What's left behind

de Marjet Derks, Martijn Eickhoff, Remco Ensel, Floris Meens

This book addresses a central and currently pressing question: changing ideas about Europe and European identity. The essays in this volume examine these ideas about Europe by analyzing histories and discourses of monuments, memorial sites, objects of art and other meaningful artefacts. They pay particular attention to cultural transfers between locations, continents, communities and individuals, both within and outside of Europe. In doing so, this volume connects the originally European-nations-centred concept of lieux de mémoire with the outer-European world and gives it a new transnational, transcultural and transcontinental blend. The essays concentrate on four specific topics: colonial memory, religion, imperial and post-colonial contact zones, and changing concepts of Europe. Taken together, these historical perspectives transcend older Grand Narratives by presenting Europe as a multiform and ever-changing cultural construction. They contribute to a better understanding of Europe's changing position in the world and the way we perceive it.