1. What is Europe?

2. Our Subject: A Moving Target

3. A Mythic Beginning: Europa and Zeus Titian, The Rape of Europa 1562

4. The Birth of Europe? Europe was first constructed around the Bosporus (c. 500 BCE), but in the time of Alexander the Great and his successor states (c. 300), “European” culture was based in Egypt and the Near East.

5. Europe, c. 1 CE

6. Europe, c. 500

7. Europe, c. 1000

8. Europe, c. 1650

9. Europe Today

10. How Do We Define Europe?  Geographically  Politically/Economically  Culturally  Religiously  Linguistically  Ethnically/Racially  Oppositionally  Historically

11. Defining Europe Imaginatively? Europa Regina (c. 1537)

12. What’s At Stake in All This?  Our choices give primacy to different factors and/or explanations for historical realities  Our choices focus our attention on certain events, people, and texts that capture the “essence” of the West  Our choices CAN allow us to mistake the results of contingencies and accidents as foreordained or ideal states