Articles

From sparkly consensual group hugs to dating apps to incels: the Valentine’s Day episode of Standard Time addresses how love changes people, and how people change love.

Despite Lithuania’s Europeanism, its policies on LGBTQ rights are sometimes closer to Russia’s. At the end of 2023, the Lithuanian parliament voted against amending the country’s notorious ‘gay propaganda’ law, in defiance of the European Court of Human Rights.

From migration to foreign policy, Europe has undergone an identitarian shift. Both far-right politicians and pro-European voices are framing external influences as civilizational threats, reviving the link between Europe and whiteness.

Disability has always been part of the human condition; inclusion and accessibility are not favours to extend, but measures that would benefit everybody. Europe’s regulations are quite good, but practice often lags behind. On this episode of Standard Time, we discuss access, accommodation and attitudes.

In memory of Nada Ler Sofronić, the feminist voice pivotal in supporting a unified vision of Bosnia-Herzegovina, drawing on valuable experiences as an intellectual, whose engagement was with the whole of Yugoslavia and beyond.

Socialist reform and modernization in post-WWII Poland opened the higher-education gate to underprivileged students. But early streaming to vocational school and societal expectations remained as barriers. What became of the working-class freshers who made it to the lofty heights of academia?

The ongoing repression of Belarusian society now extends to the banning of literary works by Belarusian writers seen as seditious. The reason can only be that they offer the regime its true reflection, writes one of the country’s leading poets.

When content is freely available in droves, paying for journalism almost seems like a scam. Can journalists media outlets keep up with the changing landscape of information? Find out on this episode of Standard Time.

Economic and political transformation post-1989 exposed state-planned technological production in the former GDR to global markets. Uncompetitive operations soon led to closures and mass unemployment. But some workers, taking the crisis into their own hands, regrouped to found innovative tech companies.

Russia’s passivity towards Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh marks a shift of power in the region with potentially wider consequences. It would not be the first time that the Kremlin’s fortunes have been decided in the South Caucasus.

The euphoria of anti-fascists from WWII-occupied countries, meeting at international events, was a short-lived reprieve from oppression. Hungarian socialist groups, bringing women from all social classes together, went from publishing starstruck articles to testifying in Stalinist show trials, their solidarity forced into betrayal.

European cities are a hotbed of real estate speculation and affordable housing is growing out of reach. Millennials and younger will not only not own homes, but are also losing their grip on renting. The new episode of Standard Time delves into the housing crisis.

Syria, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh and now Gaza: connecting all recent wars is disregard for national sovereignty as recognised by international law. Confident of impunity, anti-democratic regimes cite sovereign interests as justification for their politics of annihilation.

Water use has always been an indicator of social relations. In western societies, most treat drinking water as a simultaneously infinite and hyper-individualised resource. But plastic pollution and the climate emergency are forcing us to question our consumption habits.

There are times when reacting on instinct surpasses consciously weighing up decisions. But what lies behind precognition? Tracing gut feelings back along their evolutionary path leads to C. elegans. What might the inconspicuous worm, with its belly full of serotonin, help illuminate about scientific scepticism, ‘happy pills’ and experienced intuition?

Time – we’re all running out of it. Most of Europe’s time zones are still tuned to Hitler’s clock and it stumbles circadian rythyms. Time is a very judgmental area already, even before throwing policies into the mix.