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The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute is pleased to announce its second bi-annual colloquium, to be held on September 5–8, 2014, in L'Aquila, Italy.The theme of the conference will be "The Idea of Europe." A full description of the conference, as well as the call for papers, is available on the Institute's website.Building on the success of the first colloquium on "The West: Its Legacy and Future," which was held in September 2012, the Institute will once again bring together scholars from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to explore overarching questions and to analyze political, socio-economic, and cultural transformations across the globe.The focus of the second colloquium is on the idea of Europe, which encompasses different conceptions and rival visions of what Europe is, could be, and should be. The conference organizers invite papers that address the complex dimension of this theme, whether in terms of Europe itself or Europe's ties with the rest of the world.Possible topics include (but are not limited to):The origins of Europe: mythology and historyEurope's civilization or European cultures?Europe and the literary imagination, from Antiquity to the 21st centuryNarratives of Europe and the European "social imaginaries”The Idea of Europe: theorists, writers, figuresUniversalism or exceptionalism?Is Europe Christian? Is Christianity European?Can Islam become European? Should it? Europe and Judaism The case for—and against—eurocentrismWill the EU wither away?The EU and the wider EuropeEurope and the rest of the world: beyond colonialism and the post-colonial paradigmThe conference will consist of plenary sessions and parallel panels.Please send your abstract (no more than 250 words) to laquila@telosinstitute.net by April 15, 2014, and place "L'Aquila 2014 conference" in the email's subject line.Confirmed speakers: Russell Berman, Christopher Coker, Tim Luke, John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, David Pan, Luciano Pellicani, Maria Piccone, Catherine Pickstock, Nick Rengger, Susanna Rizzo, Richard Sakwa, Gianni Vattimo.  Possible publication projects include an edited collection and/or a special issue of the journal Telos.The conference organizers will make a decision shortly after the conference.