Each year, ESPOL opens its academic year with a major lecture given by an academic figure or expert from the professional world on one of the major themes covered by its courses.
For the opening of the 2025-2025 academic year, the school is delighted to welcome Toni HAASTRUP for a lecture entitled “The Union of Equalities: Promise or Paradox in Geopolitical Europe?”. In this lecture, she draws on a joint project and interrogate what the European Commission’s ambition for a “Union of Equality” means in a foreign policy context that currently demands “geopolitics”. Taking a feminist lens, she seeks to ask critical questions about what the current moment, within which anti-gender mobilisations are thriving, mean for feminist aspirations, as well as the idea of a stronger Europe.
Professor Toni HAASTRUP is Chair in Global Politics at the University of Manchester and current Chair of UACES (the University Association for Contemporary European Studies). A feminist researcher and teacher, her research brings feminist and decolonial perspectives to international relations, with a focus on Africa–EU relations, the Women, Peace & Security agenda, militarism, and feminist foreign policy and she has published extensively on these themes. Through her engagements and scholarship, she tries to bridge academia and policy worlds.
In-person conference only, registration required for external attendees
About ESPOL-Lab conferences
Every year, ESPOL-Lab organises political science conferences. Free access to members of the Catholic University of Lille, and on registration for outsiders and to follow online.