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Journals digest "Wespennest" winces at a Europe poised between paralysis and renewal; "Mittelweg 36" applies the lessons of economic history; "Schweizer Monat" raises an eyebrow as John Gray ranks Keynes above Hayek; "Vikerkaar" homes in on the contribution of cultural journals to the European public sphere; "Akadeemia" scrutinizes the nature of (Kierkegaard's) writing and the writing of nature; "Lettera internazionale" mediates between history and memory; "Esprit" lists the perfect ingredients for an authoritarian drive á la Orbán; "Spilne" reveals the real reasons for the shortage of wives in the West; "Krytyka" brands Ukranian political science a pseudo-science; and "New Literary Observer" is bemused by Russian proposals to prohibit cats trampling. [ more ]
The role of the sceptic
A conversation with John Gray
philosophy The destination of intellectual journeys, remarks John Gray, is unknown at any one time. Utopianism, on the other hand, usually ends in disaster. Thus the radical anti-communist of the 1970s finds Marx's analysis of capitalism prescient today and rates Keynes above Hayek. [ more ]
Relocating the European debate
journals "Esprit" editor Marc-Olivier Padis outlines why a strong platform for European debate has yet to emerge and the role that cultural journals can play in establishing one. Among the most urgent issues for discussion: liquid modernity, cultural decentralization and the dilemmas of an open society. [ more ]
Circulating ideas
journals "Vikerkaar" editor Märt Väljataga braves the cross currents that accompany ideas and their communication in transnational contexts, with a view to assessing the contribution of cultural journals to the public sphere. He discovers an ongoing process in which persistence pays off. [ more ]
The will to succeed
A conversation with Pier Virgilio Dastoli
Policy Pier Virgilio Dastoli advocates a federal future for the European Union if the current imbalance of power is to be redressed. A federal approach will also help seal success in the areas of energy, criminal law, industry, social questions, international security and economic governance. [ more ]
The failure of European intellectuals?
intellectuals Intellectuals have been accused of failing to restore a European confidence undermined by crisis. Yet calls for legitimating European narratives reflect the logic of nineteenth-century nation building, argues Jan-Werner Müller. [French, German and Italian versions added] [ more ]
Trampling cats
governance The recent proliferation of new taboos in Russia seems to know no limit, according to philosopher Oxana Timofeeva. She shows how proposals for new legislation to curb noise pollution may reveal more about the animal inside us all than the authorities could dream. [ more ]
The return of political economy
Economy The suggestion that the division of the social product is as urgent a problem as its overall growth has led to political economy returning to both history and current politics, argues Charles S. Maier. High time, then, to analyse deprivation, wealth and inequality on a world scale. [ more ]
Reasons for the current upsurge in memory
Politics of memory Over the past quarter century, social structures have undergone a sea change in their traditional relationship to the past. Pierre Nora examines the roots and causes of "memorialism". [Italian version added] [ more ]
Solidarity: A word in search of flesh
society Who will outsmart who, who will be kicked out first? This is the job market, and probably society at large, reduced to the level of reality TV, writes Bauman. However, though the spirit of solidarity is in exile, it would be premature to give up on the prospect of its return just yet. [ more ]
Defining the precariat
A class in the making
society Class has not disappeared. Instead, a more fragmented global class structure has emerged alongside a more flexible open labour market. This prompts Guy Standing to forge a new vocabulary capable of describing class relations in the global market system of the twenty-first century. [ more ]
Voices of the plazas
Spain Social movements give validity to the rearguard, to the intellectual construction of a model that resists both attacks and criminalization, writes Juan Luis Sánchez. And as hundreds of people continue to be made homeless every day in Spain, the demonstrations can be expected to continue. [ more ]
The merchants of Europe
Croatia The presidents and prime ministers of Balkan countries have convinced Europe that they represent the only guarantee that the Balkans will not descend back into war. It is through this kind of counterfeit politics that Croatia has arrived at the threshold of the European Union. [ more ]
The beautiful German language
culture With German-bashing now firmly established as a European "Volkssport", "Dublin Review of Books" editor Enda O'Doherty turns to the semi-barbarous German language; and finds that in the right hands, or expressed through the right vocal cords, German is indeed a very beautiful language. [ more ]
David Foster Wallace: Innocence and experience
literature He pointed a way for American fiction out of the doldrums of postmodernism, writes George Blecher. For a culture troubled by the corrosive commercial media and closed-end systems underpinned by technology, David Foster Wallace's influence remains a force to be reckoned with. [ more ]
Rats with wings
urbanism Doves are a symbol of peace, purity and fertility. They were once of practical use too: until science intervened, dove droppings were essential to the manufacture of fertiliser. So just how did they end up at the bottom of the urban symbolic order? Fahim Amir investigates. [ more ]
The roots of Italian economic decline
economy Reforms implemented without logic or consistency have cost Italy the economic dynamism it achieved in the 1980s. A hybrid and infertile capitalism is the outcome, writes Marco Simoni, leaving Italy with the highest number of young people in Europe who are neither studying nor employed. [ more ]
On the side of democracy
Should Brussels intervene in EU member states?
politics Brussels is not empowered to be a policeman for liberal democracy in Europe. Not yet. But should it be? Following recent developments in Hungary and Romania, Jan-Werner Müller argues that it is legitimate for Brussels to interfere in individual member states as a democracy watchdog. [ more ]
Article of the month
High register, low register
A conversation with the writer Etgar Keret
storytelling Etgar Keret compares his role as an author of short stories and essays to that of a "court jester in the land of the convinced": a standpoint that opens up new and surprising angles on reality and, above all, generates great stories – as this interview conducted in Riga, Latvia, proves. [ more ]
Deadline
A history of timeliness
media The first printed newspaper appeared 150 years after Gutenberg, as the postal service replaced the messenger and news began to spread faster. Yet the format developed slowly, as Müller shows in a history of print media that concludes with the Internet age. [English version added] [ more ]
Innovative equipment
On the ideology and dogmatic of the "new"
technology As part of a special issue of "Springerin" on anti-humanism, Timothy Druckrey reflects on the role of apparatus in a system that incorporates and monetizes virtually every form of transaction via omnivorous detection algorithms that mine personal data. [ more ]
One of many nodes
Interview with the queer theorist Jasbir K. Puar
posthumanism Jasbir K. Puar reflects on the politics of posthumanism, especially as they relate to questions of health and disability in an age of neoliberalism. She argues for integrating intersectional analysis of race, gender, sexuality, nation and disability with assemblage theory. [ more ]
Empires of liberty
imperialism Historian Patrick Iber argues that, while the age of liberal
imperialism seems on the wane, a liberal order remains, as do the lessons of the last two centuries: exchange and contract between free nations works best when power between them is close to equal. [ more ]
The euro crisis: Central European lessons
Central Europe Differing national situations in eastern central Europe explain lack of solidarity and varying perceptions of the crisis' risks and remedies, writes Jacques Rupnik, and can be seen in terms of political lessons learned. [German version added] [ more ]
Branding the fallout
memory The trauma of Chernobyl is being transformed into a commodity, or even a brand, writes Stas Menzelevskyi. This follows the release of films like "Chernobyl Diaries" and "Nuclear Waste", and, to an extent, the instrumentalization of the day of remembrance on 26 April. [ more ]
Urban sprawl
The origins and growth of the périurbain
society More French residents can now afford to own a detached house than ever before, thanks in part to the tendency of government to favour this form of social ascendancy. As a result, urban and rural spaces are changing beyond recognition, writes geographer Michel Lussault. [ more ]
Religion and violence
Critiquing the "new atheism"
Christianity Sociologist of religion David Martin calls proponents of an aggressive "new atheism" to task for collapsing arguments over the relation between religion and violence into ahistorical conjecture. This poses a threat to both scholarly standards and public debate in general. [ more ]
Stranger than fiction?
crime writing As part of a special issue of Czech literary magazine "Host" on attitudes to murder in real life and literature, the American writer David Nemec reveals a sub-plot to a notorious unsolved murder case in which reality remains stubbornly resistant to fiction. [ more ]
The freedom of the fox in the chicken run
A conversation with novelist Nicholas Bradbury
fiction Nicholas Bradbury made his literary debut this year with the novel "Market Farm", a reworking of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" for the free market era. He talks here about influences for his satirical take on the current financial crisis and potential grounds for hope for the future. [ more ]
The sale of London
A conversation with author and journalist John Lanchester
fiction John Lanchester, author of the 2012 London novel "Capital", describes how the whole of London has become a department store in which the streets are shelves and the houses goods for sale. It is here that his characters' lives play out, between the poles of homeliness and displacement. [ more ]
A new musical cosmos
Anne-Sophie Mutter on Witold Lutoslawski
conversation On the eve of the hundredth anniversary of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski's birth, "Osteuropa" editor Manfred Sapper speaks to world-famous violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter about first meeting Lutoslawski, and the effect that he had on her musical career thereafter. [ more ]
Network news
New Eurozine partner: Prostory
Network news "Prostory", the Ukrainian magazine for culture and social critique, has joined the Eurozine network. Its young editors are dedicated to "rethinking the Ukranian public sphere" by connecting local analysis of current social issues with the cultural translation of foreign narratives. [ more ]
The facts, the myths and the framing of immigration
The case of Britain
society Today, the same arguments once used against Jews, and then against South Asian and Caribbean immigrants, are now raised against Muslims and east Europeans. However, Kenan Malik finds some comfort in reviewing the facts of the matter. He then tackles the illusions. [ more ]
Fatal embrace
business After Amazon coming under fire for the treatment of its pickers and packers in Germany, "Blätter" editor Daniel Leisegang finds that competitors are also suffering at the hands of the world's largest online retailer, whose aggressive high-growth strategy he compares to a fatal embrace. [ more ]
The Southern Weekly affair
No closer to the Chinese dream?
press freedom The first week of 2013 saw a standoff between editors of the Chinese newspaper "Southern Weekly" and state propaganda authorities over a drastically rewritten new year's editorial. Timothy Garton Ash introduces English translations of the original and published versions. [ more ]
Together against Orbán: Hungary's new opposition
democracy Amid international concern over government reforms that endanger democracy in Hungary, Hodonyi and Trüpel discover a political renaissance in Hungarian civil society. Ahead of elections in spring 2014, this may well be an antidote to the EU's "political half-heartedness". [ more ]
Bulgaria's anger: The real source
protest As the Bulgarian post-communist transition faces its moment of crisis and the government resigns, the political class and the economic model it oversaw are the subject of deep dissatisfaction. Dimitar Bechev outlines what went wrong, and what can be expected of Bulgaria's spring of anger. [ more ]
Reclaiming our rights
Slovenia As protests continue in Slovenia, Robert Titan Felix sees the need for a programme to protect the welfare state and citizens themselves from the greed of capital, which pushes the less successful to the margins of existence. [ more ]
Read also Boris Vezjak on Slovenia's uprising
Gender
The vertigo of scepticism
Introduction to a conversation with Nancy Bauer
philosophy Johanna Sjöstedt introduces her conversation with Nancy Bauer by explaining why Bauer is interested both in exploring the potential of a genuinely philosophical feminism and paving the way for a feminist critique of the philosophical tradition. [ more ]
What is feminist philosophy?
CONVERSATION Nancy Bauer talks about what attracted her to the field of philosophy and what made her remain there. Sjöstedt and Bauer also discuss Simone de Beauvoir, the role of scepticism in modern feminism and the thin line between world-changing philosophy and dogmatism. [ more ]
Gender and sacrifice
balkans Gender divisions, deeply rooted in myth and in society, have spelled more violence and suffering for the Balkans than any concrete benefit. This is a state of affairs about which Capriqi is unequivocal. Whether it can be changed remains an open question. [ more ]
The girlfriend gaze
Next generation feminism Women's friendship and intimacy circles are increasingly taking on the function of mutual self-policing, writes Alison Winch. In a relentlessly visual landscape, the feminine ideal is the girl and the girled body is an asset. [ more ]
A new perspective on gender studies?
On the new masculi(ni)sm
gender The conservative backlash has reached the core of the gender debate: antifeminist theory and pro-masculinity approaches paying special attention to the figure of the simplified male victim have arrived. This prompts numerous questions for co-editor of "L'homme" Christa Hämmerle. [ more ]
Survey
Financing cultural journals: A European survey
cultural policy in europe Like other types of cultural organization reliant on public funds, journals throughout Europe have felt the impact of recession. In addition to funding cuts, cultural journals are also having to negotiate the upheavals taking place in the print sector. Through a European survey of financing for journals, Eurozine takes stock of the economic situation of the network, in order to communicate its experiences internally and to others who hold a stake in European cultural policy today. [ more ]
New Inspired by the Eurozine initiative, our long-standing partner "Varlik" has conducted a similar survey of Turkish journals. Like their European counterparts, Turkish journals need public support. However, they are far more wary of risking their independence by receiving government funding. [ more ]
Arrivals/Departures
Urbanizing non-urban economies
Ports, mines, plantations
keynote speech In this article based on Sassen's speech at the Eurozine conference in 2012, the sociologist explains why and how it is that, far more than in the past, urban space today registers the profitability of non-urban economies. The key is to be found in the rise of intermediate services for firms. [ more ]
Colonial roots and current routes
Migration in the harbour city of Hamburg
mobility Manuel Assner conducted a tour of the Port of Hamburg at the Eurozine conference in 2012, providing a history of migration in the multi-ethnic harbour and surrounding districts. In this article based on the tour, he shows how colonial roots remain intertwined with colonial routes. [ more ]
Read also More articles in the focal point Arrivals/Departures
Barack Obama's "war on terror"
GOVERNANCE William E Scheuerman explains why Obama's mediocre humanitarian record in the "war on terror" deserves our critical scrutiny. And how US presidential government's latent monarchist attributes have generated far-reaching policy and legal continuities between Bush and Obama. [ more ]
The Swiss model
Politics Harold James advocates scaling up small country democracy, if the members of the European Union are ever to succeed in settling upon a working model of democracy. He explains why the Swiss model of "Konkordanzdemokratie" has much to offer. [ more ]
Potatoes and fortune cookies
Belarus The recent boom in Belarus-China relations is surprising; it's sudden, far reaching and, at first glance, inexplicable. But what are the true reasons and possible prospects for this cooperation? Independent television journalist Katerina Barushka explores. [ more ]
Let's stop blaming the economy
Radical right parties in central eastern Europe
Civil society Alina Polyakova questions the assumption that the rise of the radical right in central and eastern Europe is rooted in economic conditions. Looking at the consequences of post-socialist civil society for liberal democracy will render a more realistic picture, she writes. [Ukrainian version added] [ more ]
THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY
The transparency delusion
Democracy Disillusionment with democracy founded on mistrust of business and political elites has prompted a popular obsession with transparency. But the management of mistrust cannot remedy voters' loss of power and may spell the end for democratic reform. [Romanian version added] [ more ]
Goodbye future?
democracy Structural problems in conventional democracies are alienating citizens worldwide, writes Stephen Holmes. Political marketing, cross-party compromise and elite withdrawal threaten to rob democracy of its original role as instrument of justice. [ more ]
Transnational citizenship
Ideals and European realities
Citizenship It is time for social science and political actors to acknowledge a paradigm shift from international to transnational relations, writes Claus Leggewie. Which is also to recognize that a new form of world politics is emerging: citizenship (and governance) beyond the nation-state. [ more ]
New world-system?
A conversation with Immanuel Wallerstein
Geopolitics At some point, there is a tilt; there always is. Then we shall settle down into our new historical system. Wallerstein foresees one of two possibilities: more hierarchy, exploitation and polarization; or a system that has never yet existed, based on relative democracy and relative equality. [ more ]
The EU: Broken or just broke?
The end of the European Dream
What future for Europe's constrained democracy?
EUROCRISIS In trying to escape the banality of everyday life, utopian projects are bound to fail in politics, writes Stefan Auer. As such, the Great Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel and the EU have much in common: they always want more, despite being insanely rich; and still cannot pay their bills. [ more ]
Europe in the trap
Eurocrisis Claus Offe opts for democracy over the logic of no alternative and a politics that fails to provide the electorate with choices. For therein lies the trap. Only more solidarity and more democracy, he argues, can rescue the eurozone from the brink of collapse. [English version added] [ more ]
The European Union and the Habsburg Monarchy
Eurocrisis The threat that the EU faces today is as deadly as the one that confronted the Habsburg Monarchy a hundred years ago, writes British diplomat Robert Cooper, one of the intellectual architects of EU foreign policy. But getting it right does not need a miracle. [ more ]
The European dis-Union
Lessons from the Soviet collapse
eurocrisis Too big to fail? Too crisis-hardened to go under? The collapse of the Soviet Union has something to teach Europe's politicians if another leap from the unthinkable to the inevitable is to be avoided in the case of the EU, argues Ivan Krastev.
[ more ]
Sovereignty, not solidarity
A plea for the sovereignty of Europe's nation-states
Eurocrisis As state sovereignty unravels, citizens lose trust in political institutions and the insidious hollowing out of democracy ensues, Rainer Hank rails against the "repressive power that the pressure of solidarity exercises over the parliaments of donor states". [ more ]
Talking about my generation
spain The recession has returned a generation of Spaniards to a cruel reality: that they may have to live with less than their parents did. Whether they alter their expectations or try to stop the clock will be decisive, writes "Letras Libres" editor Ramón González Férriz. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
How to get into and out of an economic crisis
iceland From Scandinavian democracy to target of British anti-terror laws: the Icelandic saga is well known, but how did the country get itself into such a mess? Andri Snaer Magnason tells of privatizations, overreaching and astronomical pay checks. [ more ]
The failure of European intellectuals?
intellectuals Intellectuals have been accused of failing to restore a European confidence undermined by crisis. Yet calls for legitimating European narratives reflect the logic of nineteenth-century nation building, argues Jan-Werner Müller. [French, German and Italian versions added] [ more ]
Greece: The history behind the collapse
Greece Greece's economic crisis has its roots in a political pact dating back to the foundation of the modern state, writes Georges Prévélakis. The threat posed to Europe by the Greek breakdown is less contagion than a wave of anti-western feeling that could exacerbate geopolitical instabilities. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
Read also All articles in the focal point The EU: Broken or just broke?
Publicity
Literature
Bulgaria returns
Expanding literary horizons
essay Not all was lost during Bulgaria's postwar "epoch of total frustration", as Dmitri Dimov's "Tabak" and Dimitar Talev's novels show. Frahm finds in Vladimir Zarev an inspiring contemporary novelist and draws attention to emerging talents Kristin Dimitrova and Kalin Terziyski. [ more ]
"Proust is important for everyone"
conversation In conversation with sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky, novelist and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa discusses the relative merits of "high" and "mass" culture in the contemporary world and defends the ideas explored in his recent book "La civilización del espectáculo". [ more ]
Network news
It's Time to Talk
New online platform hosts European debates from nine countries
Public debate Time to Talk, a network of European Houses of Debate dedicated to promoting in-depth discussion of issues of European relevance, has partnered up with Eurozine to launch a new online platform. Watch video highlights from all TTT events, anytime, anywhere. [ more ]
New in the Eurozine Gallery
Romantic transformations
Eurozine Gallery In cooperation with "Studija", the Eurozine Gallery presents Latvian artist Henrihs Vorkals. Critic Laine Kristberga describes Vorkals as "a conceptually thinking perfectionist", who has always had a contemporary view on art, even during the Soviet era. [ more ]
Read also All exhibitions in the Eurozine Gallery
European histories
Haunted museums
Ethnography, coloniality and sore points
European histories The troubled relationship between modernity and its colonial past haunts the ethnographic museum. But do new museums of world culture provide a plausible alternative? Or do they achieve little more than securing their own survival? [ more ]
Imperial violence and national mobilization
European histories Lutz Raphael advances an interpretative paradigm for European history in the first half of the twentieth century that focuses on Europe's global interdependencies - and will enhance our understanding of the era's world wars, unrestrained violence and ideological confrontation. [ more ]
In praise of dissidence
european histories There is much to celebrate in the history of Cold War dissidence, writes Helmut König. Which is why it is crucial to recall just how the Peaceful Revolution delivered its heritage of freedom, from the thinkers and the underground printing presses to the impromptu protests. [ more ]
Germany's 9/11
germany On 9 November 1918, the first German Republic was declared; exactly four years later, Hitler staged a putsch. The Reichskristallnacht on 9 November 1938 was linked to both; on 9 November 1989 the division of Germany came to an end. How should Germany commemorate this ambiguous day? [ more ]
After the revolutions: Europe and the Arab world
Mediterranean Europe's view of the revolutions in the Arab world is bedevilled by archaic, post-colonial attitudes. If we cannot shed these, argues Franco Rizzi, we shall remain on the sidelines and watch the Arab awakening turn into a twilight of renewed discontent. [ more ]
The war of 1812
How Russia rescued Europe
EUROPEAN HISTORIES As Napolean's army disintegrated upon retreating from Russia, the Russian Empire rose from the ashes of Moscow as the "saviour of Europe". Historians Anna Ananieva and Klaus Gestwa recall how a new European order materialized and became the object of reminiscence. [ more ]
Heroes into victims
The Second World War in post-Soviet memory politics
memory In post-Soviet societies, narratives of suffering have overtaken heroic triumphalism. Tatiana Zhurzhenko examines reasons for this shift, asking whether new victim narratives reconcile former enemies or provide additional opportunities to articulate hostilities.
[ more ]
The hour of the expert
economic history What constitutes economic expertise? Looking at how European politics has answered this question over the last four centuries, Werner Plumpe argues that, at any given time, economic expertise is judged according to its coincidence with the conjuncture. [ more ]
Migration: Europe's absent history
migration Although migration has a long history in Europe, it tends to be treated solely as a present-day issue. Why the reluctance to historicize the subject? Particularly since migration history offers a way to replace narrow, national narratives with one that is properly European. [ more ]
Read also More articles in the focal point European histories
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