Leiden-Oxford seminar on European culture

"The Leiden-Oxford Consultative Committee for Philosophy and other Humanities is preparing a seminar, to be held in Leiden in the coming year, on the specificity of European culture. The seminar, for selected students from Leiden and Oxford, will be taught in English by international scholars and co-ordinated by Professor Wim Blockmans of the Leiden History department.

It will focus on phenomena which have determined Europe's originality: on the one hand, a common tradition of the supranational, with universal sets of norms and values in the fields of religion, 'high culture' and elite behaviour; on the other, a vast plurality of local and regional cultures absorbing elements from the general elite culture, and moulding them into a wide variety of particular variations."