EUROPE IN THE LATE MODERN SOCIAL ACCELERATION. THE ‘SPOKESPEOPLE’ OF EUROPEAN STUDIES Cover Image

EUROPE IN THE LATE MODERN SOCIAL ACCELERATION. THE ‘SPOKESPEOPLE’ OF EUROPEAN STUDIES
EUROPE IN THE LATE MODERN SOCIAL ACCELERATION. THE ‘SPOKESPEOPLE’ OF EUROPEAN STUDIES

Author(s): Zoltán Grünhut
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Sociology, Sociology of Politics
Published by: Facultatea de Studii Europene -Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai
Keywords: social acceleration; Late Modernity; Europe; reflexivity and critical agency; spokespeople;

Summary/Abstract: The paper embraces the concepts of social acceleration and Late Modernity into a multi-theoretical argument. It sheds light on the reflexive and critical shifts, both at individual and institutional-structural level, induced by these processes. Through this lens, the proposed argument revisits the principal fundaments of ‘Europe’; those orienting and underpinning foundations that need to move from the ‘either/or’ framings to the ‘both/and’ logics of pan-relationalism, anti-representationalism, and anti-essentialism. Finally, in the last chapter, the paper (re-)theorizes the role of ‘spokespeople’ in the field of European Studies in order to show how academics/scholars can contribute the most to the reflexive and critical actorness of ‘Europe’ as a multi-layered institutional entity and its European citizens.The paper embraces the concepts of social acceleration and Late Modernity into a multi-theoretical argument. It sheds light on the reflexive and critical shifts, both at individual and institutional-structural level, induced by these processes. Through this lens, the proposed argument revisits the principal fundaments of ‘Europe’; those orienting and underpinning foundations that need to move from the ‘either/or’ framings to the ‘both/and’ logics of pan-relationalism, anti-representationalism, and anti-essentialism. Finally, in the last chapter, the paper (re-)theorizes the role of ‘spokespeople’ in the field of European Studies in order to show how academics/scholars can contribute the most to the reflexive and critical actorness of ‘Europe’ as a multi-layered institutional entity and its European citizens.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 33
  • Page Range: 4-24
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: English