It is common to define Europe by its democratic, scientific, religious, and cultural traditions. But in What is European? On Overcoming Colonial and Romantic Modes of Thought (Amsterdam UP, 2025), Dag Nikolaus Hasse argues that the search for Europe's essence has taken a troubling turn. He shows that many traditional ideas about Europe are culturally one-sided and historically and geographically distorted, and calls for a decolonisation and deromanticisation of the discourse on Europe.
The book promotes an inclusive vision of Europe that reflects its long history of multiethnic cities, offers a cultural home to a wider range of people across the continent, and extends attention and respect to other continents, thus laying a more respectful foundation for shaping the future together.
At the same time, Hasse demonstrates that overcoming colonial ways of thinking does not and should not result in anti-Europeanism. Criticising European arrogance may well go hand in hand with feeling culturally at home in other traditions of Europe. For this, it does not matter whether one is a resident of the European continent or not. There is no privileged access to European culture or to the culture of any other continent.
Dag Nikolaus Hasse is professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Würzburg. Among his numerous publications, two monographs stand out: Avicenna's De Anima in the Latin West (2000), and Success and Suppression: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy in the Renaissance (2016). In 2016, Hasse was awarded the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the highest disctinction for a scientist in Germany.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
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