Dimitar Bechev and Kalypso Nicolaidis (eds.) Mediterranean Frontiers: Border, Conflict and Memory in a Transnational World

Year 2011, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 107 - 110, 01.06.2011

Eyüp Özveren

Abstract

From the Acknowledgements, we understand that this book is the product of RAMSES2 Network of Excellence on the Mediterranean funded by the European Commission. A workshop on the politics of memory in the Mediterranean convened in Aix-en-Provence in June 2007, and a conference on “Mediterranean Unions?” which took place in June 2008 are listed as among the major steps that led to the fruition of this project. In his Preface, Thierry Fabre, the Academic Coordinator of RAMSES2 Network on the Mediterranean and the host of the Aix-en-Provence workshop, notes “The universe of frontiers is the best prism through which one could view the Mediterranean in all its complexity.” (p. xii) In his view, the Mediterranean is a “geo-cultural ensemble,” (p. xi). He put the objective of the bookproject as follows: “The book seeks to rethink concepts such as ‘border’, ‘boundary’ or ‘frontier’ and revisit the relationship between ‘Self’ and ‘Other’. In so doing, the authors hope to evoke a sense of ‘we’ around the Mediterranean, which distinguishes without merging, separates but at the same time links—this is what animates the book which carves out a new field of inquiry.” (p. xii; emphasis added). In Thierry’s mind, the unity of the Mediterranean can even be discerned where it is most split, that is the borders. Moreover, a consciousness of a collective identity and destiny waits to be recovered by reading and writing about the “kaleidoscopic Mediterranean world.” If only Fernand Braudel, the eminent historian of the Mediterranean world, saw this Preface, he would be much moved indeed. 

Keywords

Dimitar, Bechev, Kalypso