Eurozine Review

Positionen asks whether contemporary music is liberated or reshaped by the media environment. Including articles on AI and composition and ‘schweigen’/silence as performance.

Developments in the US and the UK provide ample evidence for those who think that democracy is under attack from within. But are they themselves the anti-democrats? According to Philip Manow in the March issue of ‘Merkur’, it’s all relative.

‘Esprit’ explores contradictions between the ecological imperative and dominant economic logic. Including articles on the false expectations of the European Green Deal; green business and consumer passivity; and why technical innovation is not enough.

‘Osteuropa’ focuses on politics in Poland, where the subordination of the judiciary enters its final stages. Also: tributes to the life and work of György Konrád (1933-2019).

‘Letras Libres’ focuses on constitutional crisis in Spain and globally, including articles on the impacts of EU membership on the Spanish state; regional autonomy and polarization; and Catholicism as state religion.

‘Varlık’ devotes its March issue to the work of Nezihe Meriç (1925–2009), a pioneer of feminist literature in Turkey whose short stories and novels offer intimate portraits of the lives of women in the early years of the Republic.

What is rubbish and when does something become it? Slovenian journal ‘Razpotja’ devotes its tenth anniversary issue to the philosophy and economics of trash.

NAQD on the crisis of public sector journalism in Algeria: how disinformation and propaganda perpetuates the current system. Also: why reliance on advertising threatens public broadcasting, and the arrested development of print media.

Il Mulino sees populism not as cause but consequence of the decline of representative democracy. Also, on reversing the neoliberal split between capitalism and democracy, and what the Pope means when he speaks of the people.

New Humanist explores ‘more rational ways of thinking and talking about environmental disaster’, with articles on climate change and culture wars and the case for a Green New Deal. Also, the info-graphics of W. E. B. Du Bois, Christian pop and more.

In Soundings: why the Johnson government marks the beginning of a peculiarly English form of populism. Also, the first in a new series on ‘other Europe’; the chances of the radical left in the EU; what social critique can learn from neurobiology; on the political possibilities of song; ‘queer comrades’ and much more.

The history journal remembers bitter fights over Belarusian territories after WWI and recalls the ambiguous legacy of a nationalist icon. Also, German propaganda and psychological warfare in Belarus between 1941 and 1944.

Political polarization, populism, conflicting narratives, economic and generational changes: New Eastern Europe assesses the challenges of the new decade from the perspective of the West’s relations with Russia.

Belgian journal Culture & Démocratie devotes a special issue to the theme of the camp and its broad range of meanings, including refugee camps, detention centres and concentration camps.

Esprit asks how the idea of universalism fares in a globalized society attuned to difference, diversity and inequality.

Peter Handke’s new novella ‘The Second Sword’ has just been published and his play ‘Zdeněk Adamec’ will open the Salzburger Festspiele in July. The Czech literary monthly reviews last year’s controversy and lets posterity be the judge of Handke’s work.