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Articles published in Eurozine
Literary perspectives: Northern Ireland
Shaking the hand of history
While the Northern Irish literary tradition is closely bound up with the experience of sectarian violence, contemporary Northern Irish poets and prose writers defy the assumption that "the troubles" are all there is to the country's literature. [German version added] [more]
Beaches and graveyards
Europe's haunted borders
"It is more arduous to honour the memory of the nameless than the renowned." The epigram on Walter Benjamin's memorial in Portbou, Catalonia, leads Les Back to reflect on the fate of the African migrants found dead on the coasts of Spain today. [German version added] [more]
What makes a biopolitical space?
A discussion with Toni Negri
"Soft" forms of activism that create urban collectivities on micro, neighbourhood levels only go so far, says Negri, who favours rupture and revolution over accumulation and gradual change. [German and Norwegian versions added] [more]
Literary perspectives: Estonia
Waiting for the Great Estonian Novel
While the Great Estonian Novel has yet to be written, the range of fiction in Estonia is sufficiently wide to serve as an indicator of the post-communist country's hopes and fears, anxieties and obsessions. [German and Lithuanian versions added] [more]
The re-transnationalization of literary criticism
Critical discussion of foreign literature serves as a source of information not only for readers but also for the "trade". When that discussion disappears or becomes one-sided, this has consequences for the literary institution as a whole. [French version added] [more]
Capital climes
Today, an Indian child consumes one ninetieth of the energy of her American counterpart. Such comparisons discredit the consensus that it is simply the mass activity of "man" which is responsible for global warming. [German version added] [more]
Sarajevo retro, or The Orient in the Occident
Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, or "Turks" are, despite their European origins, considered "foreign": how else can their demonization during the last war be explained? [Hungarian version added] [more]
On the privileges of the literary critic
Literary lunches aside, what are the critic's privileges? According to Jörg Magenau, it's all about accumulating others' experiences, about "being in the world", about avoiding the media's barrage of facts. And about having lots of books... [more]
The abolition of poverty
Report from Bombay
Whoever serves in Bombay's city administration and uses the word "slum" simultaneously means "encroachment". The laager mentality of Bombay's rich has led to a social apartheid where slums are cleared to make way -- quite literally -- for golf courses. [Hungarian version added] [more]
The Danube and the centre of the continent
Decoding the modern history of the Danube -- from nineteenth-century nationalism, through communism, to post-communism -- and how writers from Grillparzer to Handke have explored a "Danube identity". [more]
Against love
Seeking the literary traces of the Natascha Kampusch affair
"The birth of love out of the spirit of totalitarianism expressed itself in exemplary manner in the Kampusch abduction story. A person is shut in, all the others shut out -- that is the ideological core of romantic love." [more]
Phobocity
London and the War on Terror
In London post-7/7, the wail of police sirens has become the soundtrack of the "phobocity". But the phobocity is not created by the suicide bombers alone -- politicians and journalists also trade on fear. [more]
The Polish plumber and the image game
The Polish plumber is a cliché throughout Europe, which even the Polish tourist board has made use of. However, in the UK the joke veils a growing resentment towards workers from the new EU states. [more]
Simulated cities, sedated living
The shopping mall as paradigmatic site of lifestyle capitalism
If the imperative of consumer capitalism is "lead us into temptation", then the shopping mall is its cathedral. Increasingly, city centres -- or "brand zones" -- are adopting the mall aesthetic. [Lithuanian version added] [more]
On the Indian view of things
Adolf Holl in conversation with Sudhir Kakar
Indian pyschoanalyst and author Sudhir Kakar talks about the fluid ego, the female principle in religion, and globalization and religious fundamentalism in India today. [Hungarian version added] [more]
Genuine versus clever
Migration and conservatism in Europe
In the run-up to elections in Austria, xenophobic sloganeering by the far-right is tolerated by centrist parties afraid to turn off floating voters. "In Austria, the rightwing margins occupy the centre far too often," writes Andreas Fanizadeh. [more]
Freedom of expression and its limits
The principle of absolute freedom of expression is always qualified by tacit agreements within societies on what can and cannot be said. [more]
The old "new clothes" of the French Republic
In defence of the "insignificant" rioters
It is possible that the "apolitical" youths of the banlieue have done more to set things in motion in France than thirty years of political posturing, says the director of French journal Multitudes. [more]
The social is not abstract
Josef Schützenhöfer's "Social Painting" and the provocation of the figurative
Residual authoritarianism and social inequality are both a target and a spur in the paintings of Josef Schützenhöfer. Drawing on (art) history and contemporary imagery, they articulate an original realist aesthetic. [more]
"From the standpoint of the many"
Brecht, the commune, and the multitude
Fifty years after the death of Bertolt Brecht, his play about the Paris Commune can be read as a parable about the "multitude". Jost Müller points to the topicality of an author whose theatre theory and practice have been proclaimed dead many times during the last thirty years. [more]
Welcome to the desert of the Real, part II
As natural and human disasters continue to jeopardize the cohesion of societies around the world, arguments challenging assumptions about "civilization" are as important as they are uncomfortable. [more]
Commission for European Standards: Literary
(Draft 1)
The novel is set to become the latest target of European bureaucracy, a leaked document reveals. [more]
"Europe" as that-which-is-not-yet
"If we understand the possible Europe as a mode of the real being of today's Europe, the question remains why one possibility becomes real and not others. Why do we have this Europe and not another?" [more]
Rainbow puddles on Park Lane
Following the trail of oil that runs through London's streets
From public transport to the Premier League, oil has left an indelible mark on the British capital. Written three months before the London bombings, this article is eerily premonitory. [more]
The Yukos affair
The Kremlin's renationalization of the Russian oil industry following the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky does not augur well for western Europe. [more]
Time out of joint
Western dominance, Islamist terror, and the Arab imagination
Sadik J. Al-Azm's views on September 11 and the "clash" between East and West. There's more to it than just religion and spiritual values. [more]
Energizing the European public space
There is only one path open to meeting the challenge posed by a heterogeneous collective of nationally oriented viewers, listeners, and readers: a European public space spearheaded by already established national media. [more]
"Death to the Enemies of the Revolution"
Death and the Left
Religion knows something about death. Is this true also of the so-called "political religions"? What type of relationship does the political Left have to death? [more]
Invisible memorials
How does a city like Vienna commemorate Austria's national-socialist past? [more]
Literature in court: censorship in Germany
Is the dignity of the individual a more precious good than the general public's interest and the freedom of art? [more]
The rich, the beggar, and the poor
A balkan spaghetti-western
Nikola Mazdirov on the Balkan people torn between the temptations of the West and the reality of Balkan life. [more]
The leisure class and I
On the timeliness of Thorstein Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class". [more]
We are doing well
Europe's influence on my writing
What does Europe look like in the view of a leftist author, son of communist parents and victims of the Holocaust? [more]
Treachery, lies, and happiness
On psychology and metaphysics of the seducer
What is the nature of seduction? Is the seducer only doing harm and what does he or she really want? [more]
Horses in Trash Paradise
National assembly and americanisation
Peter Pilz with a harsh critique on Austrian parlamentarianism and politics. [more]
The story behind the story or: My dearest enemies - the Americans
Jan Koneffke on his personal ambivalence towards Americans. [more]
How do I construct my own enemy?
Small DIY-manual according to latest real-life experiences
Baier traces the American war-rhetoric against Iraq and lays bare how enemies are constructed. [more]
The magician as a model
Are Italians dreamers and big-mouths - thus fascinated by their prime minister Silvio Berlusconi? Jan Konfeffke reflects upon these questions. [more]
North-American Eastern Bloc
Why does the mayor of Montréal want to call a Christmas tree a "festivity tree"? Lothar Baier discovers a contemporary parallel of the language regulations applied in GDR. [more]
European Forms of Belonging: A View from Slovenia
As Slovenia is emerging from its first decade of independence, Debeljak debates what kind of role the new European member should play within the EU. [more]
Mandela: Humanitarian Hero
Nelson Mandela has been one of the few contemporary heroes whose reputation and idolized status has always remained intact. Jyoti Mistry asks why. [more]
Heroes, leaders, demagogues
Our personal heroes and why we can not live without them. [more]
New anti-Semitism and old delusions
Is the new wave of anti-Semitism in Europe a serious threat or largely unfounded hysteria? [more]
Unspeakable Sept 11
Taboos and Clichés
After September 11, the weight of public opinion kept different, not just dissenting, ideas at bay. The authors document here possible interpretations of what happened which never got a public hearing. [more]
Americans at millennium's end
How We Learned to Love the Media and Forget Who We Are
.. [more]
Antisemitismus im Gepäck
Der Antisemitismus kehrt in West- und Osteuropa in unterschiedlichen Formen zurück. Wie es dazu kommen konnte und worin die Unterschiede zwischen Ost und West bestehen, untersucht György Dalos in diesem Artikel. [more]
Poesie ist Sprache zum Quadrat
Erich Klein und Uldis Tirons im Gespräch mit Tomas Venclova
Der litauische Dichter Tomas Venclova über sein Land, Kriege, Ödipus und die Poesie. [more]