New knowledge about the neurological effects of music coincides with revived musicological interest in the body. Does this mark a return to the Enlightenment view of music as a matter of the nervous system? A survey of modern musical aesthetics through the lens of medical history.
The cover of the Samtiden shows a heavy steel door and the words ‘Does prison work?’ The contributors – jurists, philosophers and social scientists – generally answer that question in the negative. Asked to define which single change to the current system they would prioritize, most favour gentler punishments with emphasis on rehabilitation in a humane setting. Not for sex crimes though.
Media acceleration puts enormous emphasis on speed, creating a pressure on politics that the elaborate procedures of cross-party cooperation cannot withstand. Modelled after Roman democracy, modern liberal democracies may as well have an expiration date, George Blecher argues.
The classic liberal distinction between war and peace has expired. Markets have learnt the lesson that gut reactions matter, but political institutions of liberal democracy are still lagging behind. What we need is a politics of empathy, William Davies argues.
The Orbán regime’s ‘war on gender’ and scapegoating of scholarly dissent rely on long-lasting popular animosity toward independent intellectuals. Unfortunate patters of academic withdrawal, dating back to state socialist times, make it even harder to resist populist pressure.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline based a literary reputation on transgression. He was a prototypical troll, contemptuous of the truth, indefatigable in saying the unsayable, and couching his hatred in irony. And like trolls, he poses a dilemma: engage or ignore?
Rightwing literature reappeared in Poland after 1989, having been absent from cultural life during communism. Since 2010, political polarization has caused its significance and visibility to increase. But what defines rightwing literature in Poland? A typology of its motifs and genres, from anti-communism to anti-modernism, historical revisionism to sci-fi.
Can we rethink bots and algorithms so that they become tools that work for us, instead of an invisible, oppressive system that tries to deceive us? How can we redesign the ‘social’ in a way that doesn’t allow trolls to permanently disrupt our thinking and behaviour?
As a prominent ideological apparatus of American popular culture, it’s hard not to be influenced by superhero movies. Dialogi’ looks at their ideological underpinnings and their portrayal of ‘the struggle for absolute good’.
The cover of the Samtiden shows a heavy steel door and the words ‘Does prison work?’ The contributors – jurists, philosophers and social scientists – generally answer that question in the negative. Asked to define which single change to the current system they would prioritize, most favour gentler punishments with emphasis on rehabilitation in a humane setting. Not for sex crimes though.
Revista Critíca looks at imprisonment from the position of the incarcerated. How do inmates in different countries and prison systems ‘articulate themselves, in the widest sense of the word – expressively, corporeally, physically and relationally – in conditions of social death?’
The focal point presents the findings of the project ‘Eurasia in Global Dialogue’ being carried out at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM). It is edited by Clemena Antonova at the 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 and was edited by Tatiana Zhurzhenko. Further texts have been contributed by journals in the Eurozine network.
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.
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 the division. Today, the hopes and ambitions of those heady days can be viewed as unrealistic at best. But is talk of a new East–West divide justified? A new Eurozine focal point asks what happened to ’89 in the intervening years.
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.
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.
