How can intense description of what is irreducibly particular help us to extract elements that are universal? Parallels between the child separations at the US–Mexico border and the experiences of Holocaust survivors prompt historian Marci Shore to ask what we can and cannot understand by thinking in comparisons with the past.
Articles
The myth of weakness
Esprit 10/2020
Slow, indecisive, vulnerable to manipulation: the charges against democracy are familiar. But as contributions to ‘Esprit’ argue, what makes democracy fragile also makes it strong. Including Michaël Fœssel on democracy’s relation to time, and Axel Honneth on the new spirit of participation.
The success of the French Popular Front lay in its ability to form a broad coalition on the left and to reach strata of the population traditionally ignored by communist parties. This is a lesson that antifascists today could do well to learn.
The big clean up
The 2020 pandemic as a representational crisis
Coronavirus has collapsed powerful imaginaries of globalization: a generation raised with the promise of knowledge and mobility is stuck and without a clue. Thus we search for names and images to tame the uncertainty.
Recommended topics
Wasn’t the East-West divide supposed to go away?
Discussing ‘The Legacy of division: Europe after 1989’ with the curators
Was it foolish to expect Europe to unite after the Iron Curtain fell? What kept the wounds from healing? Talking the post-Communist heritage in Gagarin, the Eurozine podcast.
Corporate capture of the media by the state is not just an eastern European speciality, nor does it take place in an economic vacuum. The 31st European Meeting of Cultural Journals will be focusing on how political interference and market pressure are threatening independent publishing in Europe today.
On fascism, non-fascism and antifa
Natasha Lennard in conversation with James Miller
Does ‘counter-violence’ damage the antifascist cause? Or is it delusory to talk about non-violence in the face of an opponent with no such scruples? Natasha Lennard explains to James Miller why antifascism rejects debate as an effective response to the fascist threat.
If, like Miriam Rasch, you want to resist seamless dataism and de-automate your life, why not take a look at her recommended reading from the Eurozine archive spanning articles from the politics of digitization to poetry’s ability to creatively engage with fragmentation.
Eurozine review
Debating the f-word
Public Seminar 15 October 2020
Is it accurate historically to apply the term ‘fascism’ to America under Trump? And is to do so strategically astute? A special issue of ‘Public Seminar’ weighs in on the debate over the f-word. With contributions from Jan-Werner Müller, David Bell, Natasha Lennard and more.
Trump in Latin America
Letras Libres 229 (2020)
‘Letras Libres’ says that a Trump victory would reinforce hostilities between the US and its southern neighbours. Why Mexico in particular must recognize that Trump has been bad for the country. With contributions from Alfredo Corchado, León Krauze, Dan Restrepo and more.
Dare to look differently
Rīgas Laiks 10/2020
‘Rīgas Laiks’ feels better about ageing after talking to an Amazonian chief. But alterity can be found much closer to home too: an interview with a villager from eastern Latvia offers a lesson in rustic self-expression. Also: Belarusian women on the frontline.
Focal points
Is the term ‘fascism’ applicable to an authoritarian politician like Trump? Does the label ‘anti-fascist’ gloss over crucial controversies surrounding the term? And is Weimar a useful comparison when thinking about anti-democratic tendencies in the US, in the EU and globally? A new focal point in collaboration with Public Seminar.
Like sustenance and sex, society can’t be reproduced without shelter. That is why today’s housing crisis is so central. Contributions to this focal point look at both the winners and the losers of the crisis: the people profiting from the financialization of housing and those reimagining the right to the city.
Cultural journals have played a crucial role in the formation of the public spheres in Europe and beyond. Looking at their history helps understand where they are headed. A Eurozine focal point in collaboration with the Working Group on Periodicals Research.
When the Cold War came to a sudden end thirty years ago, the two halves of Europe declared in unison their intention to overcome the legacy of division. Today, the hopes and ambitions of those heady days may seem unrealistic. But is talk of a new East–West divide justified?
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.