This Focus gathers a number of papers presented on 20 June 2006 at the Symposium Re-Thinking Europe: Literatures and Literary Histories as Media of (Trans)National Identities and Collective Memories, which was part of the annual HERMES Seminar in Literature, a week-long gathering of literary scholars from around Europe focusing on one common theme. HERMES itself is a collaborative venture of the universities of Aarhus (Denmark), Giessen (Germany), Leuven (Belgium), Lisbon (Portugal), the Onderzoekschool Literatuurwetenschap (Dutch Graduate Research School for Literary Studies, in which participate the Universities of Utrecht, Leyden, Nijmegen, Tilburg, Maastricht, and the Free University of Amsterdam), and University College London (UK). A fuller ‘Proceedings’ of the Seminar will appear in 2007. The organizer was Theo D'haen, a member of the Academia Europaea and Professor of American Literature and Director of the Centre for European Studies at Leuven, assisted by Nele Bemong, Mirjam Truwant, Pieter Vermeulen, all graduate assistants at Leuven, and Professors Helena Buescu (AE, Lisbon), João Duarte (Lisbon), Harald Hendrix (Utrecht), Svend Erik Larsen (AE, Aarhus), Ansgar Nünning (AE, Giessen), and Timothy Mathews (UCL, London).