George Orwell is often credited with elevating political writing to an art. However, writes Enda O’Doherty, it might be useful to separate out the terms “political” and “writing”. For while his writing is undoubtedly of the highest order, the quality of his political judgment remains questionable.
Today, knowledge, aesthetics and politics are produced and consumed in cultural shopping malls in as generic forms as possible, writes Swedish theatre director Anders Paulin. High time, therefore, to rethink and reclaim the institution as a necessary mediator between society and its citizens.
Siberian neo-regionalism has recently gained momentum, writes Stanislav Zakharkin; a development fuelled not least by widespread concern about the uneven distribution of revenues from the region’s oil and mineral resources. But is this diverse grassroots movement capable of effecting real change?
The situation for women in societies caught up in the post-’89 transition is complicated, writes Slavenka Drakulic. On the one hand, they now stand to lose rights that were, at least formally, established during the communist regime. On the other, women’s position in society has been undermined everywhere in Europe – in East and West alike. The financial crisis has struck hard, and women have been struck harder.
In western societies, the intellectual focus in the museum world has shifted towards another kind of institution, writes Artur Klinau. Those old imperial monsters, once the basis for the model museum, have become a museum-disneyland for millions of tourists. High time that Minsk followed suit.
In the Middle East, the God question is far more than a matter for intellectual debate; apostasy is punishable by death in six Arab countries. And yet, writes Brian Whitaker, there is a perception that Arab atheists are becoming more numerous; and more visible too, thanks largely to social media.
The right to criticize religious tenets held by a minority has again been aggressively challenged in public debate, following the attack on “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris. Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt take issue with the argument that free speech is meant to be used against “those in power”, not against minorities.
Anyone trespassing on any kind of sacred territory in Russia today must reckon with “millions of believers” taking offence and earnest calls to protect “traditional values”. This, writes Dmitry Uzlaner, is the stuff of political fetishism. And the stronger the fetish, the weaker the responsible citizen.
The global debate on how to handle sovereign debt shows that predatory behaviour has become an issue for countries around the world. And in the acute situation in Argentina, writes Martin Schürz, there should be no illusions as to where economic power actually lies.
The European Union is willing to use costly police and military operations to suppress refugee mobility, write Mariagiulia Giuffré and Cathryn Costello. Which, in short, means responding to those fleeing war, repression and human rights abuses with more of the same. So what are the alternatives?
Claiming free speech as a “Republican”, “French” or “western” value by conjuring a mythical pantheon of canonical Enlightenment figures will not help us build more inclusive societies. So says Arthur Asseraf, in reconsidering France’s track record as a beacon of press freedom.
At 11:30 pm on Friday 27 February 2015, Boris Nemtsov, an outspoken Russian opposition leader, was shot in the back. The assassin fired off six shots; four of the bullets struck Nemtsov, one in the heart. He died instantly. The only explanation not being given in Moscow for Nemtsov’s assassination is the blindingly obvious one: that Nemtsov was murdered for his opposition activities and, specifically, for his very public criticism of Vladimir Putin’s secret war in Ukraine.
In the wake of the technological revolution that is the Internet, writes Ilija Trojanow, principles of self-organization and collaboration might be expected to replace established hierarchies and concentrations of power. Instead, the technologies of surveillance now available to states have never been more intrusive.
As Russia revives the tradition of wars of aggression on European territory, Vladimir Putin has chosen to rehabilitate the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as good foreign policy. But why violate now what was for so long a Soviet taboo? Timothy Snyder explains.
Seventy years after the end of World War II, writes Tatiana Zhurzhenko, the fight for hegemony in Europe continues – disguised as a conflict of historical master narratives. The beginning of the current round of memory wars in the post-Soviet space can be dated back to 2005, when the sixtieth anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany turned into a loyalty test for the politicians of neighbouring countries.
In a world where the natural and the unnatural emerge as shifting configurations of matter and meaning, cultural theory can and should expand its frame of reference beyond what the “natural sciences” have left over, to embrace the spectrum of phenomena in which culture is cultivated.