Modes of philosophizing

A round table debate

Should philosophy have something to say to non-philosophers? Should it be pursued only by those trained in philosophy? And should analytic philosophy reject continental philosophy or recognize it as another "mode of philosophizing"? [more]

Lithuania in Europe, Europe in Lithuania

Between mimesis and non-existence

Cultural and political life in Lithuania is marked by what Homi K. Bhabha, speaking of postcolonial nations, called "ironic compromise". The Lithuanian is "almost a European but not quite". [more]

May '68: a contested history

Despite the tendency of decennial commemorations to cement the "official version" of May '68, important questions remain unanswered. Chris Reynolds points out some blind spots in the increasingly stereotyped interpretation of the events in France forty years ago. [more]

"If I don't say what I think, what's the point of being mad?"

A conversation with Catalan philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventós

"If my philosophy has been of any use to me, it's been to situate my monstrous condition within an order of general discourse." The Catalan philosopher and former MEP explains why he finds reactionaries more interesting than liberals and what he means by the "non-Fichtean ego". [more]

Archipelago Europe

Instead of two homogeneous European regions -- "the East" and "the West" -- there are now fragments, enclaves, and islands. From Baden-Baden to Bucharest, Majorca to Moscow, Karl Schlögel experiences Europe as a series of spaces both distinct and connected. [Hungarian version added] [more]

The politics of the global movement

In an extract from his new book "Social Movement", Swedish sociologist Magnus Wennerhag argues that the global justice movement differs from the '68 protests in being more political and aimed at international institutions and a globalized democracy. [more]

The daily state of emergency

Or: Necessity knows many commandments

The state no longer keeps its distance; invasion of privacy, surveillance, CCTV, and strip searches influence the daily lives of ordinary people. Has the state of emergency shifted into society's interior for good? [more]

The centre is everywhere

"Arche" looks warily at the Belarusian thaw; "Magyar Lettre" gets to the heart of the central European city; "Kulturos barai" criticizes the culture of groceries; "Fronesis" takes counsel on the "unhappy marriage" between feminism and the Left; "A Prior" looks at monuments that won't melt into air; "Revista Crítica" sees the political potential of bio-art; "Critique & Humanism" analyzes neophilia and neophobia; "Dialogi" lashes out at the Slovenian press; and "Glänta" is missing links. [more]

On the economy of moralism and working class properness

An interview with Beverley Skeggs

"Respectability is not only about cleaning your house but also, literally, about existing as a citizen." Beverley Skeggs criticizes theories of intersectionality for their tendency to group categories that are in complex relation to capital. [more]

"Water is more dangerous than the rise of Islam..."

Interview with Dutch writer Margriet de Moor

Although often using female heroines in her novels, Margriet de Moor finds pigeonholing literature into male and female categories is a pointless exercise. "The social issue of women suffering under a male dominance -- no, I don't find it terribly interesting." [more]

Russia at the crossroads

Logic and the end of "imitation democracy"

The Belavezha Accords in 1991, which dissolved the USSR without a democratic mandate, condemned subsequent presidents to rule by "imitated democracy". Putin's decision to step down after two terms has given Russia a chance to depart from that path of development, argues Dmitri Furman. [more]

Lithuanian intellectual Bronys Savukynas dies at 78

Bronys Savukynas, renowned Lithuanian linguist, translator, and editor-in-chief of "Kulturos barai", died on Saturday 20 April in Vilnius. He was 78. Savukynas's contribution to Lithuanian intellectual culture was considerable. [more]

No maths and no water in Stolipinovo

The jobs boom in Bulgaria has left the Roma behind

Roma in southeastern Europe are caught in the vicious cycle of discrimination and exclusion. While there is general agreement that socio-economic integration of Roma is desirable, neither the EU commission nor national governments appear willing to implement the necessary strategies. [more]

Acting up

When "stand-up philosopher" Slavoj Zizek calls for "repeating Lenin" or praises Robespierre's defence of terror, some observers might be tempted to ask whether his entire intellectual oeuvre is not just some kind of act. No, says John Clark. "It's not just a pose; it's a position." [Slovenian version added] [more]

Citizen Victim

The migrant youth, the RAF terrorist, and the German feuilletons

The German media's reaction to a recent spate of migrant youth violence bore striking similarities to last year's controversy over the release of Red Army Faction prisoners. In both cases, an ostensibly apolitical identification with the "victim" was nothing of the sort. [more]

Global museums in the twenty-first century

The Guggenheim foundation and the rhetoric of cultural planning in Vilnius

The fact that a Guggenheim museum is being planned for Vilnius is indicative of the conviction that "de-provincialization" can only be achieved by taking part in global projects. Meanwhile, the cultural demands of the local population go unheeded. Vilnius is not Bilbao! [more]

Shopping town USA

Victor Gruen, the Cold War, and the shopping mall

Victor Gruen's "shopping towns" were supposed to strengthen civic life and alleviate women's lives. But within a decade they had become the architectural expression of the policy of gender segregation underlying the US postwar consumer utopia. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Captain America died last year

Whoever doesn't read comics won't have gathered that the long-serving American superhero met his end last year. But who cares? And isn't that the problem? What are fans of US popular culture throughout the rest of the world to make of this new introspection? [more]

The dialectic of secularization

The opposition between "multiculturalism" and "Enlightenment fundamentalism" is misconceived, argues Jürgen Habermas. "The universalist claim of the political Enlightenment does not contradict the particularist sensibilities of a correctly understood multiculturalism." [more]

A mother since birth?

"Le Monde diplomatique" (Berlin) lambasts the Italian Left; "Blätter" considers the dialectic of secularization; "Kulturos barai" wonders what Lithuania wants to do with its freedom; "Arena" smells something fishy in the Swedish debate on reproduction; "Osteuropa" finds Russia at the crossroads; "Multitudes" observes the US bring the war home; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) maps the spread of refugees; "Revolver Revue" journeys back in time to the end of the night; "Host" records the silence of the monasteries; and "Merkur" listens to the music of the spheres. [more]

On the difference between "serious" and "popular" music

"Good popular music is not advanced mathematics but it teaches us the basic multiplication table of emotions." Jens Hagestedt marks the distinction between serious and popular music while revealing the errors in the reasoning of popular music sceptics. [more]

A lesson in Dylan appreciation

When Christopher Ricks, author of critical works on Milton, Keats, and Eliot, turned his attention to Bob Dylan, critics grumbled that he could talk one into believing that even a phone book is poetry. Now that Dylan has won the Pulitzer Prize, they may have to reconsider. [more]

Back in the ghetto

The Israeli Right nurtures the image of the nation of Israel as a bastion under eternal siege but fails to see that Israel is laying siege to the Palestinians. The window of opportunity opened by the Oslo agreement has been closed for good, fears Göran Rosenberg. [Italian version added] [more]

Schengen blues

Hungary's entry into the Schengen Zone in December 2007, along with eight other countries, brought a further relaxation of historical borders. While many communities have benefited, the process has not been without its absurdities, writes Gábor Miklósi. [more]

Nietzsche's anti-democratic liberalism

A Nietzschean politics is less a critique of political events so much as a diagnosis of the forces and tendencies driving them -- and therein lies its liberalism, writes Béla Egyed. [more]

Corruption as metaphor

Facts, perceptions, interpretive patterns

Corruption has increasingly become an issue for political agendas and public debates. Yet a comparative study of perceptions of corruption in Germany and Romania suggests that value judgments are involved, writes Dirk Tänzler. [more]

What does Nietzsche mean to philosophers today?

Excessively sensitive, anti-liberal, and irrelevant, or radical, prescient, and misunderstood? Six philosophers answer Kritika&Kontext's questions on Nietzsche. Their responses make one thing clear: Nietzsche still divides opinion. [Lithuanian version added, part I of III] [more]

Nicolas Sarkozy, the laïcité and the religions

Nicolas Sarkozy's recent comments on religion have alarmed many. Yet, as Jean-Louis Schlegel demonstrates, they bear a continuity with his policy while still minister of the interior to establish an official Muslim representative body. [more]

"The trauma must remain inaccessible to memory"

Part III

In the final part of Harald Weilnböck's essay on poststructuralist borrowing of the concept of psycho-trauma, the author draws some troubling conclusions from Dr Goodheart's excursus into poststructuralist trauma theory. Could an interest in ensuring that "the trauma remains inaccessible to memory" be affiliated to institutional structures of power, control, and exclusion? [more]

The rebirth of religion and enchanting materialism

While Europe is the exception in the global de-secularization of politics, theoretical interest in theological issues has been rising. Sven-Eric Liedman places "soft naturalism" against militant atheism and makes a plea for a "matérialisme enchanté". [more]

Free minds before free speech

"Transit" gives Europe a wake-up call; "The Hungarian Quarterly" travels without a passport; "Passage" bears witness; "Wespennest" dares religion to argue with God; "Ord&Bild" is enchanted by materialism; "Esprit" takes the measure of our catastrophic times; "A Prior" explores sound in printed media; and "L'Espill" compiles the cream of Catalan thinking. [more]

From "big character posters" to blogs

Facets of independent self-expression in China

Despite predictions to the contrary, the Internet has not brought about abrupt political change in China and is not likely to do so anytime soon. Its significance and implications for Chinese society lie elsewhere, writes Martin Hala. [German version added] [more]

"The trauma must remain inaccessible to memory"

Part II

In the second part of Harald Weilnböck's essay on poststructuralist borrowing of the concept of psycho-trauma, Dr Goodheart is confronted with an example of "trauma-therapy bashing" and the notion of "loyalty towards the dead". Feeling vaguely threatened, he begins to wonder whether the humanities' approach to trauma is more than just innocuous nonsense. [more]

The deep slumber of decided opinions

Rowan Williams and the Sharia controversy

When Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, suggested that the British public consider "some accommodation" to Islamic law, the response was one of outrage. Yet in most cases his words were wildly misinterpreted, writes Stephen Jones. [more]

The Spine

The introduction of a national health database in the UK is being carried out by a typically wasteful private finance initiative. Total data transparency may be good for corporations and security obsessed governments, but what does it mean for the recipients of "joined-up care"? [more]

"The trauma must remain inaccessible to memory"

Part I

In a long and thought-provoking essay, Harald Weilnböck examines poststructuralist borrowing of the concept of pyscho-trauma and finds it distorts the clinical understanding of the term. In part one, the fictional Dr Goodheart puzzles over the assertion that "trauma must remain inaccessible to memory" and analyzes a "hermeneutical assault" on Hitchcock's "Marnie". [more]

A slice of the pie for everyone

On the recent wave of strikes in Poland

The recent miners' strike in Budryk, Poland, suggested that the wave of industrial actions that began during the Kaczynski regime will not spare Donald Tusk either. Despite a negative media response, Polish strikers are receiving broad public support, writes Dariusz Zalega. [more]

Gallery for Cultural Journals at the Alte Schmiede, Vienna

Cultural journals have always been a central part of the programme at the Alte Schmiede (Old Smithy) in Vienna. Now, a broad selection of Austrian and European cultural journals, among them numerous Eurozine partner journals, can be read in their Gallery for Cultural Journals that opened on 11 February at Schönlaterngasse 7 in Vienna. [more]

The continental unconscious

In preparing an exhibition on the contemporary art and culture of the "Finno-Ugrian world" -- peoples united by their language group across the Republics of Mordvinia, Udmurtia, Mari El, and Komi -- curator Anders Kreuger had to travel to "the periphery of the periphery". [more]

Not an island

Europe and the Middle East

Europe can play a major role in averting conflict in the Middle East, says Joschka Fischer. But does it have the instruments and institutions to do so? Given the urgency of the situation, can Europeans afford the luxury of being against Europe? [more]

Financial crisis and European ignorance

The global financial system is in deep crisis as recession dawns upon the US. Heiner Flassbeck, chief economist of UNCTAD, analyzes the dangers for Europe -- and the ignorance of European economists and politicians. [more]

Controlling words

Press and publishing concentration in France is exceptionally high yet there is barely any protest from within the sector itself. Media monopolization is by no means only a French issue, however: throughout Europe and the US, profit has become publishing's bottom line. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

The populist moment

Unlike the extremist parties of the 1930s, the new populist movements do not aim to abolish democracy: quite the opposite, writes Ivan Krastev. What we are witnessing is a conflict between elites suspicious of democracy and increasingly illiberal publics. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

The Putin regime

The managed transition from Putin to Medvedev conceals a necessary insight: that the principles of the Putin regime are fundamentally unsustainable, since they combine a nostalgic view of the past with purely cyclical economic successes. [more]

Rush hour of the gods

Today's generation of middle class Indians are discarding the secular-humanist version of Hinduism that appealed to an earlier generation and opting for a more overt religiosity. Meera Nanda asks what lies behind the Hinduization of the Indian public sphere. [more]

Hannah Arendt on '68

"Mittelweg 36" brings to light correspondence between Hannah Arendt and a young '68er; "Arena" looks behind the scenes of the US elections; "Osteuropa", "Index on Censorship", "Blätter", "Arche", and "New Humanist" provide different angles on Russia; "Vikerkaar" watches as politics and religion mix in Europe's most secular country; "Kulturos barai" sees desperation turn to exile; "Edinburgh Review" features new Australian writing; and "Mute" shows invisibles. [more]

A submerged population

Ray Lawrence's film "Jindabyne", an adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver, addresses sexual politics and latent racism embedded in contemporary Australian culture, writes Will Brady. [more]

This Bud's for you

Ronald Reagan's ability to get working men to vote for policies clearly not in their interests casts a long shadow over US politics post 9/11. In the US presidential race, winning the masculinity battle will be crucial, writes Katrine Kielos. [more]

The incapacitation

How the state corrupts its citizens

The welfare state is considered one of Germany's greatest achievements. But even Bismarck called his own social legislation a kind of "state socialism", promising an authoritarian, guaranteed security rather than freedom. [more]

Literary perspectives: Estonia

Waiting for the Great Estonian Novel

While the Great Estonian Novel has yet to be written, the range of fiction in Estonia is sufficiently wide to serve as an indicator of the post-communist country's hopes and fears, anxieties and obsessions. [Estonian and Latvian versions added] [more]

Legend of legality

From the Reichstag fire to the Nazi regime

After 75 years, the death sentence of the Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe has been officially abrogated. Dieter Deiseroth discusses the continuing significance of the theory of a "single perpetrator" with respect to the "legend of legality" it gave to the Nazi takeover of the German state. [more]

The reluctant anthropologist

An interview with Maurice Bloch

"Anti-anthropologist" Maurice Bloch talks in interview about the abuse of anthropological expertise by developmental ecologists; about the contradictions of "collective memory"; and about whether anthropologists can address "life's big questions". [more]

A state without society

On the technology of authoritarianism in Russia

Far from having "restored Russia's greatness", the Putin regime has ushered in a new stage of social decay. Elections in Russia have become an act of mass obedience on the part of a society unable to imagine anything better. [more]

"Canonizing" and "talking" magazines

Alternative publishing in the Turkish context

There are magazines that simply mirror the cultural environment and those that open up new channels of expression -- "canonizing" and "talking" magazines respectively. Publisher Süreyyya Evren outlines how "talking magazines" in Turkey can move beyond their niche audience to reach broad readerships. [more]

Controlling words

Press and publishing concentration in France is exceptionally high yet there is barely any protest from within the sector itself. Media monopolization is by no means only a French issue, however: throughout Europe and the US, profit has become publishing's bottom line. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Headscarves, generals, and Turkish democracy

The Turkish government's move to lift the ban on headscarves in universities is part of an ongoing discussion on a new constitution that has the potential to decide the country's future. It could dramatically increase Turkey's chances of becoming a member of the EU. [more]

Living in visa territory

The extent of a person's freedom is determined by the status of their passport. For people outside the EU's charmed circle, travelling not only earns them the distrust of the country they wish to leave, but also of the country they wish to enter. [more]

The Google empire

Internet users increasingly reveal private data on social networking platforms. Yet a great deal of information is also gathered for commercial purposes without users' consent. Google is at the forefront of the data-tracking business, writes Daniel Leisegang. [more]

Nicolas Sarkozy, Gramsci reader

New power and the temptation of hegemony

Nicolas Sarkozy has professed admiration for the Gramscian notion of "cultural hegemony" -- political domination via domination of ideas. The difference is that Sarkozy seeks hegemony not over ideas so much as values. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Simulated cities, sedated living

The shopping mall as paradigmatic site of lifestyle capitalism

If the imperative of consumer capitalism is "lead us into temptation", then the shopping mall is its cathedral. Increasingly, city centres -- or "brand zones" -- are adopting the mall aesthetic. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Beyond abyssal thinking

From global lines to ecologies of knowledges

Modern Western thinking continues to operate along abyssal lines that divide the human from the sub-human. One side of this line is ruled by a dichotomy of regulation and emancipation, the other by appropriation and violence. In order to succeed, the struggle for global social justice requires a new kind of post-abyssal thinking. [Portuguese version added] [more]

An acronym for the homeless

"Le Monde diplomatique" (Berlin) can't wait for consensus over climate change; "Esprit" looks into Sarkozy's intentions for Church and State; "Springerin" doesn't recommend playing the lottery; "Kulturos barai" faces up to Lithuania's migration problem; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) warns of the erosion of human rights; "Revista Crítica" looks into the abyss and beyond; "Reset" puts its faith in atheism; and "Kritika&Kontext" searches for the liberal in Nietzsche. [more]

Scars on my memory

On Algeria's literary ancestors and the choice of language

"Thanks to the narrative art that my sisters learned to preserve over generations, I found my way back to an inner unity, so that the original note began stir at the centre of the French language in which I was writing. Thus reconciled to myself, I could swim completely freely." [more]

Cartoon controversy redux

The Danish cartoon controversy has flared up again after police foiled a murder attempt on one of the cartoonists. This prompted Danish and international newspapers to republish the offending image, arguing that free speech is a fundamental human right and a central tenet of democracy. Yet there are strong divergences among liberals about what the right to free speech entails, as reactions to the initial controversy in 2006 revealed. Read on for Eurozine's take on the debate the last time around. [more]

What does Nietzsche mean to philosophers today?

Excessively sensitive, anti-liberal, and irrelevant, or radical, prescient, and misunderstood? Six philosophers answer Kritika&Kontext's questions on Nietzsche. Their responses make one thing clear: Nietzsche still divides opinion. [Lithuanian version added, part I of III] [more]

The illegitimate child of the sexual revolution

How the US religious Right used sex to get to power

The US religious Right has learned more from the sexual revolution than the liberal Centre, which it has forced onto the defensive in matters of sexuality. But despite its condemnation of hyper-sexualized culture, the Right is far from prude, writes Dagmar Herzog. [more]

Shopping town USA

Victor Gruen, the Cold War, and the shopping mall

Victor Gruen's "shopping towns" were supposed to strengthen civic life and alleviate women's lives. But within a decade they had become the architectural expression of the policy of gender segregation underlying the US postwar consumer utopia. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Violence and history

Violence is a relationship, not a "thing"; nor does it submit to typologies. Nevertheless, that does not mean that violence cannot be studied and its present-day occurrences located, writes Gérard Wormser. The exercise of imagined history is probably one of the best antidotes to violence. [more]

Literary perspectives: Estonia

Waiting for the Great Estonian Novel

While the Great Estonian Novel has yet to be written, the range of fiction in Estonia is sufficiently wide to serve as an indicator of the post-communist country's hopes and fears, anxieties and obsessions. [Estonian and Latvian versions added] [more]

Cosmopolitan choices

As a wealthy oil nation, Norway is increasingly faced with choices at the crossroads of economic interests and ethical values. Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre argues that trade relations are more effective than economic sanctions as a way to achieve ethical and political goals. [more]

Branded but not a slave

On the work of Varlam Shalamov

Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales is the stylistic counterpart to Solzhenitsyn's cosmetic account of the Gulag. Michail Ryklin defends the existential authenticity of what Solzhenitsyn criticized as a fiction "without the expression of authorial subjectivity". [more]

They know where you are

Gus Hosein worries about the Internet turning into a data goldmine for governments that want to keep track of their citizens. Confronted with the next censorship initiative, it won't be so easy for us all to argue that the Internet just isn't built that way. [more]

"Heroes" and "the people" in eastern Europe

A rapprochement

"Heroes" are associated in national memory with freedom and hope. The idolization of Polish rebel leader Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817) and Russian general Aleksandre Suvorov (1729-1800) demonstrates eastern Europe's predilection for longsuffering yet proud heroes. [more]

"Real men love Jesus"

"L'Homme" calls the religious Right "the bastard offspring of the sexual revolution"; "Osteuropa" asks why Russians long for the stability of the Brezhnev era; "The Hungarian Quarterly" pictures Hungary's historical role in Europe; "Index on Censorship" speaks freely about cyberspeech; "dérive" follows the urban filmscript; "Host" points out the gaps in young Czechs' reading lists; and "Merkur" sees religion pitted against the religion of art. [more]

Vienna noir

Austrian film in the postwar era

In postwar Austrian cinema, bombed-out Vienna provided the backdrop for films portraying returning soldiers as victims. International productions such as "The Third Man" and "The Red Danube" upset this myth and made Vienna the location for a new drama: the Cold War. [more]

Religion versus the religion of art

German art critics were outraged after the bishop of Cologne found Gerhard Richter's new stained-glass window for Cologne cathedral to be insufficiently religious. Their response reveals the enduring Romantic ideology of artistic genius, writes Wolfgang Ullrich. [more]

Headscarves, generals, and Turkish democracy

The Turkish government's move to lift the ban on headscarves in universities is part of an ongoing discussion on a new constitution that has the potential to decide the country's future. It could dramatically increase Turkey's chances of becoming a member of the EU. [more]

Portrait of a moment in the life of a nation

A decade and a half after Slovenia's declaration of independence and three years after EU accession, political and cultural life in the country is stagnating, writes Peter Rak. A moderate sense of national spirit and collective self-love may be the only way forward. [French and German versions added] [more]

A Western split within Christianity?

Benedict XVI's Regensburg speech in 2006 was directed less at Islam than at Protestantism, with its twofold spectres of sectarian utopia and consumer individualism. The real scandal was the way Benedict's anti-rationalism was warmly received by so many intellectuals. [English version added] [more]

The EU: Neither God nor Caesar

How does the European Union handle the relationships between confessional faiths and the unified body that it is striving to bring about? Being inherently pluralistic, it is incumbent upon the EU to develop a new form of secularization. [more]

Unacknowledged, unseen, unmentioned

Poverty in Europe

Impoverished German children dream of the US; one Greek person in four is in arrears with their most basic bills; sixty per cent of the poor in Romania have outdoor toilets. Cracks are appearing in Europe's beloved image of itself as the egalitarian alternative to the United States. [more]

Between national church and religious supermarket

Muslim organizations in Germany and the problem of representation

In Germany, "cultural Muslims" have challenged the authority of conservative Muslim organizations to represent "the Muslim community". The problem of representation has to do with the German state's corporatist approach to negotiation, writes Claus Leggewie. [more]

Radical demophilia

Reflections on Bulgarian populism

Populism in Bulgaria feeds off two phenomena: a pure hatred of political parties and the constant emphasis in the public discourse on an alleged contrast between ordinary people and the political elite. [Bulgarian version added] [more]

Acting up

When "stand-up philosopher" Slavoj Zizek calls for "repeating Lenin" or praises Robespierre's defence of terror, some observers might be tempted to ask whether his entire intellectual oeuvre is not just some kind of act. No, says John Clark. "It's not just a pose; it's a position." [Slovenian version added] [more]

There are no fair borders

"Le Monde diplomatique" (Berlin) warns against Kosovan independence; "New Humanist" wishes all a happy Darwin Day; "Glänta" goes underground; "Multitudes" discusses soft and hard activism with Toni Negri; "Esprit" bids farewell to democracy as we know it; "Kulturos barai" says sustainability must come first in Vilnius; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) asks what Norway should do with all its oil; "Revolver Revue" considers engaged filmmaking; and "Ord&Bild" anthologizes Russian short stories. [more]

What makes a biopolitical space?

A discussion with Toni Negri

The city, says Toni Negri, is where the "political diagonal" intersects the "biopolitical diagram". Yet "soft" forms of activism that create collectivities on micro, neighbourhood levels only go so far, says Negri, who favours rupture and revolution over accumulation and gradual change. [more]

Watching David Attenborough

David Attenborough's wildlife documentaries have attracted massive audiences around the world, but have sometimes failed to endear themselves to academics. Laurie Taylor turns the microscope on to the man who's brought us life on earth, under the oceans, and in the undergrowth. [more]

Controlling words

Press and publishing concentration in France is exceptionally high yet there is barely any protest from within the sector itself. Media monopolization is by no means only a French issue, however: throughout Europe and the US, profit has become publishing's bottom line. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Religion, European secular identities, and European integration

The rapid process of secularization in western Europe has not diminished the unease with which Europe considers Islam and Muslims in its midst. In this benchmark essay from 2004, José Casanova argues that the "Islam problem" is an indicator of the disparity between liberal and illiberal strands of European secularism. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Independence for Kosovo: The domino effect

An end to Balkan nation states

Whether Kosovo's newly declared independence will set a precedent depends on national minorities in the region seeing it as such. If they do, a domino effect may have been set in motion that the international community will be powerless to halt. [more]

Literary perspectives: Northern Ireland

Shaking the hand of history

While the Northern Irish literary tradition is closely bound up with the experience of sectarian violence, contemporary Northern Irish poets and prose writers defy the assumption that "the troubles" are all there is to the country's literature. [Turkish version added] [more]

The re-transnationalization of literary criticism

Critical and public discussion of foreign literature in newspapers and magazines has traditionally served as a source of information and guidance not only for a broad readership, but also for "people in the business", for publishers and authors. When that discussion disappears, or loses its perspectives and becomes one-sided, this has consequences for the literary institution as a whole. [Turkish version added] [more]

Imre Kertész's heart of stone

A detective story

This month sees the English publication of Imre Kertész's little-known novella "Detective Story". Kertész's translator Tim Wilkinson introduces the work and, placing it in the context of Kértesz's oeuvre, embarks on some detective work of his own. [more]

Anyone at home?

In pursuit of one's own shadow

Zinovy Zinik traces the history of the shadow as metaphor for exile through Evgeni Shwartz's play "The Shadow" back to earlier fables by Hans Christian Andersen and Adelbert von Chamisso. The sum effect: a web of émigré biographies and fictions spanning two centuries. [Estonian version added] [more]

A possible biography of Old Master Pinzel (?-1761)

The works of the baroque sculptor known as Master Pinzel are famous and plentiful. But little is known about his life. Perhaps looking at the time in which he lived can give us a better picture of the person behind the art. [more]

What is postcolonial thinking?

Postcolonial thinking looks so original because it developed in a transnational, eclectic vein from the very start, says theorist Achille Mbembe. This enabled it to combine the anti-imperialist tradition with the fledgling subaltern studies and a specific take on globalization. [more]

Do footballers need balls?

"Sodobnost" pinpoints Slovenia's place in Europe; "Samtiden" grabs football by the balls; "Merkur" winds up feminists; "Mittelweg 36" reads Shalamov against Solzhenitsyn; "Gegenworte" brings in the consultants; "Vikerkaar" talks to an anti-anthropologist; and "Passage" reads the dust jacket. [more]

Craziness

"Craziness only half believes in the ideology to which it prescribes, but also believes that it can't believe in anything else. The top priority becomes to constantly repel doubt via relentless activism." [more]

The oxymoron of normality

"Normality" has been close to the hearts of eastern Europeans during transition. Yet a comparative history of the concept in eastern and western Europe reveals meanings that are multiple, changeable, even oxymoronic. [more]

Normality or normalities?

From one transition to the next

For eastern Europeans, the myth of a free and prosperous West, of western normality, has been replaced by the observation of normalities, writes Mircea Vasilescu. Having joined the EU, Romanians are discovering that the West has problems by no means as exotic as they once believed. [Turkish version added] [more]