Gender and Eurocentrism : a conceptual approach to European history

What is European in the history of Europe? In order to answer this question, Wolfgang Schmale uses two approaches. Firstly, he develops the concept of a performative speech act into what he defines as a collective historical speech act. Secondly, he looks at European history from a gender point of view. Europe was generally thought to be male considering the former Republic of Letters' definition of Europe as a male civilization. However, the 18th-century's performative speech act presently loses its binding force as European civilization develops from 'male' to diversity and plurality, yet right wing parties try to defend and to repeat the historical performative speech act by ignoring the fundamental switch in European civilization. This will only produce violent conflicts. This book considers developments and consequences in a post-performative epoch. CONTENTS PREFACE CHAPTER I PERFORMATIVE ACTS AND GENDER CHAPTER II THE MEANING OF “EUROPE” IN HISTORIOGRAPHY CHAPTER III “EUROCENTRISM”—THE PERFORMATIVE ACT OF THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REPUBLIC OF LETTERS CHAPTER IV AFTERMATHS OF THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY’S PERFORMATIVE ACT CASE STUDY I: EASTERN EUROPE—PART OF “EUROCENTRISM”? CASE STUDY II: THE GENDER OF EUROCENTRISM: HOMO EUROPAEUS CASE STUDY III.1: THE HOLY ALLIANCE AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN IMPERIALISM CASE STUDY III.2: IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM IN THE EARLY DISCOURSES OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION CASE STUDY IV: FROM (CHRISTIAN) IMPERIALISM TO EUROPEAN IDENTITY CHAPTER V TOWARDS POST-PERFORMATIVITY DOCUMENTATION PRIMARY SOURCES SECONDARY LITERATURE ABSTRACTS DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG RÉSUMÉE FRANÇAIS INDEX