BURLUYK O. - Cultural Diplomacy (8h)

The workshop by Prof. Olga BURLYUK will be organized by problematizing each of the words, or concepts, in the title: Culture and Diplomacy.

 “What is culture?” might seem to be a simple question, but you will quickly realise that it is not. What turns cultural relations, interactions and collaborations into an act of diplomacy? Is “diplomacy” in the field of culture diplomacy to be understood in its standard sense? You will learn that given today’s plethora of cross-border cultural cooperation between all sorts of actors using all sorts of funding, cultural diplomacy might be rather tricky to pin down.

In this seminar you will also learn how culture & diplomacy  play out in the peculiar context of European Union’s external action. Which EU documents regulate the matter? Which EU institutions drive the policy and which implement it?

Finally, concrete examples of what could be seen as instances of EU cultural diplomacy, good and bad practices, will be examined and debated about by the participants. Questions of why do cultural diplomacy, how and to what effect will be central to the discussion at this point. The topic of EU cultural diplomacy will thus link up to broader debates on European identity and the EU as an international actor.