Graduate Centre for Europe's 18th Annual Conference

Join us for the 18th Annual Conference of the Graduate Centre for Europe at the University of Birmingham. This year's conference, titled "Reframing Dystopia: The Future(s) of Europe," promises a thought-provoking exploration of alternative European futures.

Attendance is free and open to all, but registration is required. If you have any barriers to attending, please contact the organising committee at [email protected]. For those attending online, a Zoom link with instructions to join will be sent out shortly before the conference.

Please see the detailed programme below:

Location: Muirhead Tower, 113

10:00-10:05 - Welcome & Opening: Hannah Overton-Gill & Jens Garrelfs (Co-Chairs, University of Birmingham)

10:05-11:35 – Panel A: No Border and the Politics of Reversal – Dystopia as a means to image alternative futures

Marianna Karakoulaki (University of Birmingham) – No borders against the European migratory dystopia.

Amirtha Devarajan (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune) – The Poetics and Politics of Reversal in Bernardine Evaristo's Blonde Roots

Isabel Cawthorn (University of Birmingham) – Anti-utopia, regeneration, and origin in Leopoldo Alas “Clarín’s” ‘Cuento futuro’ (1893).

11:35-11:45 – Coffee and tea break

11:45-12:30 – Keynote: Dr Charlotte Galpin (University of Birmingham) – TBD

12:30-13:15 – Lunch break

13:15-14:45 – Panel B: Exclusion and integration – Populist rhetoric, youth engagement and multi-level integration

Ankita Baadkar (University of Birmingham) – Fostering Hope: Encouraging Youth in Europe and Embracing Digital Advancement for a Better Future.

Ximing Yang (University of Birmingham) – The dynamics of multi-level integration in federalism: recommendations for the future trajectory of European integration.

Nouzha Baba (University of Leiden) – At the Intersection of Populism, Nationalism and Islamophobia: Towards an Exclusionary European Rhetoric.

14:45-15:15 – Coffee and tea break

15:15-16:15 – Panel C: Anti-Utopia, Wild Utopia and the Utopian We: Conceptualising alternative European future(s)

Katie Unwin (University of Cambridge) – Wild Utopias: Human Non-human Configurations of the Future in Contemporary German Literature

Julien Clin (University of Kingston) – Defining the Utopian We: Whose Future Are We Talking About?

16:15-16:30 – Closing (Hannah Overton-Gill & Jens Garrelfs (Co-Chairs, University of Birmingham).

Host or Publisher Graduate Centre for Europe - UoB