Esprit focuses on China: Xi’s rhetoric of struggle; why the CCP passes the test of totalitarianism; how ideology is exacerbating the slowdown; and what’s at stake in Taiwan. Also: Meloni and the politics of clownism.
How culture in the UK has become the soft target for an improvised neo-Thatcherism; why the Left makes a mistake to denigrate cultural politics; how to understand the far-right’s online power-base; and why the BBC prefers to manufacture dissensus.
‘springerin’ on how the art world is coping with downgrading in a climate where ‘bigger is better’, re-engaging with the material world and dealing with the ‘big boys and their extractivist toys’.
In ‘Merkur’: why Günter Wallraff’s 1985 bestseller ‘The Lowest of the Low’ appears scandalous by the standards of today’s racial justice discourse – but remains absolutely worth reading for its searing analysis of the exploitation of labour in wealthy democracies.
In ‘New Eastern Europe’: why the West should not be fooled by Russia’s Cold War revivalism; whether Ukraine can turn the tables; and where now after the ruins of Ostpolitik?
‘Akadeemia’ applies Lotmanian semiotics to today’s societal concerns. Including a holistic view of digital fragmentation, integrating ecology into the cultural sphere and creatively rethinking educational practices.
In Swedish journal Ord&Bild: the semantics of the gig; joy and violence in Belarus; remembering the squatter movement; and the invisible labour of the GM chicken.
‘Revista Crítica’ takes an oceanic turn, with articles on the imaginations of Spanish emigrants, the role of the ocean in Ben Gurion’s socialist Zionism, and ‘borderscapes’ in films about migration in the Mediterranean.
‘Wespennest’ discusses something we have all got used to doing: ‘forgoing’ (‘Verzicht’). But the meaning of the word is slippery, if not downright inappropriate. Including reflections on pandemic, refugee experience and the economics of austerity.
In ‘Dialogi’: why the communist victory in Graz points the way for urban politics; how participatory budgeting is catching on in Slovenia; and the question we should all be asking – is Netflix evil?
‘springerin’ questions the concept of subpoenaed witness in western thought. Featuring an interview with philosopher Sibylle Schmidt on the worth of artistic testimony.
‘Mittelweg 36’ returns to the Wehrmacht exhibitions twenty years on: including the political and historiographic controversies surrounding the exhibitions and their impact on German public debate; also, how they realigned politics and mobilized both far-right and far-left.
Climate change, COVID-19, social injustice: ‘Esprit’ explores how current notions of crisis affect our relationship with time and our (in)ability to change our circumstances. Also: the revolutionary origins of ‘la question Woke’.
‘L’Homme’ explores the mutable subjectivities that shape female gender norms and roles: including patriarchy and labour in India; sexualized shame in the Turkish workplace; and pseudo-progressivism in late Soviet film.
‘Czas Kultury’ remembers Serbian protest-rockers Rimtutituki, the anti-militarist supergroup banned by Milosević. Also: offensive French writing – why aversion excludes.
In a technology-themed issue of ‘Vikerkaar’: why the future of mobility is public and integrated; why climate change is a boon for biotech; and why cheap energy is not green energy.