The US Supreme Court has overturned two landmark cases that protected a woman’s rights over her own body for 50 years. How did ‘fetal politics’ — a political movement that has turned embryos and fetuses into ‘unborn children’ endowed with unique and inviolable civil rights – gain such momentum? And what will be the outcome of this new ruling?
Articles
Memory, especially when traumatic, is often considered contentious rather than being recalled and honoured. Years of activism that went into uncovering the stories of victims of mass repression, memorialized and archived at Memorial, the NGO the Russian state recently forced into closure, now needs further rescuing.
Should Russian literature be held accountable for creating a nationalist mood capable of inciting war on Ukraine? Calls for a halt on distribution include all works, whether colonialist or not. An Estonian perspective, built over five days in Ukraine, asks whether the Russian state is responsible for cancelling its own culture.
As the shock of war gives way to reflection, Ukrainian public discourse has turned to questions of the past, present and future: When did Russia’s war on Ukraine start? What is it doing to society? And how will it end?
Recommended topics
The performing arts suffered a crisis of identity during initial pandemic lockdowns. Enclosure replaced gestures of intimacy. Nomadic artistic practice, no longer able to physically engage with linguistic, geographic and social borders, faced new ‘territory’. Itinerant artists, used to constant travel, started thinking more locally.
Fighting fatigue
The unspoken aspect of war
When startling news breaks, the urge to know exactly what has happened is strong. Over time this compulsion can turn into obsessive checking – that is until exhaustion takes over. Fresh reports of other situations leave the previous ‘story’ – no matter how critical – in limbo. How can we as audiences be reawakened from complacency?
The ‘cuir’ turn
Resignifying mutual aid in the struggle against trans necropolitics
Celebrating the start of LGBTQIA+ Pride 2022: in Brazil trans activists rearticulate language and identity, taking the political campaign trail to greater visibility, recognition and a sense of belonging, helping save lives through collective action and knowing disobedience.
Midnight dispatch
Night workers’ voices from the UK and Romania
Though essential to the functioning of key infrastructures and services, night workers face additional layers of precarity to their daytime counterparts. Their testimonies from London and Oradea convey a deep sense of insecurity, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic.
Eurozine review
In defence of Günter Wallraff
Merkur 2/2022
In ‘Merkur’: why Günter Wallraff’s 1985 bestseller ‘The Lowest of the Low’ appears scandalous by the standards of today’s racial justice discourse – but remains absolutely worth reading for its searing analysis of the exploitation of labour in wealthy democracies.
Dim prospects for European stability
New Eastern Europe 1–2/2022
In ‘New Eastern Europe’: why the West should not be fooled by Russia’s Cold War revivalism; whether Ukraine can turn the tables; and where now after the ruins of Ostpolitik?
Lotman’s signs
Akadeemia 2/2022
‘Akadeemia’ applies Lotmanian semiotics to today’s societal concerns. Including a holistic view of digital fragmentation, integrating ecology into the cultural sphere and creatively rethinking educational practices.
Focal points
With new variants mutating around the globe, COVID-19 is no longer a novelty. The pathogen is seemingly here to stay, inducing social, political and economic turmoil. This is not a crisis to emerge from quickly. It is a prelude to further emergencies linked to climate change-related transformations and environmental destruction. How will societies deal with its tangible effects? And which issues might be perilously left by the wayside? In this new focal point, supported by the European Cultural Foundation’s Culture of Solidarity programme, Eurozine and partners take stock of this public health crisis and its accompanying crises of values and meaning.
Traditionally, a young woman used to be presented with a bundle of goods to send her off with to adult life. Today’s bottom drawers aren’t necessarily tied to marriages, nor are they strictly material. Yet, the bundle one leaves the house with is as important as ever. In this focal point, we take stock of the notions our foremothers presented us with: women’s ideas and achievements that define our understanding of power, gender and violence, bodies, connection and agency.
The focal point presents the findings of the project ‘Eurasia in Global Dialogue’ being carried out at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM). The focal point is an extension of the earlier focal point, ‘Russia in Global Dialogue’ that ran in Eurozine and at the IWM from 2012–2018.
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.
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.