Becoming Europeans : cultural identity and cultural policies / Monica Sassatelli

This book addresses European identity as an object of both theoretical and empirical investigation. At the theoretical level it focuses on the academic and institutional debate on European cultural identity. It places this debate in the broader context of Europeanization and the formation of a European society led by institutional projects since World War II, as well as within wider processes of globalization, the collapse of monolithic collective identities and the new centrality of the issue of diversity. At an empirical level the book explores two main case studies. The first concentrates on EU cultural policy and on one of its most representative actions, the European Capital of Culture programme, established in 1985. The second case study considers the Council of Europe, which since its foundation in 1949 has been based on a much more cultural approach, and its strategy of Europeanization through cultural co-operation, focusing on its recent European Landscape Convention, ratified in 2004. (Font: Editor)

List of figures -- List of tables and boxes -- List of acronyms and abbreviations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Part I. Making the Europeans: cultural identity and cultural policy: 1. Imagined Europe: narratives of European cultural identity ; 2. European cultural policies -- Part II. Being and becoming: the European capitals of culture: 3. A simple idea and a vision: the ECOC Programme ; 4. A 'Wealth of Urban Cultures': the European Cities of Culture in 2000 -- Part III. Europe as a landscape: the European Landscape Convention: 5. From monuments to landscapes: the European Landscape Convention ; 6. Europe as a landscape: unity in diversity in practice -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index