Prison was a central pillar of communism and an experience shared by generations of eastern Europeans. The USA today can also be described as a carceral society, its prison system the expression of a ‘new Jim Crow’. What does the comparison mean for the definition of the ‘political prisoner’? A conversation.
Articles
A pluralist mainstream requires a flourishing media ecosystem outside it. The mainstream has important democratic roles, but catalysing change is not one of them.
The stakes of feminism
How Slavenka Drakulić made space for women’s issues in Yugoslavia
From introducing feminist literature on the pages of a semi-pornographic magazine to challenging the self-image of the socialist state of Yugoslavia: journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulić has broken ground in many fields in her native tongue even before rising to international renown.
A common currency, a single passport and a European anthem: all were originally the ideas of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. But though the founder of the pan-Europa movement was ahead of his time in many ways, impatience with institution-building meant his concrete achievements remained limited.
Recommended topics
Entering Kazakhstan
A new answer to how autocracies survive
Coup attempt or assertion of supremacy? It is still not clear what has happened in Kazakhstan. Whatever the case, the hijacking of the demonstrations has severely damaged prospects for the country’s democratization.
A bill on Animal Welfare is currently making its way through the UK parliament. If passed, non-human vertebrates would be recognized as sentient. But would this mean that animals have the same or similar rights to humans?
Bitching about it
Interview with Elena Diouf
Reappropriating stereotypes sends out a powerful message. And women of colour are putting themselves in a strong position, turning abusive rap into emancipation, overcoming issues of gender, class and race.
Unlike their nineteenth-century precursors, anti-European intellectuals in Russia today are neither engaged in dialogue with the West, nor do they realize that their ideas about European decline are themselves derivative.
Eurozine review
All hands on deck!
Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 125 (2021)
‘Revista Crítica’ takes an oceanic turn, with articles on the imaginations of Spanish emigrants, the role of the ocean in Ben Gurion’s socialist Zionism, and ‘borderscapes’ in films about migration in the Mediterranean.
Doing without
Wespennest 181 (2021)
‘Wespennest’ discusses something we have all got used to doing: ‘forgoing’ (‘Verzicht’). But the meaning of the word is slippery, if not downright inappropriate. Including reflections on pandemic, refugee experience and the economics of austerity.
Looking to Leningraz
Dialogi 10/2021
In ‘Dialogi’: why the communist victory in Graz points the way for urban politics; how participatory budgeting is catching on in Slovenia; and the question we should all be asking – is Netflix evil?
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.