Roy Andersson’s unique surrealist style and the affect it gives rise to, situated somewhere between deep existential dread and the most absurdist humor, are intimately connected to his staging of action in stacked layers of meaning in deep focus, immobile long takes. A formal reading of his films then gives us a greater understanding of the connection between affect and film style.But the tableau which all but evacuates time in Andersson is not only a stylistic choice: this challenge to traditional structures and temporalities is the formal manifestation of his anachronistic conception of history. I argue that cinematic time is here closely tied to historical time: a view of history as layered, instantaneous and made up of incongruous juxtapositions as commentary on a failure of historicism as central to the development of a national Swedish identity marked by passivity, anti-intellectualism, and a lack of historical conscience.

<p>This paper has two aims. The first aim is to study and describe the manifest ideology of the EU's social policy. The second aim is to analyse to what extent the manifest ideology might be a part of building a common European identity - by finding common solutions to commonEuropean problems (problems, more or less constructed as common). The research is a critical ideology analysis, made up of a qualitative text analysis of EU social policy documents and National strategy reports (NSR). I ask two questions. Firstly, which are the main features in the manifest ideology of EU social policy as described in the texts? Secondly, what picture of a European identity is visible when reading the EU social policy texts and the National Strategy Reports? I have found five main features of the manifest ideology. These revolve around: how the world and change in the world are described according to the EU; the mutual interaction between the Lisbon objectives and greater social cohesion; the creating of social cohesion; the importance of how policies are constructed and implemented and the EU's self-image. The texts offer either two quite different pictures with regards to the question of a European identity or ones that is partly incoherent. The analysed EU policy texts put across a picture of a uniform Europe, suggest that there is something genuinely European and a common European identity. However, the picture obtained when reading the NSRs and the collected picture of the EU policy texts and the NSRs is much less coherent. The paper argues that the manifest ideology could be a part of building a European identity, but it does not manage to prove that it actually is.</p>

Forum: EU-Diplomatie im Jahre 2020

This thesis analyses the relationship between identity and language by evaluating Poland&rsquo / s accession to the European Union. It suggests that at the national level, language is a constructer and transporter of identity, which is created and recreated as part of a political programme. Thus, it questions the role of language as an identity transporter/ marker at the EU level. Within this framework, arguing that the European identity is created by the European elites, establishment of the European identity in Poland will be discussed and the role of language in the European identity formation process in Poland will be examined. The thesis will also evaluate the results of the language policies and multilingualism that aim to establish the European identity in Poland, and will draw attention to the results such as the dominance of Anglo-Saxon culture and English. Finally, by making use of Poland&rsquo / s EU accession, the thesis will point out the limits of language as an identity transporter/ marker at the EU level.

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the concept of &lsquo / European identity&rsquo / within the context of the European Union (EU) in terms of constructivist approach. This thesis is based on the idea that European integration project needs a shared identity / it is essential means for the success and continuity of an &lsquo / ever closer Union&rsquo / . In this context, the aim of the thesis is to find out the answers to the questions of whether the EU has a European identity / whether a post-national European identity is viable and desirable / if so, which model of identity is more viable and desirable. Through adopting the constructivist approach the main argument of this thesis is that a European identity is as a process and project. The thesis further argues European identity as a &lsquo / thin&rsquo / identity is still in the process of formation and its uncertain content and &lsquo / future-oriented&rsquo / character is open to new codifications. Accordingly, the thesis contains three main parts / the viable and desirable post-national European identity / the EU&rsquo / s identity building strategies / the impact of European integration and the effects of identity-building strategies on both national and European identities since the 1950s to present.

This thesis analyzes the European identity and its others with a special focus on two Eastern &ldquo / Others&rdquo / : the Russian and the Turk. In this context firstly the notion of identity, the role of difference in the formation of identity and the role of identity in international relations will be explored. Thereby the significance of identity in shaping the international relations will be shown. Then the development of Europe and European identity and its various others will be examined with a historical perspective. In the light of this exploration, the emergence of the East-West divide, the historical evolution of relations with the Russian and the Turk in relation with the changing connotations of the European identity will be studied. Finally the Russian and Turkish cases will be examined in a comparative way. In this way the converging and diverging points between the two cases in terms of their relationship with Europe and their place vis &agrave / vis Europe will be analyzed.

This thesis aims to problematize the cosmopolitan-spirited quest for a proper and permanent place for Islam and Muslim immigrants in Europe today, and to claim that the efforts to establish a European Islam cannot be thought in isolation from the efforts to consolidate a European identity. Since &ldquo / Europeanizing&rdquo / Islam is a process of inserting it into the politically acceptable formations of the secular in the European public sphere, not only does this project fail to offer a genuine alternative framework for belonging, or an authentic opportunity for dialogue, but also in fact consolidates the European civilizational identity on the one hand, and sustains the metanarrative about the Islamic threat on the other. The major argument of this thesis, therefore, is that the stranger (Muslim) is allowed to enter the host&rsquo / s secular space only under the conditions that construct Islam as the enemy. Forging a European Islam under the rules of secularism, without a radical interruption of the secular - religious division, and without referring to its implication in the discourses of Orientalism and racism, is ultimately a reconsolidation of the authority of the self-same European. This argument will be illustrated via a critical study of three cases of mosque debates in European cities.

The purpose of this dissertation is to answer &lsquo / if we can live together?&rsquo / , through establishing a historical approach towards the concepts of Europeanization, European identity and the rights of minorities. The main argument reads that within the historical understanding of Europeanization, it is theoretically impossible to speak of a common European identity that European peoples and societies could agree upon. The problem is that such impossibility cannot be explained by the mainstream political identity and Europeanization literature. In this thesis, in order to account for the late-modern European self-definition which is distinguished with its banal character that carries elements from post-modernity yet at the same time is situated on the modern necessities and inventions, &lsquo / social identity&rsquo / and &lsquo / social categorization&rsquo / conceptualizations of Henri Tajfel are addressed. The aim is to communicate between the studies of Europeanization and European identity and the Social Identity Theory that proposes an instant gathering of people through social ingrouping without developing a certain sense of common culture, identity or belongingness. Having set the theoretical ground, the practical consequences of European ingrouping are examined by employing a historical perception of the development of the idea of minorities in Europe. Minorities are the traditional others of European nation-states and they are the outgroups of any social ingrouping for that matter. There are observed two fundamental results of the current European ingrouping-outgrouping on the development of minority right regimes in Europe. On the one hand, there is still the traditional security-oriented perception of national minorities in Europe that is simultaneously exposed to Europeanization and some level of improvement / yet, on the other hand, the European ingrouping itself is causing the minoritization of certain groups, excluding them from the very agenda of Europeanization.

Since its inception in 1956, the EurovisionSong Contest has been a stage for national representation and an opportunityfor countries to brand themselves. The 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku,Azerbaijan is a prime example of nation branding, both for the host country aswell as the participating countries. Hosting the event gives a country the opportunity to present a specific nation brand, but there are other opportunities for those countries which only have a three-minute time-frame for their performance in presenting a national image. These performances are themain subject of this thesis, which main question is: How do nation-states use the Eurovision Song Contest as a means of nation branding?            To answer this question, I use three sub-questions. First, I focus on the concept of identity: how does musical performance represent national and European identity in the context of the Eurovision Song Contest? Secondly, I study the translation of national identity into an image that should appeal to all of Europe, by creating a specific nation brand: how do nations use nation branding through culture as a tool to build an appealing image within the context of Eurovision? Lastly, I study the performance of these nation brands in specific cases during the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest: how is a nation-branded image performed in the Eurovision Song Contest?             The first two chapters of my thesis consist of an analysis of literature on identity and nation branding in combination with national representation in Eurovision. My third and last chapter consists of performance analyses of 2012 participants, focusing on performances from Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Montenegro, which in 2012 were some of the richest performances in terms of symbolism concerningnational representation.

This thesis aims to analyze the similarities and differences in how identity is constructed by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament regarding the Polish membership and the potential Turkish membership of the European Union. The construction of identity is analyzed through a social constructivist perspective where identity is constructed by distinguishing ”us” from ”them”. The research metod used is a qualitative text analysis. The arguments of identity are taken from the Commission’s and the Council’s documents, as well as from the debates of the European Parliament. The arguments of identity refer to the official accession criterias of the European Union, as well as to inofficial criterias formulated by the members of the European Parliament. Arguments used are for example that Polish and Turkish standards are not the same as the European standard, that the European norms need to be integrated into the Polish and Turkish constitutions and that Poland and Turkey are too poor to become members of the European Union. The result also shows that the construction of a European identity built on a common culture has had the greatest impact in the European Parliament and the European Commission.