#FixEurope STRATEGIES FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RENEWAL Conference of European Alternatives

#FixEurope STRATEGIES FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RENEWAL
Conference of European Alternatives
In cooperation with the Heinrich BOELL FOUNDATION
SATURDAY 25TH october – 13.30-18.30 – HEINRICH BOELL stiftung - Berlin
WITH (in order of appearance):
Christian Schwöbel is project manager at the European Union department of the Heinrich Boell
Foundation in Berlin. His special fields of interests are the social and economic consequences of the
Euro crisis and the future of European democracy. Prior to his work at the Boell Foundation he was a
research assistant at the Center for Media and Interactivity (ZMI), an interdisciplinary research center
at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany focus on the various aspects of interactive “digital
media” in science, society, politics, economy, and culture. He studied at the Justus Liebig University
Giessen and the University of Leicester, UK and holds a M.A. in political science, modern history and
public law.
Daphne Büllesbach is Citizenship and Democracy Director of European Alternatives and founder of
the Berlin branch of the organisation. She played an active role in the yearly Transeuropa Festival of
European Alternatives and is particularly interested in developing an organisation that is able to connect
politics to grassroots ideas and initiatives. Previously, she worked in social science research and the
evaluation of government programs. After her studies in Social and Political Science in the UK and
France, she worked in international humanitarian and development organisations in Belgium, Kenya,
Morocco and Argentina.
Saskia Sassen is Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and co-chair of the Committee on Global
Thought at Columbia University. Her research focuses on globalization (incl. social, economic and
political dimensions), immigration, global cities (incl. cities and terrorism), new technologies, and
changes within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. Her latest book,
Expulsions - Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (2014), explores the ways 'today's
socioeconomic and environmental dislocations […] ' 'are more accurately understood as a type of
expulsion - from professional livelihood, from living space, even from the very biosphere that makes life
possible', linked to ongoing developements in the fields of knowledge and technologies.
Hauke Brunkhorst, Professor of Sociology, serves as the Head of the Institute of Sociology and the
European Studies program at the European University of Flensburg. Previously, he worked as Theodor
Heuss Professor for Sociology at the New School University in New York and Research Fellow at the
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. His writings stand in the tradition of the Frankfurt School’s
criticial theory and focus on a variety of subjects including the dynamics of capitalism and democracy
in Europe. His latest work “Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions - Evolutionary perspectives”
(Bloomsburry) discusses social conflict within modern society and its evolutionary and revolutionary
effects on legal development.
Niccolò Milanese is Chair of European Alternatives. He is also part of the elected steering committees
of the Cultural Innovators Network – a trans- Mediterranean network of cultural activists and
hybridizers – and the Europe+ campaign for a more democratic European Union. He has consultancy
experience with the British Council, the Goethe Institute and with the Open University, and prior to
starting European Alternatives worked editing poetry and literature magazines, as a freelance writer and
as an academic researcher. He was educated in Cambridge and Paris, where he was an Entente Cordiale
Scholar.
Igor Štiks is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art, the University of
Edinburgh. He gained his PhD at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and Northwestern University
(USA) in 2009. Before, he was a senior research fellow at the CITSEE project (School of Law, University
of Edinburgh). Together with Jo Shaw he edited the collections Citizenship after Yugoslavia and
Citizenship Rights, and, with Srećko Horvat, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics
after Yugoslavia (2015). His novel A Castle in Romagna received the Award “Slavic” for Best First Book
in 2000. Between 2011 and 2013 he was co-organiser of the Subversive Festival in Zagreb and since 2013
he is a coordinator of Open University Sarajevo.
Beppe Caccia graduated in Philosophy (University of Padua), Ph.D. in European and Euro-American
Political Studies (University of Turin), scholar in History of Political Thought, works for several
international research institutions; from 1997 to 2014 was councillor and from 2001 to 2005 deputy
mayor for Social affairs in the City of Venice; member of political-cultural Association “in comune”
(Venice); is active in Italian and European social movements, like Blockupy international coalition;
member of the Editorial Board of www.globalproject.info; participates in independent research
network; collaborates also with “il manifesto” daily newspaper.
Catherine Fieschi is the director of Counterpoint, a research consultancy that provides governments,
NGOs and corporate actors with strategic advice on how cultural and social dynamics affect politics,
policy-making and markets. Prior to directing Counterpoint, she led the London-based think tank
Demos and directed the Centre for European Governance at the University of Nottingham. Holding a
PhD in Comparative Politics from McGill University, she is the author of In the Shadow of Democracy
(2008) and of numerous pamphlets and articles on extremism, populism, and identity politics and their
impact on policy and business. She is a Senior Associate in the Department of Government at LSE, and
was previously a Senior Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford.
Ulrike Guérot writes about European Democracy and global Europe. She has 20 year experience in
the European think tank community and has taught both in Europe and the US. She also is a regular
writer and commentator on European and transatlantic affairs for German and European media. A
Senior Associate for Germany at the Open Society Initiative for Europe (OSIFE), she previously
worked as head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), head of the
European Union unit at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and as senior transatlantic
fellow with the German Marshall Fund (GMF).
Lorenzo Marsili is the co-founder and Director of European Alternatives. He was the initiator and
spokesperson of the European Initiative for Media Pluralism, an international campaign demanding
better protection for media pluralism and freedom at European level. A long-time student of China, he
initiated a multi-year arts exchange programme between cultural innovators in China, Brazil and
Europe, Transnational Dialogues. He has previously worked in setting up Transeuropa Festival and was
founding editor of Naked Punch magazine. He has degrees in philosophy, sociology, and Chinese
studies, and is an active commentator and public speaker. He tweets @l_marsili.