Articles

James Baldwin has become the most cited literary figure in the Black Lives Matter movement. But his writing was never political in the narrow sense. So what makes Baldwin relevant today? On complex answers to a simple question.

Thirty years ago, feminist comics declared war on the gender order. Combining satirical storytelling with visions of carnivalesque subversion, this undervalued artistic discipline transgresses both bodily and aesthetic norms.

Europe has never been a place for racial or environmental purity. Situated at a crossroads of the world, it has always been characterized by change and hybridisation. Palaeontologist Tim Flannery calls for reinventing the commons and bringing elephants back to Europe.

Italy’s enthusiasm for Chinese investment has recently cooled, as transatlanticism, security risks and domestic resentment become decisive factors. The Italian change of heart is shared by the EU, which is finally developing a coordinated and values-based response to Chinese economic activity in the bloc.

How is the lexicon of war chosen? And can the target of this speech, the perpetual ‘other’ use those very words to their own emancipation?

Whether to protect women or to enforce public morality, criminalization of sex work won’t make it go away. Online platforms for advertising sexual services are indeed exploitative, but they also offer sex workers safety and independence.

Istanbul’s water reserves are drying up: increasingly severe droughts, intense urban development and the growing population all have their impact. With no miracle cure in sight, environmental science looks for proven ways to reduce water loss in times of scarcity.

In the 1990s Britain was under Thatcherite continuity rule. But radio waves were appearing that carried fragments of the future: weekend broadcasts of a new kind of music – Jungle – were being illegally beamed across the city from improvised studios in empty flats, via aerials on tower block rooftops.

The myth of European exceptionalism no longer holds: the continent’s boundaries are arbitrary, its heritage mixed and controversial, and unfit for a unified identity to hold it together. If we give up the commonplaces that have proven insufficient, what can then define and unify this peninsula of peninsulas? True democratic dissent, Ferenc Laczó argues.

The covid crisis has hit Turkey hard and made its mark on the government’s approval ratings. The country already has the highest number of police officers per capita in Europe and the regime is clamping down on dissent with increasing force – be it Pride marches or women’s protests for the Istanbul Convention.

After lengthy COVID-19 restrictions, economic recovery is at the top of many political agendas. The EU’s comeback strategy – a €750 billion grant and loan repayment scheme – heralds an anti-austerity, environmentally friendly vision. But how realistic is reform when employment legislation still tows a market-driven line? And what lasting ecological provisions can be made from such a rapid, goal-focused turnaround?

To describe Afghanistan as a ‘humiliation’ for the US and its allies misses the point. If at all, it is a humiliation for a generation of politicians who viewed foreign policy as grand strategy conducted over the head of electorates.

The polemic intention of the ‘German catechism’ argument – that Holocaust memory serves a quasi-theological function and is therefore policed – has distracted from the empirical claims on which it rests. So how strong is the evidence of continuity between the colonial and the Nazi genocides? And does a direct connection need to be established in order to justify reconsideration of the ‘singularity theory’?

Comparisons to the evacuation of Saigon fail to account for the speed and scale of the Afghanistan collapse and the shock it has caused the US public. However, the post-war history of the Vietnam war may point to how the Afghan refugee issue offers the US a chance to redeem itself, and how, despite persistent hostilities, diplomatic relations could normalize.

Read me: words can change the relationship between lived reality and idealistic dreams, as writers from Gorgias and Plato to Cervantes and Flaubert – whether they embraced or feared literary seduction – testify.

Under Soviet rule, Ukrainian national consciousness remained dormant and independence an unspeakable taboo. When the desire for freedom erupted, it expanded far beyond the marked route of perestroika. On the 30th anniversary of Ukrainian sovereignty, Mykola Riabchuk recounts a personal history of how independence was conceived, formed and defended.