Author Meets Critics: Lecture by Jan-Werner Müller

Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe

The interdisciplinary research network Rethinking European Integration is proud to announce that Jan-Werner Müller will give a lecture on his latest book Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe (Yale University Press, 2011). Jan-Werner Müller is a Professor of Political Theory at Princeton University and has written extensively on ideology, memory and political thought in Twentieth Century Germany and Europe. Following Professor Müller’s lecture, there will be comments by Mikkel Thorup (Associate Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and the History of Ideas, University of Århus) and Niklas Olsen (Postdoc at the SAXO-Institute, University of Copenhagen) and a Q&A session.

After the lecture, there will be a reception with drinks and snacks.
The lecture is open for all, but registration is necessary: nolsen@hum.ku.dk

Abstract
Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe is the first major account of political thought in twentieth-century Europe, both West and East, to appear since the end of the Cold War. Skillfully blending intellectual, political, and cultural history, Jan-Werner Müller elucidates the ideas that shaped the period of ideological extremes before 1945 and the liberalization of West European politics after the Second World War. He also offers vivid portraits of famous as well as unjustly forgotten political thinkers and the movements and institutions they inspired. Müller pays particular attention to ideas advanced to justify fascism and how they relate to the special kind of liberal democracy that was created in postwar Western Europe. He also explains the impact of the 1960s and neoliberalism, ending with a critical assessment of today's self-consciously post-ideological age.

Arranged by EURECO /Rethinking European Integration

Centre for Modern European Studies
Centre for Studies in Legal Culture