Momentous news for Gaza: a ceasefire agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas. Palestinian war artists speak about their creative responses to documenting loss; their digital artwork reaching out beyond the confines of war, received by those who support their resilience.
Articles
While China moves into its fifth decade of extracting rare earths and raw materials, Europe remains stuck between nationalistic industry priorities and democratic principles.
Excitement over ‘rare’ elements
Julie Klinger in conversation with Misha Glenny
The race for green transition supplies is on. But where’s the thrill in metals, discreet and hidden yet widespread? Mining, intensive due to low concentrations, throws up waste elements like arsenic. Space cowboys and deep-sea dredgers contest environmental stability more than China’s monopoly, based on 40-years of involved processing. Health and recycling regulations are a must.
Plans to exploit Serbia’s lithium, seemingly shelved two years ago, are back on the table. Germany and the EU appear willing to overlook president Aleksandar Vučić’s abuses of power to access the precious metal. Will their double-standards collaboration with Serbia’s right-wing government undermine citizen trust in EU accession?
Recommended topics
Unmasking hate
21st century iterations of Antisemitism
Once again, the age-old prejudice is rising in Europe and producing new mutations. In this episode of Standard Time, we discuss how to tell criticism from hate.
The Danube Delta is a remarkable ecosystem on the border of Ukraine and Romania. The Russian invasion against Ukraine, and the subsequent increase in naval traffic threaten this nature reserve, but people on both sides of the border are working to protect the area.
Literary expressions of grief across the ages use representations of nature as soothing metaphors. But rarely does the death of non-human life merit a thanatography. Could literature that finds a non-anthropomorphic means to grieve for other sentiment beings provide our desperately needed resensitization to the natural world?
“Come Together” is founded on the principles of partnership and peer-to-peer learning among individuals within community media organizations situated in six different countries. Instead of generating entirely new knowledge, the initiative aims to unearth and leverage the existing wisdom residing within these organizations to foster innovative approaches.
Eurozine review
Dangerous dreams
New Humanist 139 (2024)
Problematic tech philosophies: How ‘effective altruism’ and ‘longtermism’ have permeated the highest echelons of academia and government; the ethical concerns surrounding brain-computer interfaces; and enduring obsessions with the blood transfusion.
Nationless identity
Glänta 2/2024
On the past, present and future of Kurdistan: rethinking power structures; statelessness in a world of states; and Kurdistan as a war laboratory.
Hidden groundbreakers
L'Homme 1/2024
Localized political shifts have shaped Ukrainian women’s rights over the centuries: the Russian Empire once afforded property rights for aristocratic women in the south; socially active daughters of Greek-Catholic priests founded Galician societies under Habsburg rule; and forced migrants today forge new academic paths.
Focal points
The European Parliament elections on 9 June are a referendum on EU policy since 2019. Will voters give Europe the green light for further progress, or pull the brakes? A new Eurozine series measures the political atmosphere in the EU and its neighbourhoods at this crucial moment.
Food and water systems under pressure: as the end of abundance becomes an everyday experience in Europe, we are thinking more closely about how our food reaches the table.
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
Some observers, recalling the disasters of the 1920s and 30s, are suggesting that an anti-democratic counterrevolution on a global scale has begun. But is the writing really on the wall? Or does declinism prevent us from recognizing moments of democratic renewal?
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.