European Studies, now in its third year, is a unique interdisciplinary initiative devoted to fostering new possibilities for collaborative research across the traditional boundaries in the study of Europe, particularly between the humanities and social sciences. Our vision of Europe is expansive: extending from Western Europe across the Mediterranean to the far reaches of Siberia, it encompasses the rich and highly complex history of cultural, economic, and political connections and effects from the ancient to the contemporary post-colonial world. And since European expansion has transformed social practices and discourses in all parts of the world, European Studies looks beyond the continent’s borders to analyze the patterns of transnational interactions between European and non-European cultures in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.