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Neighbourhoods
The 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Introduction In recent decades, the deadly potential inherent in neighbourly relations has become more and more obvious. But we tend to forget that the borders inside and outside the neighbourhood are constantly redrawn; that conflicts are part and parcel of everyday life among neighbours. [ more ]
Neighbourhoods
Opening address at the 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
The neighbour as spy For Orhan Pamuk, "neighbourhood" implies openness to neighbouring cultures but also provincial mistrust. Cultural journals' role, he says, should be to encourage non-conformity. [French and German versions added] [ more ]
Turkey and Europe: Neighbours from afar
"Friendship" After a surge of popularity for concepts such as fluidity, migration, and fragmentation, polarity has returned to the stage of international politics, bringing with it renewed interest in neighbourhood. Associating neighbourhood with friendship, Hasan Bülent Kahraman looks at Maurice Blanchot's theory of the "infinite distance" inherent in friendship. Turkey can and should, he argues, use this distance as a parameter in order to establish a productive relationship with the EU and the West. [ more ]
From neighbourhood to citizenship
EU and Turkey
Deep or wide? For those in favour of "deepening" the EU, the presumed otherness of Islam is cause for alarm; for those in favour of "widening", Turkey's economic and geo-strategic potential counts in its favour. [ more ]
Europe revisited
Neighbourly conflict and the return of history
Cultural differences Europe has experienced not the end of history, but the end of the postwar pact not to talk about history. But the "return of history" has also brought the return of cultural differences. [ more ]
At the margins of Europe
Russia and Turkey
A Eurasian alliance? November 2005 saw the opening of the monumental Blue Stream pipeline, which pumps natural gas from Russia across the Black Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Is a new Eurasian alliance forming at the margins of Europe? [ more ]
The democratic neighbour
Politics of human rights in an enlarged Europe
Human rights The politics of human rights had its heyday in Europe in the 1990s; today, it is held responsible for a variety of ills. The editor of Esprit defends democracy's radical commitment. [ more ]
The neighbour and the state
Understanding the cultural history of neighbourly conflict in Turkey
Cultural history Any discussion of conflict between Turkey and its neighbours, including the so-called Armenian question, must take into account the social organization of the Ottoman period, says political columnist Etyen Mahçupyan. [ more ]
The "Siedlung" and the "Mahalle"
Residential neighbourhoods The two-way development of the modern residential neighbourhood in Turkey and Germany demonstrates the shortcomings of a polarized discussion of Turkey and Europe, and shows how histories restricted to single nation-states do not help understand transnational processes. [ more ]
The Beur uprising
Poverty and Muslim atheists in France
Neighbourly conflict it is not so much cultural difference and Islamism that is taking young Muslims to the street as a mass reaction to two centuries of colonialism and racism, compounded by recent poverty and exclusion. [ more ]
The post-oriental condition
Serbs and Turks revisited
Symbolic exclusion The Balkans and Turkey are a space on the borders of Europe marking a cultural encounter with the Oriental. Constituted as an undeclared enemy, this object of anxiety acts as a catalyst for collective cohesion, eliciting mythic narratives that call for exclusion from the symbolic realm of the European community. [ more ]
Related articles
Neighbourly relations as a resource for violence
Neighbourly conflict Neighbourhoods' potential for violence can be instrumentalized by politics, be it in surveillance regimes or ethnic-national movements. A popular comic strip delivers an insight into the tensions inherent in neighbourly relations. [ more ]
Biting my tongue
EU and Turkey Now that Turkey's EU accession process is officially underway, has the job of Turks become to win the hearts and minds of the Europeans? [ more ]
European Union, Europeanness, and Euro-Turks
Hyphenated and multiple identities
Sociology A sociological analysis of the perspectives of Turks living in France and Germany on the EU and Europeanness undermines the view that they are nationalistic and essentialist. [ more ]
Turks at the gates of Brussels
Europe, Sèvres, and Kemalism
EU and Turkey The eventual accession of Turkey to the European Union will depend a lot on how far the historical interdependence of Europe and Turkey is recognized. [ more ]
Questions for Turkey
The Armenians, 1915
The Armenian issue During World War I, over one million Armenians were killed in the Ottoman empire. Now demands are being made on the Turkish government to officially recognize the horror of these crimes. [ more ]
Oh balmy breath...
A tribute to Hrant Dink
The murder of Hrant Dink Murdered journalist Hrant Dink contaminated the pure categories of Armenian and Turk, Christian and Muslim. But how can we make sense of Dink's murder without falling prey to instrumental reasoning that claims that Turkish democracy has also been shot dead? [ more ]
The Armenian genocide: Issues of responsibility and democracy
An interview with Susan Neiman and Andreas Huyssen
Politics of memory Two public intellectuals discuss the role of the public sphere in guiding a politics of memory in relation to Turkey's fraught Armenian issue. [Catalan version added] [ more ]
We left a deep invisible mark behind us
The murder of Hrant Dink "What are we applauding? We are applauding Hrant, his resistance, resistances, our union, that unexpected solidarity..." Novelist Asli Erdogan describes her feelings of love and loss while marching in protest against Hrant Dink's murder. [ more ]
Why there is a Turkish carpet on the psychiatric couch
Islam and Turkish politics Modern Turkish secularism versus Islamic traditions? The world according to prime minister Erdogan. [ more ]
"The neighbour as spy"
Magazine Roundup Varlik tells the neighbours what they don't want to hear. [ more ]
Faces of Istanbul
Istanbul Articles from du reveal facets of the city that has been the battleground of Turkey's modernization process. [ more ]
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More focal points
Olympic indifference
The Beijing Olympics 2008 are unusual insofar as not one country has boycotted them. This, despite the fact that the political dimension of the Games has seldom been more controversial. Are we seeing a new kind of "Olympic indifference"? With this in mind, Eurozine compiles articles on sport, politics, and protest. [ more ]
Shared space, divided society
Migration is part of modern society, meaning more and more people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds live together in Europe. The multitude of perspectives and experiences represents an enormous resource, but as cultural conflicts inherent in today's urban societies become visible, doubts are also raised about the value of diversity. [ more ]
1968: Beyond soixante-huite
Forty years on, the differences between the 1968 uprisings in western and eastern Europe move into ever sharper focus. "In retrospect, the great event of '68 in Europe was not Paris, but Prague. But we were unable to see this at the time." Including articles by Jacques Rupnik, Rudi Dutschke, Aleksander Smolar, Christian Semler, and Mykola Riabchuk. [ more ]
Illiberal Europe?
Parliament or the soapbox? Populist politics are enjoying renewed success in Europe, above all in the former socialist countries. Ivan Krastev, G.M.Tamás, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jacques Rupnik and others investigate the rise of "democratic illiberalism". [ more ]
Cultural citizenship
The concept of cultural citizenship responds to the multicultural context of contemporary societies, in which the concern with equality is increasingly being complemented with a concern with difference. Contributors include Gerard Delanty, Axel Honneth, Rainer Bauböck, Ivaylo Ditchev, Charles Taylor, Rada Ivekovic, António Sousa Ribeiro. [ more ]
Decentring Europe
Any reinvention of the concept of Europe that takes into account the complexities inherent in Europe's place in a globalized world must contain a critique of Eurocentrism. Learning from the South, i.e. absorbing the full critical impact of alternative approaches may be a key element in the rethinking – and unthinking – of "Europe".[ more ]
The future of war
Are wars that are fought between nations a thing of the past, and are the future challenges more a case of ethnic strife, break-up of failed states, secession and civil wars? In a special focal point, Eurozine analyzes the changing face of warfare in the twenty-first century, in which terrorism and new security threats have profoundly transformed the way wars are conducted. [ more ]
The city as stage for social upheaval
From the western European city to the Third World megacity, one is able to observe how a single principle asserts itself in the social structure of the urban space. That principle – privatization – is geared towards the concentration of wealth and assets on an increasingly global scale, a manoeuvre its beneficiaries seek to naturalize. [ more ]
Big Brother goes global
Post 9/11, governments are increasingly tailoring "international standards" to ratify domestic policies that intrude on civil liberties. Welcome to the phenomenon of "policy laundering". [ more ]
Changing Europe
As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. A special focus featuring some of Eurozine's most outstanding contributions on the European project: From analyses of the current crisis to a hilarious parody of Brussels' literary ambitions. [ more ]
Post-secular Europe?
Is religion a public or a private matter? Can there be such a thing as a European Islam? If so, what characterizes it? What role can religion – or religions – play when it comes to the emergence of a European solidarity? [ more ]
European histories: Towards a grand narrative?
In order for there to be solidarity within the enlarged EU, it will be necessary to develop a broader historical consciousness that includes both western and eastern experiences. [ more ]
Europe talks to Europe: Towards a European public sphere?
The European integration project has made the discussion about transnational spaces for cultural and political debate acute. Can there at all be a common Europe without a pan-European public sphere? [ more ]
Politics of border making and (cross-)border identities
Have borders become irrelevant with the project of a united Europe? No, just the opposite. On the dilemmas of border building and cross-border cooperation in the EU and its neighbourhood. [ more ]
Documenta 12 magazines
Eurozine is participating in the Documenta 12 magazines project, which links over 90 print and on-line periodicals worldwide. Read Eurozine's contributions to the documenta leitmotifs "Modernity" and "Bare Life" here.[ more ]
Freedom of speech and the Danish cartoon controversy
Free speech is a fundamental human right and a central tenet of democracy. Or is it? Reactions to the Danish cartoon controversy show that liberals are re-evaluating what the right to free speech entails. [ more ]
Politics of translation
Translation today is as much about the translation of cultural, political, and historical contexts and concepts as it is about language. [ more ]
Conferences
Changing places (What's normal anyway?)
The 20th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Sibiu, 21-24 October 2007
Under the heading "Changing places (What's normal anyway?)", the Eurozine network conference 2007 in Sibiu, Romania, addressed the challenges facing societies, literature, and the media as the need for change meets the urge for normality. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Friend and foe. Shared space, divided society
The 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
London, 27-30 October 2006
Speakers at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals opened up the discussion on cultural diversity in two directions: first, as it is experienced in the physical urban space, and second, as it is reflected in the mirror of the media. [ more ]