%0 Journal Article
%T The Possibility of a 'Dead Europe': Tsiolkas, Houellebecq and European Mythologies
%A Nicholas Manganas
%J PORTAL : Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies
%D 2007
%I 
%X This article posits that two constituent mythologies sustain and drive the EU integration process. The first is the tension between the twin narratives of ¡°perpetual peace¡± and ¡°perpetual suffering.¡± The second fundamental mythology of the EU project is the tension between the narratives of Europe as on the one hand ¡°authentic¡± and as ¡°cosmopolitan¡± on the other. Both of these constituent mythologies are essential in forming what is emerging as a pan-European, Europtimist raison d¡¯etre. This article posits that two recent novels, the Australian Christos Tsiolkas¡¯s Dead Europe (2005) and the French Michel Houellebecq¡¯s The Possibility of an Island (2006) subvert these two mythologies and in the process undermine the legitimacy of recent works of Europtomist scholarship.
%K Europe
%K Mythologies
%K Cosmopolitanism
%K Perpetual Peace
%K Perpetual Suffering
%K Authenticity
%U http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/view/495