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The new ecology of war
An interview with Mike Davis
cities "Global epidemics and global terrorism are two problems that principally emanated from the slums. When one talks about 'failed states' one often means 'failed cities' such as Gaza or Sadr City." Mike Davis talks in interview about the evolution of the neoliberal city. [ more ]
Forget Europe!
An interview with Homi Bhabha
Crosswords For journals, Europe as a concept is worthwhile only if conceived of as a threshold to be surpassed, Homi Bhabha argues in interview with Emrah Efe Çacmak. Their work is per se internationalist and has to link communities of intellectuals and activists around the world. [ more ]
Forget journals!
An interview with Mark C. Taylor
Crosswords The image must be liberated from the tyranny of the word, appeals Mark C. Taylor. The philosopher berates journals for their anachronistic graphocentrism and argues that multimedia has become the multilingualism of the younger generation. [ more ]
Places and strata of memory
Approaches to eastern Europe
European histories The idea of 1989 as an annus mirabilis is too crude; rather, it was the result of a long incubation period that took a different course in each Eastern Bloc country. In a benchmark essay, Karl Schlögel asks whether it is too soon to start talking of a "common European history". [ more ]
Shadow of the fatwa
20 years fatwa Salman Rushdie's critics lost the battle but they won the war against free speech, writes Kenan Malik. The argument at the heart of the anti-Rushdie case - that it is morally unacceptable to cause offence to other cultures - is now widely accepted. [ more ]
a look into the latest issues
Secular noise reduced to a whisper
Journals digest "Index on Censorship" investigates what Bush-Cheney did to civil liberties; "Esprit" welcomes America's first Chicagoan president; "Arena" asks whether there will be a Left after capitalism; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) writes Bush's epitaph; "Samtiden" scrutinizes racism in Norway; "Dilema veche" calls for a debate on anti-Semitism in Romania; "Osteuropa" weighs up causes and effects of the Georgian war; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Berlin) reports on parallel realities in Israel; and "Magyar Lettre Internationale" prefers literary canons in the plural. [ more ]
National images of the past
The twentieth century and the "war of memories". An appeal by the International Memorial Society
European histories If contradictions between national memories are recognized and understood, the historical awareness of each society is enriched. Eurozine republishes a call by the International Memorial Society for the creation of a platform upon which such a dialogue can be conducted. [ more ]
External links
On 3 December, armed police seized Memorial's archive in St Petersburg. Orlando Figes, writing in Index on Censorship, reports. Also: An open letter to Dimitrii Medvedev, the governor of St Petersburg and other high-ranking Russian politicians.
07.12.2008
History without memory
On the morals of post-Soviet society
European histories In Russian popular film and fiction, historical representation has been turned gothic, writes Dina Khapaeva. "Personal loyalty towards superiors and respect for hierarchy constitute gothic society's most important and only uncontested law." [ more ]
Jewish life and thought in eastern Europe
Impulses for Europe Eighty per cent of Jewish people worldwide have eastern European roots. Yet are the countries of eastern Europe ready to integrate Jewish influences into their national commemorative cultures and present-day identities? Articles from the "Osteuropa" issue: "Tradition and Modernity in East European Jewry". [ more ]
Remembrance as balancing act
The public and scholarly treatment of
eastern Europe’s Jewish heritage
debate How to communicate eastern European Jewish history and culture without turning it into commercialism and kitsch or treating Jewish life as a museum artefact and thus forgetting its renaissance? A roundtable discussion with historians, curators, and educators. [ more ]
From obscurantism to holiness
"Eastern Jewish" thought in Buber, Heschel, and Levinas
Intellectual heritage The intellectuals Martin Buber, Joshua Heschel, and Emmanuel Levinas shared the eastern European Jewish experience and a universalistic ethic. Above all it is Levinas to whom we owe an appreciation of what one could call "eastern European Jewry", writes Micha Brumlik. [ more ]
Repress, reassess, remember
Jewish heritage in Lithuania
Lithuania In Lithuania today, the acceptance of shared responsibility for the Holocaust is met with political resistance. However, the heritage of Lithuanian Jews is slowly being integrated into the society's collective consciousness, writes Vytautas Toleikis. [ more ]
Eurozine conference on multilingualism in Paris
crosswords X mots croisés
multilingualism The 21st European Meeting of Cultural Journals in Paris from 26-29 September 2008 explored the theme of multilingualism in Europe in terms of language policies, migration, translation and the European public sphere. The first of the texts are published here. [ more ]
Cultural journals and Europe
multilingualism While translation is indispensable, simply building bridges between the dominant languages is not enough, writes Edouard Glissant. "There is a spiritual revolution to defend in the world against the identity of single roots. What actors are more destined to engage in this revolution than journals?" [ more ]
The Tower of Babel does not exist
multilingualism A lingua franca is a means of sidestepping linguistic isolation, yet it limits expression to the mere conveyance of information. Clarisse Herrenschmidt considers the mixed blessings of global English. [ more ]
Financial crisis
Fragile new Europe
financial crisis Despite talk of a "unified European plan" to combat recession, the motto among EU member states seems to be "each to his own". The financial crisis is reimposing the divide between eastern and western Europe, writes Mircea Vasilescu. [ more ]
Beyond transparency
financial crisis Advocates of financial regulation see markets as sound in principle, merely distorted by concealed risks. However transparency is no guarantee against bubbles and crashes, writes André Orléan. It is the rationale for the universal interconnection of capital that needs to be disputed. [ more ]
Panic in the financial casino
financial crisis Self-regulation by the market has turned out to be an illusion: what's needed now is more governmental regulation of financial markets along with caps on managerial salaries, writes Heiner Flassbeck.
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From subprime to slump?
financial crisis This year the world has seen the power of money to socialize the costs of capitalist crisis, but are prices going to go on rising to Weimar-like levels? Jon Amsden explores the origins of the crisis and discerns something worse than inflation on the horizon. [ more ]
Read also: Further articles on the financial crisis [ more ]
Milan Kundera
Two stories
Kundera and the conclusion of the Velvet Revolution
comment The reaction to the Kundera allegations in the Czech Republic has largely been one of doubt rather than blame. Miroslav Balastík wonders whether the incident signifies the end of a phase of post-communism in the Czech Republic. [ more ]
What does it mean, disclosure?
comment While there are many differences between the Kundera case and those of other eastern European intellectuals revealed as having been informers, its disclosure has followed the usual pattern. Each case must be evaluated on an individual basis, cautions György Dalos. [ more ]
A trace of metaphysics?
On the allegations against Milan Kundera
comment Whatever the outcome of the allegations against Milan Kundera, writes Samuel Abraham, the manner in which they have been made represents a failure of journalistic decency. [ more ]
East translates East
Diagnosing the present
"Diagnosing the present", a translation project between three Eurozine partner journals and supported by the Next Page Foundation, aims to add to an understanding of cultural, political, and intellectual life in contemporary eastern central Europe. Read the translations here. [ more ]
literary perspectives
Literary perspectives: Sweden
Beyond crime fiction, handbags and designer suits
Essay Recent literary debates in Sweden have dwelled, among things, on authors' love lives and penchant for designer handbags. Yet there is more out there if one looks: Hans Koppel's hatchet job on suburban manners, for example, or Magnus Hedlund's explorations of human perception. [German version added] [ more ]
Read also Pär Thörn, "We're like a boat with water up to the gunwales and there are waves breaking over the sides the whole time!"; Hanna Hallgren, "Depressive European"; Athena Farrokhzad, Tova Gerge, "Manual for postmodern childrearing"
Read also All articles in Literary perspectives, Eurozine's series of essays providing an overview of diverse literary landscapes in Europe. [ more ]
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Editors' Choice
Can democracies deal with climate change?
climate politics Trust in the ability of political elites to deal with the eco-social consequences of climate change is evaporating. Reaching eco-political targets calls for more participation of citizens as active architects of their society, write Claus Leggewie and Harald Welzer. [ more ]
Haider, the undetected Austrofascist
Austria Jörg Haider was on the brink of a political comeback when he died in a car crash in October. Throughout his career, Haider's critics in Austria made a disastrous mistake, writes Robert Menasse. They suspected him of fascism, yet didn't understand the nature of it.
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The dialectic of secularization
post-secular Europe? 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." [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
Multiculturalism and liberal democracy
cultural diversity Liberal values can be twisted to justify limiting the civil rights of ethnic groups, warns Will Kymlicka in interview. "The same forces that support ethnic politics within liberal democracy also channel it in democratic ways." [ more ]
Urban asphalt gave flower to utopia
1968 "The eastern European '68ers formed the backbone of the democratic opposition, whereas we, the somewhat older '56ers, only joined in with certain reservations, because we had a closer acquaintance with defeat." The Hungarian writer György Konrád takes an ironic look at the '68ers. [ more ]
Encyclopaedist of the international
Interview Antonin J. Liehm, editor of the Czech magazine Litérarní noviny until 1968 and founder of Lettre Internationale, has been at the forefront of numerous attacks on the "provincialism of major cultures". One theme has persisted throughout: the idea of an international magazine. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
The society of the query and the Googlization of our lives
A tribute to Joseph Weizenbaum
internet "There is only one way to turn signals into information, through interpretation", wrote the computer critic Joseph Weizenbaum. As Google's hegemony over online content increases, argues Geert Lovink, we should stop searching and start questioning. [Slovenian version added] [ more ]
Pluralism by default
Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko's election victory in September 2007 opened up an opportunity for improvement of Ukraine's democratic institutions, writes Mykola Riabchuk. The current crisis, a symptom of "pluralism by default", represents a setback for those hopes. [English version added] [ more ]
The crisis of the post-Cold War European order
Russia Ivan Krastev argues that a policy of engagement focused on national interest and a radical turn from value-based foreign policy to nineteenth century Realpolitik is not a workable option for relations between Russia and the West. [English version added] [ more ]
Sex appeal
the religious right America's religious Right has discovered sex as a recruitment strategy, writes Dagmar Herzog. At the same time, the language of repression has returned via the secular notion of self-esteem – to the detriment of women in particular. [ more ]
"Emancipation is not an all or nothing affair"
Interview with Nancy Fraser
feminism and Islam Critical theorist Nancy Fraser outlines in interview her concept of "parity of participation" and emphasizes the centrality of the politics of interpretation in any dialogue about justice, such as that between western feminism and Islam. [ more ]
Beaches and graveyards
Europe's haunted borders
borders "It is more arduous to honour the memory of the nameless than the renowned." The epigram on Walter Benjamin's memorial in Portbou, Catalonia, leads Les Back to reflect on the fate of the African migrants found dead on the coasts of Spain today. [German version added] [ more ]
Manufactured scarcity
energy "Manufacturing scarcity" is the new watchword in "Green capitalism". James Heartfield explains how for the energy sector, it has become a license to print money. Pioneered by Enron in the 1990s, the model of restricted supply is now promoted worldwide. [ more ]
Why has manga become a global cultural product?
Manga In the West, manga has become a cultural accompaniment to economic globalization. No mere side-effect of Japan's economic power, writes Jean-Marie Bouissou, manga is ideally suited to the cultural obsessions of the early twenty-first century. [ more ]
No coffee
social history What is it about coffee – and coffeehouses – that makes it so agreeable to the bourgeoisie? asks Jakob Norberg in a brief social history of the dark, rich brew. And of the bourgeois public sphere. [ more ]
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Gallery for Cultural Journals at the Alte Schmiede, Vienna
news item 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 ]
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In Focus
Shared space, divided society
Focal point: Cultural diversity 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. In cooperation with the European Cultural Foundation, Eurozine presents a broad take on the issue that goes beyond the common dichotomy between multicultural segregation and the forceful assimilation of the "melting pot".
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Eurozine Focal Points
1968: Beyond soixante-huit
Focal point 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 on '68 in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, France and West Germany. [ more ]
Olympic indifference
Focal point 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 ]
Illiberal Europe?
Focal point: The new populism 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 ]
The city as stage for social upheaval
Focal Point From the western European city to the Third World megacity, it can be observed how the principle of privatization asserts itself in the urban social structure. With Swapan Chakravorty, Filip De Boeck, Ilija Trojanow, Ivaylo Ditchev, Robert Misik...[ more ]
Decentring Europe
Focal point Contemporary European discourse on Europe is often self-centred and provides one more link in a long chain of ideological or mythological constructions. 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 may be a key element in the rethinking – and unthinking – of "Europe".
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Cultural citizenship
Focal Point 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. Eurozine groups together texts articulating issues central to the concept. Including contributions by Gerard Delanty, Rainer Bauböck, Ivaylo Ditchev, Charles Taylor, Rada Ivekovic, António Sousa Ribeiro, and Axel Honneth. [ more ]
Changing Europe: 50 years of European integration
) "Signing of the Treaty of Rome, 25 March 1957")
Focal point As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. Eurozine compiles a selection of articles on the European project: from analyses by Jacques Rupnik and Jan-Werner Müller of the current European crisis, to enquiries by Slavenka Drakulic and Ales Debeljak into transnational identity building; from Göran Rosenberg's federalist arguments, to György Spiró's hilarious parody of Brussels' bureaucratic literary ambitions. [ more ]
Post-secular Europe?
Religion and Politics
Has the rapid and drastic process of secularization in western Europe come to an end? In a new Focal Point, Eurozine looks at different aspects of this question: 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 ]
The future of war
Focal Point 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 ]
Politics of border making and (cross-)border identities
Border making Have borders become irrelevant with the project of a united Europe which is supposed to overcome the historical divisions of the continent and the political isolation of its East? No, just the opposite. In a focal point guest-edited by Tatiana Zhurzhenko, essayists and researchers look at the dilemmas of border building and cross-border cooperation in the EU and its neighbourhood. [ more ]
European histories: Towards a grand narrative?
European histories In order for there to be solidarity within the enlarged EU, it will be necessary to develop a broader historical consciousness that accommodates the experiences of the new members. And if Russia's relations with its neighbours are to be harmonious, the taboos surrounding the Great Victory will need to be addressed. Read on for analyses from both sides of a historical divide. [ more ]
Europe talks to Europe: Towards a European public sphere?
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, where potentially common values and ideas can be formed and transnational political institutions can find their legitimacy? [ more ]
Freedom of speech and the Danish cartoon controversy
Free speech 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 Our understanding of the field of translation studies has in recent years taken on many more meanings and now encompasses spheres beyond the usual textual dimension: Translation today is as much about the translation of cultural, political, and historical contexts and concepts as it is about language. [ more ]
The Eurozine network at a glance
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