After a one-year pause caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Wiener-Anspach Foundation is delighted to announce the resumption of the Ganshof van der Meersch Chair, which in 2021/2022 will be held by Paul Betts, Professor of Modern European History at St Antony’s College (University of Oxford).

Paul Bett’s research and publications centre on Modern European Cultural History in general and 20th Century German History in particular, with a special focus on the relationship between culture and politics. His books include Ruin and Renewal: Civilizing Europe after World War II (New York: Basic Books/ London: Profile Books, 2020), Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), and The Authority of Everyday Objects: A Cultural History of West German Industrial Design (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).

Prof. Betts will be welcomed at the Université libre de Bruxelles by Ramona Coman and Nicolas Verschueren (President and Director of the Institute for European Studies). His course, entitled “Europe in the 20th Century, 1914-2000: National, Transnational and International Histories”, will explore how notions of regional, national and international history have been used to organize and interpret the history of 20th-century Europe.

Programme of the Chair

  • Friday, February 11: “Political Geographies: Regions, Nations, Empires”
  • Friday, February 25: “Varieties of Political Representation”
  • Friday, March 4: “Internationalism and Rights”
  • Friday, March 11: “Consumption Regimes”
  • Friday, March 18: “Boundaries and Identities”

These classes are reserved for IEE students. Prof. Betts will give a public lecture on Thursday, March 10: “A Re-Civilising Mission: The Cultural Reconstruction of Europe after 1945” (more information here).

The Ganshof van der Meersch Chair chair was established in 1995 in memory of Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch, founder and president of the Institute for European Studies at the ULB, holder of the chair of Public Law at the ULB, attorney general at the Belgian Court of Cassation and vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights. The chair, held at the ULB by a visiting professor from Oxford or Cambridge, focuses on the economic, historical, political and legal aspects of European integration or on public law.