The fifth edition of the Winter (Online) Lecture Series on Europe will take place at the University of Luxembourg from 2nd to 17 December 2024 in connection with the courses “History of European integration (1919-1993)” (MAHEC-142) and “Economic and social history of Europe after 1945: concepts, processes, actors” (MAHEC-63) from the Master in European Contemporary History, and the course “Democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe” (BCE-EU-301-04) from the Bachelor in European Cultures.
The aim is to give students on these programmes, as well as the wider academic community at the University of Luxembourg, the opportunity to find out about the history and workings of the European institutions in Luxembourg from new and unconventional angles and to discuss some of the milestones in contemporary European history with people who were involved in or witnessed these events. Each session (in French or English, with a Q&A session in French and English) will be streamed via Webex and will include a presentation by a speaker followed by a discussion with the audience and the opportunity to ask questions.
The lectures, which are also open to the wider public, are run in conjunction with Europe Direct at the University of Luxembourg (ED-UNILU) – a competitive European public history project co-funded by the European Union (2021-2025) – and several other partners including: the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU), the Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre on the History of European Integration at the European University Institute (EUI) (Florence, Italy), Florence School of Transnational Governance, Bronisław Geremek Foundation (Warsaw, Poland), Embassy of Poland in Luxembourg, Robert Triffin Chair at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) (Belgium), Robert Triffin International Foundation (RTI) (Belgium), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE) and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The conference will be held in English.
Short biography
Dr Dieter Schlenker is the Director of the Historical Archives of the European Union since January 2013 and Co-director of the Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre on the History of European Integration since 2015. He teaches archival science at the Alma Mater Europaea University in Maribor, the State Archives of Florence, the European College of Parma, and the International Institute for Archival Science in Trieste. He is board member of the EU Liaison Committee of Historians and the European Association for Banking and Finance History. He previously worked for UNESCO, first as archivist at the Paris Headquarters, then as Head of the Information and Knowledge Management Unit in Bangkok, Thailand. Before, he worked as Records Manager at Ford Company European Headquarters in Cologne and at FAO Headquarters in Rome. Schlenker holds an Archivist Diploma from the Archival School of the Vatican Secret Archive, a Journalist Diploma from the Freie Journalistenschule Berlin (FJS) and a PhD in Modern History from the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Abstract
The presentation will offer a broad overview of the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) founded in 1983 and will explore its wide range of multilingual, multimedia sources and archives for both researchers and the general public, while also analysing the current interdisciplinary challenges, historiographical issues and innovative practices which it is facing in the digital age. ‘The common European memory is best captured and preserved in the Historical Archives of the European Union, where the archives of the EU institutions are preserved along with the documents of pioneers and visionaries, political leaders and the many European witnesses from movements, associations and political groups’. (Dieter Schlenker, 2024). The presentation will also highlight the research interests and objectives of the the Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre – that emerged as a joint initiative of the HAEU and the EUI’s Department of History and Civilisation – and which is a unique research hub on European cooperation and integration from the twentieth century to the present.
Conference given in the framework of the 2024 edition of Winter (Online) Lecture Series on Europe.
Photo Dieter Schlenker © EUI Florence, 2024
