Postmodern ideas have gained the status of absolute truths. Relativism, selectively appropriated into the language of both left and right politics, has metamorphosed into dogma. As oversimplification distorts communication, public trust in scientific fact has eroded. Could renewed ideas of objectivity be a way out?
War memorials and faded names on plaques have lost their power to remind us of battlefield realities in the past. We need new ways to make us remember, force us to think.
While Zelensky calls for Ukrainian civilians to flee eastern Donetsk, under ongoing attack from Russia’s military, Putin maintains that his forces are liberating the region. Propaganda that turns conflict into salvation denies the evidence of war crimes on frontlines. But what lies behind this denial? And how can it be overcome?
Who can focus on interior design after the massacres of Mariupol, Borodyanka and Bucha? Ukrainian women tell how their relationships with self-care, beauty and consumerism were changed by the war.
An agreement brokered between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN permits cargo ships to transport grain from Black Sea ports again. But assurance of mine-free safe passage is a way off. And behind the negotiations are manoeuvres that reflect long-term political, economic and societal implications.
After being expelled from the USA for her affiliation to the Communist Party, Trinidad-born Claudia Jones became a key figure in the movement for racial justice in Britain. Known as the ‘mother of carnival’, rarely are the various strands of Jones’ life as a journalist, activist and poet pictured together.
Millions of internal migrants were sent back to their homes across India since the first coronavirus lockdowns. By the time restrictions lifted, many women had already lost work, and faced compounding layers of inequality.
Putin’s Ukraine war is drawing a curtain on ‘Pax Rossica’, the notion that Russia can dominate the post-Soviet Eurasian landmass. The Kremlin’s strategy has changed since it failed to gain immediate control of Kyiv. What can be expected from this sideways manoeuvre towards a hyper-aggressive Russian state?
Sharing dinner with her persecutor: How one grandmother’s story testifies to the unexpected horror of forced migration and genocide. From the 19th century and WWII to today’s annexation, Crimean Tatars have faced a long history of oppression but continue to speak out against Russian colonization.
It’s easy to get exhausted soon after startling news breaks. But dealing with a limited attention span is only one side of the tiredness that war brings. How can we as audiences be reawakened from our media stupor? This personal Ukrainian account reaches out, taking on the challenge.
Eurozine welcomes its newest partner, Gwara Media, to the network with an article written on residency by the Ukrainian organisation’s editor-in-chief. Is media fatigue an inevitable fallout of war? Or can new angles be found that still reach tired audiences? What can history and reflection teach us about war reporting?
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?
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?
War becomes the twin of communication: the development of media has not only changed how warfare is reported, but also how it’s fought. The working rule of the warriors is to spread strategic information and disinformation at every instant. And media workers are culpable too, for abusing the genre of breaking news reporting to magnetise audiences and advertisers, doing it at a great symbolic cost.