Franco Moretti’s seminal collection ‘Distant Reading’ set out his famous quantitative approach to literary criticism and was a key contribution to the emergent field of digital humanities. Moretti’s interest in the ‘big questions’ of literary evolution, literary form and narrative universals was shared and significantly influenced by early twentieth-century Russian Formalism, writes Jessica Merrill.
Essays | Eurozine
30 April 2018
Czech/o/Slovak democracy: 30 years in the making
Six months after the election, the Czech Republic is still without a confirmed prime minister. And more than two months after the murder of a journalist and his partner in Slovakia, there is no reported progress in the investigation – but politics there remains in turmoil. Zuzana Hudáková surveys the scene.
27 April 2018
Projecting Poland and its past
Poland is at the centre of the debate on memory politics in Europe. Plans for a museum to commemorate the ‘Polocaust’ are the next part of Poland’s history project – but have prompted outrage in Israel. Konstanty Gebert reports on what it all means.
‘Post-truth’ is a concept that has been much discussed in recent years. But what is it like to experience its effects for real? Mykola Balaban, a history student and soldier, describes how it feels to be attacked with ‘non-existent’ rockets, and how one can come to doubt even one’s own empirical experiences.
20 April 2018
Agent Sabina: On the abjection of Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva’s recently released secret service files reveal a similar persona to that which comes through her writing: unruly, witty, courageous. And yet Kristeva is denying the allegations. Is it something other than the truth that she fears?
Informal construction in Yugoslavia started as a response to housing shortages but after 1990 turned into a way to make money. To see Belgrade’s semi-legal architecture as proof that urbanization can be democratized is to overlook market forces, writes Dubravka Sekulić.
Ukrainian officials are trying to attract European investors to their country by stressing its low cost base and well-qualified workers. But as Artem Gergun notes, millions of Ukrainian citizens have grasped that these advantages are portable – and, rather than waiting for Europe to come them, are heading there for themselves.
Viktor Orbán has won a third successive landslide victory in Hungary. A refashioned electoral system helped him return to power, but a fragmented and incompetent opposition has paved his way for over eight years now, argues Réka Kinga Papp.
Social cuts and a nationalist reorientation of cultural policy have been the major trademarks of Austria’s new right-leaning government in its first 100 days. Despite the demonstrative show of unity, cracks in the coalition are already showing, reports Raphaela Tiefenbacher.
