JEAN MONNET CHAIR COAWARE – GUEST LECTURE

18 December 2020, Istanbul 29 Mayıs University, Zoom Webinar

The Muslim World & Construction of Europeanness

Dr. Oğuzhan Göksel, Assistant Professor at Istanbul 29 Mayıs University

Moderator: Prof. Dr. Özgür Ünal – Eriş, Jean Monnet Chair

On 18 December 2020, Jean Monnet Chair COAWARE organized a very informative guest lecture by Dr. Oguzhan Goksel on the topic of “The Muslim World & Construction of Europeanness” including the introductory remarks by Chairholder Prof. Dr. Özgür Ünal – Eriş.

Dr. Oguzhan Goksel has focused on the idea of Europe, Europeanness & Islam in history and today on the topic of “The Muslim World & Construction of Europeanness”. He underlined the importance of socially constructed things and mentioned some successful examples of these constructs. He expressed his opinion that Europe and Europeanness are among the most successful social constructs of all time.

On the other hand, he pointed out that European success in building a regional bloc that ensures political stability, cooperation, mutual benefits, and influence. According to Dr. Goksel, the ability of Europeans to build their self-identification around widely accepted “Others” such as Ottomans/Turks, Russia/USSR, Muslims, etc. In that sense, this helps justify the existence of the EU.

Another point of Dr. Goksel showed that the willingness of Europeans to learn from historical tragedies (e.g. 30 Years War, World War I-II, Cold War) was contributed European supra-national project of peace. Another fact is European common values, the elimination of regional threats to status quo such as German expansionism, economic and political system is very determinant in this context.