The 50th anniversary of the founding of the Council for European Studies will be celebrated at our conference in Reykjavik in June 2021. At the conference, we will reflect on the various ways in which Europe as a place, an idea, a people, an Empire, a utopia, and a dystopia has manifested itself.
As we emerge from the global COVID-19 crisis, Iceland will provide the ideal spot for this reflection, given its centrality to trans-Atlantic space, a core concept to the founders of CES. It represents the utopia of the European social model, and yet, at the same time, it was at the dystopian heart of the financial crisis. Iceland also sits precariously at the juncture of tectonic plates, perhaps a geological metaphor for ongoing shifts, slides, clashes, and ruptures in the deep structure of Europe.