Eurozine Review

Dialogi analyses superhero narratives East and West: from Slovene romanticism to post-communist spoof and the neo-con blockbuster.

Revista Critíca looks at imprisonment from the position of the incarcerated. How do inmates in different countries and prison systems ‘articulate themselves, in the widest sense of the word – expressively, corporeally, physically and relationally – in conditions of social death?’

The cover of the Samtiden shows a heavy steel door and the words ‘Does prison work?’ The contributors – jurists, philosophers and social scientists – generally answer that question in the negative. Asked to define which single change to the current system they would prioritize, most favour gentler punishments with emphasis on rehabilitation in a humane setting. Not for sex crimes though.

‘What kind of music would Beethoven have composed had his hearing stayed normal throughout his life? It is an impossible but thought-provoking question. The only certainty is that it would have been another, a different kind.’ Syn og Segn focuses on musical expression and its capacity for articulating emotion.

Sweden’s Ministry of Culture recently decided to decentralize arts policy in order to ‘democratize support for the arts’. What on the face of it may seem a positive move has produced mixed results – not least because the far-right Sweden Democrats have gained control of several local and regional authorities. ‘Ord&Bild’ features ‘Culture workers against Fascism’.

Index on Censorship looks at machismo as a political category. Resisting the suffocation of dissent in the era of the internet means standing up ‘for the principles of freedom and democracy all the time, not just when they affect you’, comments editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley.

Slovak journal Kritika & Kontext reflects on present-day discontents and the anti-war poetry of Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav.

In Flemish journal rekto:verso: post-digitality and the new normal, invisible labour and the internet; gaming as public sphere; and the radical self-absorption of Instapoets.

In Welsh journal O’r Pedwar Gwynt: Iris Murdoch in Russia, the lessons of J.M. Coetzee, narcissism and politics, and stories from both sides of the Berlin Wall.

We recently welcomed the German magazine of contemporary music in the Eurozine network. Their latest issue offers a collection of essays, reportages and interviews on the topic of musica sanae – healing through music.

For some on the Left, Habermas’s concept of discursive democracy is a liberal project without critical potential. In ‘Leviathan’, Martin Saar defends a theoretical ‘style’ defined by openness and ambiguity. Also: towards a politics of human rights and a call for parliamentary gender quotas.

Just because there’s fake news doesn’t mean there’s never been political deception, and just because lying is universal doesn’t mean it’s not worth sociologists’ time. Contributions to the new issue of Mittelweg 36 look at examples including the ‘voluntary helper’, confidence tricksters and polygraph tests.

New Humanist’s winter issue, the last under the helm of editor Daniel Trilling, asks how we can improve not only the topics we discuss, but also how we discuss them.

New Eastern Europe asks whether new faces in politics in Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia mean real change: ‘Is this part of a wider trend that indicates deeper social transformation’, ask the editors, ‘or is it more of the same, with just an upgraded, modern look?’

‘Ord&Bild’ has compiled an issue on the letter as literary genre, presenting and experimenting with the many forms that letters and personal messages can take today: emails, text messages, social media posts, not to mention that allegedly endangered species, the handwritten letter.

‘Fifty years is a long time – a financial institution this old would probably be called “systemically relevant”.’ The Austrian journal turns fifty and dedicates its anniversary issue to the essay genre – past, present and future.