Dear CES Community, It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to Philadelphia for the 2025 CES International Conference of Europeanists. It has been nine years since our last gathering in the City of Brotherly Love, and our return feels particularly meaningful. This year, we celebrate 55 years since the foundation of CES, whose first institutional home was just a short journey away in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Adding to the significance of this occasion, we are hosting the conference at our new CES institutional home: Temple University.
Holding the conference on Temple’s campus reaffirms CES’s deep connection with universities. Originally established in June 1970 as the Inter-University Council on Western European Studies, our partnership with academic institutions is fundamental to our mission, and we are committed to strengthening these relationships in the years ahead and continue to promote the role of academia in shaping research and discourse on Europe.
Over the past 55 years, CES has evolved alongside the profound transformations Europe has undergone. We have expanded our research networks, collaborated with funding bodies, broadened our individual membership base across North America and Europe, opened up new connections with partners in Asia and Africa, and diversified our academic focus. Today, CES fosters multi- disciplinary engagement, spanning history, culture, art and literature, political science, international relations, political economy, and law. At our core, however, remains an unwavering commitment to championing university-led study and research on Europe and its global legacies.
This reference to legacies is directly referenced in this year’s conference theme, “Legacies and Ruptures: Making Sense of Europe,” which invites us to take a step back and reflect on how the past continues to shape the present—and where Europe might be headed next. Anniversaries offer a natural moment to pause and take stock, and 2025 brings several anniversaries to mind. It marks 80 years since the end of World War II, a defining moment that reshaped the continent, and 75 years since the Schuman Declaration, which laid the groundwork for European integration and eventually the European Union as we know it. It has also been 35 years since German reunification and 25 years since Vladimir Putin first assumed the presidency of Russia—both events which continue to have direct bearing on the politics of Europe today.
Perhaps, most poignantly, this year marks 30 years since the genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995, and the signing of the Dayton-Paris Agreement in December which ended more than three years of brutal war in Bosnia. That agreement remains a touchstone in current debates, as the EU pushes back against claims that it has outlived its usefulness. In fact, it stands as one of the clearest examples of diplomacy bringing an end to a war—a topic that remains front and center for European and international leaders minds as they grapple with ongoing political, military, and humanitarian crises in Ukraine and Gaza.
These anniversaries remind us that Europe’s story is one of both continuity and change—of building on what came before while navigating the shocks and shifts that keep reshaping its path. The Schuman Declaration opens with a powerful statement: “World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.” 75 years later, these words remain strikingly relevant as Europe seeks to find appropriate ways to address war and conflict, rising extremism, and shifting political landscapes—all of which highlight the need for continued engagement and critical analysis. As scholars, researchers, and thinkers, our role in analyzing, understanding, and responding to these challenges is as crucial as ever. This year’s conference provides an important space to do this as we seek to make sense of Europe through the research and observations of our members presented across the various papers, roundtables, plenaries, and keynote speeches.
We are particularly honored to welcome Mark Copelovitch, who will deliver this year’s keynote and the annual JCMS lecture on: “Europe Adrift: The Future of the EU, the Global Economy, and World Order in an Era of Great Power Uncertainty.” His talk will directly address how recent crises in the global international order have impacted the EU, its economy, and transatlantic relations. Continuing this theme, the plenary roundtable chaired by Karen Anderson will explore how Europe navigates the complexity of the second Trump presidency, featuring insights from Kathleen McNamara, R. Daniel Keleman, Matthias Matthijs, and Dermot Hodson. Building on this we are delighted to host a special Q&A session with Ruth Bajada, EU Deputy Ambassador to the USA, which is particularly timely considering the latest developments and negotiations between Washington and Brussels on topics as varied as trade and the war in Ukraine.
Beyond these headline events, the conference also offers various symposia created by our research networks as well as specialist plenaries on European decolonial legacies, and the current state and future of European Studies in universities amid ongoing challenges in the Higher Education sector.
In response to feedback from previous conference attendees, we’ve made several enhancements to this year’s conference format. For example, we have included additional networking opportunities to foster deeper connections among participants. Additionally, we have revised plenary scheduling to improve accessibility and attendance for delegates. And, for the first time, we are also offering a hybrid participation option, enabling both in-person and virtual engagement. We are committed to ensuring a dynamic and inclusive experience for all attendees and will be closely evaluating the hybrid format to inform future conferences.
Of course, this conference would not be possible without the dedication of our Conference Manager, Nathália Nascimento, and Executive Director, Abby Lewis, alongside members of the CES Executive Committee, all of whom have worked tirelessly behind the scenes. Special thanks also go to our Local Organizing Committee and the main Conference Program Committee—co-chaired by Claske Vos, Maxine David, and Mark Pollack—as well as the wider team for their invaluable work on developing the conference theme, reviewing submissions, and curating the program. We are deeply grateful to Temple University for hosting this event and for their ongoing support of CES. Finally, we extend our appreciation to our sponsors, including the Lauder Institute at The University of Pennsylvania, JCMS, the Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia, and our travel and publishing partners.
So, whether attending in person or virtually, I hope you find this conference intellectually stimulating and enriching. I am certainly looking forward to engaging with all of you across our academic discussions and social events as we examine Europe’s complex past, navigate its present, and envision its future.
Warmest regards and enjoy the conference,
Eamonn Butler McIntosh Chair, Council for European Studies (CES); University of Glasgow