, the promises of 1968, the meanings of 1989, and on the process of overcoming a traumatic past in post-authoritarian societies.
This year’s conference entitled Ideological Storms: Intellectuals and the Totalitarian Temptation will take place on 14-15 November 2011.
Day one of the conference will be held at The Wilson Center.
Day two of the conference will be held off-site at the Embassy of Romania.
The conference will provide an overview of the main issues raised by the temptation of the extremes in the 20th century and their weight upon the contemporary world. The aim is to create a forum that will discuss political passions, radicalism, utopian ideals, and their catastrophic consequences in the twentieth century’s experiments in massive social engineering. In the process it will attempt to chart the map of and explain what Hannah Arendt called “the ideological storms” of a century second to none in terms of violence, hubris, ruthlessness and human sacrifices.
Programma
Conference speakers include:
Christian Ostermann, Wilson Center; Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland; Mark Lilla, Columbia University; Adrian Vierită, Ambassador of Romania to the US; Horia-Roman Patapievici, President, Romanian Cultural Institute; Dennis Deletant, Georgetown University; Cristina Vatulescu, New York University; Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland; Michael David-Fox, Georgetown University; Angelo Mitchievici, Ovidius University, Romania; Balazs Trencsenyi, Central European University; Ian Ward, University of Maryland; Annette Wieviorka, CNRS; Stanislao G. Pugliese, Hofstra University; Nikos Marantzidis, University of Macedonia-Thessaloniki; Jeffrey Isaac, University of Indiana, Bloomington, and more.
14 November: 5th Floor Conference Room, The Wilson Center
To RSVP to Day 1 of the conference email: HAPP@wilsoncenter.org
15 November: OFF-SITE at the Embassy of Romania
To RSVP to Day 2 of the conference email: ideologicalstorms@gmail.com
Visit www.CWIHP.org for more information.
