In ‘Krytyka’ (Ukraine), Mykola Riabchuk explains why Kundera’s concept of Central Europe was about excluding anything east of Prague – and why recent developments have proven it redundant. Also: the literature of the Maidan and its folkloric origins; and Mykola Khvylovy’s Soviet orientalism.
In ‘New Humanist’ (UK): the colonial roots of Australian anti-environmentalism; the singularity myth and the limitations of the fascism debate; and where Christopher Hitchens’s disciples have ended up.
‘Czas Kultury’ looks at Poland’s constitutional crisis and anti-European drift: why liberals need to do more to communicate rule of law; how the politicization of the judiciary destabilizes society; and why democratic countries need creative challenge.
Russian journal ‘New Literary Observer’ focuses on the utopianism of the Soviet avantgarde: why ’20s architecture remained on paper; on urbanist versus de-urbanist futures; and how memorials constructed memory in real time.
Belgian journal ‘La Revue Nouvelle’ explains how we can learn from the idiot: on inefficiency as resistance to surveillance capitalism; cosplay’s seriously transgressive fun; and life hacks as a way to beat collective mind control.
Welsh journal O’r Pedwar Gwynt asks what the literature of independent Algeria reveals about cultural duality; how the Welsh experience of fragility is relevant to Europe; why women read real crime; and whether Jan Morris was best when writing about home.
Belarusian art mag ‘pARTisanka’ discusses the future of the country’s democracy movement. Including comparisons with Ukraine and the GDR, and the role of art during sustained political crisis.
Estonian mag ‘Vikerkaar’ considers the most extreme form of social distancing: solitude. Including articles on modernity and masturbation, solitary confinement in Estonian prisons, and a one-man newspaper.
Italian journal ‘Il Mulino’ turns to mountain matters: why a ‘metromont’ approach is better than green infrastructure; neo-ruralism and the limits of lifestyle politics; and the ecologically ‘delicate’ way to holiday.
‘Dutch Review of Books’ profiles Holland’s teflon PM, whose chances of re-election in March appear undamaged by the childcare benefits scandal that forced his resignation last month. Also: books on Suriname and the history of the Dutch slave trade.
In Swedish journal ‘Ord&Bild’, a literary reportage from the frontline of the gig economy; why the comparison with the AIDS pandemic is only apt to a degree; and a way out of the dead ends of left critique of work.
In Soundings, cultural historian Patrick Wright calls Brexit the conclusion of a forty-year culture war, beginning when the memory of WWII turned inwards; also, debate on the wisdom of left nationalism to win back the errant Labour voters in England’s ‘Red Wall’.
Flemish journal rekto:verso asks what pleasure is and can be in times of lockdown. Including bad jokes and political inertia; the corruption of the carnivalesque; and ‘Black joy’ vs. grim capitalism.
The Belgian journal Culture & Démocratie on notions of ‘home’: Anna Tsing questions perceptions of security after imperial extractivism; Toma Muteba Luntumbue considers the plurality of contemporary collective identity; and Hamedine Kane writes on exile.
La Revue nouvelle publishes a 75th-anniversary retrospective, reactivating the archive through commentaries. Including dialogues on sexual liberation, prisoners’ rights, postcolonial Africa, paraliteratures, theatre and screen, and scientists vs. the rest.
In Hungarian literary journal 2000: the central-eastern European comic tradition and the humourlessness of nation-builders; why intellectual housewives don’t post food-selfies; the aesthetics of video calls and the social psychology of isolation.