Welcome speech at What’s New in the New Europe? Redefining Culture, Politics, Identity 2016 ISSEI Conference at the University of Łódź, Poland (11 July 2016–15 July 2016)

Abstract

adies and gentlemen! It is a pleasure for me to welcome you all to Poland, to Łódź (The Promised Land), to Łódź University and to the 15th ISSEI Conference. My name is Stefan Höjelid and I am Swedish (and European) even though married Polish. Actually I met my wife in September 1999 in conjunction with an EU Tempus project-conference in Łódź (Sic!). Then I also got to know Professor Krystyna Kujawińska Courtney, one of the two co-chairs of this conference, and a lot of other Polish colleagues who have over the years become close friends to me. So this background was maybe one of the reasons why Dr. Edna Rosenthal as a co-chair asked me to introduce this conference. I will do so by saying a few words about the theme of this conference and about ISSEI and its journal The European Legacy and finally by briefly reflecting upon Europe as a concept and what is happening right now with our old dear Europe.