From raising awareness of inequality to its derision, ‘woke’ has become a controversial English term. Set the debate in Wales, where English has dominated the national language, and complications increase. A cancelled Welsh author reveals how the overt politicization of literature is forcing some writers to abandon their mother tongue.
Articles
On political speech and the paradoxes of critique after Trump and Gaza; why the far right fills the gap left by restorationist liberalism; and how fascization depends on white middle-class solidarity.
Founded to eradicate the legacies of colonialism, the African Union was supposed to have been a means to assert sovereignty. But it has proven ineffective in countering not just western power.
Israel has authorized a full military takeover of Gaza exactly twenty years after declaring it had ‘left’ the Strip. Disengagement failed because it was never designed to succeed – least of all on Palestinian terms.
Recommended topics
Intellectual violence
The militarization of education in Russia
Education has become another battleground in the Kremlin’s campaign to militarize the Russian public consciousness. Youth organizations, book bans, changes to school curricula – all amount to a ‘special anthropological operation’.
Why was the distinguishing mark of female genitalia erased from NASA’s 1970s image travelling outer space? And will compromised depictions of life on Earth avoid sexist, racist and anthropocentric simplifications by 2036?
Russian drones entering Polish airspace, militarily seen as intensified provocation rather than open warfare, have nevertheless provoked costly responses – both from NATO’s air defence systems and civilian reactions to disinformation. A war correspondent’s view of what can be done technologically – for greater military efficiency and improved civil defence.
“Come Together” is founded on the principles of partnership and peer-to-peer learning among individuals within community media organizations situated in six different countries. Instead of generating entirely new knowledge, the initiative aims to unearth and leverage the existing wisdom residing within these organizations to foster innovative approaches.
Eurozine review
Liberty on the line
Index on Censorship 2/2025
Free speech in the US: how book bans are targeting independent thought; why Trump’s assault on education imitates Erdoğan’s; what the closure of Radio Free Asia means for the region’s information space; and how American liberals can learn from Soviet dissidents.
Philosophy and the bomb
Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 8/2025
Karl Jaspers, Günther Anders and the nuclear dichotomy; how Israel’s allies have abandoned the Iranian opposition; and EU asylum policy ten years on from ‘Wir schaffen das’.
Crises past and present
Vikerkaar 6/2025
Vikerkaar on why grey rhinos are riskier than black swans when it comes to epochal crises; how the Estonian government averted a crisis of state by crushing fascism in 1934; and why Estonia’s AI enthusiasm may provoke a crisis of education.
Focal points
The European Parliament elections on 9 June are a referendum on EU policy since 2019. Will voters give Europe the green light for further progress, or pull the brakes? A new Eurozine series measures the political atmosphere in the EU and its neighbourhoods at this crucial moment.
Food and water systems under pressure: as the end of abundance becomes an everyday experience in Europe, we are thinking more closely about how our food reaches the table.
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
Some observers, recalling the disasters of the 1920s and 30s, are suggesting that an anti-democratic counterrevolution on a global scale has begun. But is the writing really on the wall? Or does declinism prevent us from recognizing moments of democratic renewal?
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.