The imaginative origins of the Europe theater reach back to the pastoral topoi of the Hebrew Bible and classical Greek poetry, through which Europeans conceived of a natural paradise set apart from urban or courtly corruption. Europe’s post-Columbian relationship with America — initially and enduringly framed in pastoral terms — begins with the explorers of the late 15th and 16th centuries, and extends through the colonial development and displacement of indigenous peoples leading up to the Revolutionary War in the late 18th century, the continental battles for land and influence in the 19th, two world wars (and the Cold War) in the 20th, and the common struggle against radical Islamic terrorism in the 21st. This theater’s Founders — those responsible for the most profound and influential expressions which have defined the region’s conceptual topography with respect to America — include Columbus, Thomas Harriot, Thomas Paine, Edmund Burke, G.W.F. Hegel, Alexis de Tocqueville, Charles Dickens, Hannah Arendt, and Jean Baudrillard. (N.B. The geographical boundaries of Their America’s Europe include Russia.) * SUGGEST MATERIAL / VOLUNTEER *
FORUMS • “Iran Video Analysis: US Hard-liners, Deception, & the Quest for ‘Permanent Conflict'” • Timeline: Which events belong? • John Smith’s “A True Relation…” NEW TO THE ARCHIVES • “A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia,” by Thomas Harriot • “A Modell of Christian Charity,” by John Winthrop • “A Plea for Caution from Russia,” by Vladimir Putin • Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville Highlights
EUROPE THEATER