Articles

The revival of the parliamentary Left in France, Italy and Greece brings hope for an egalitarian turn in a European crisis management until now dominated by the precepts of austerity. Yet many citizens also fear that the zig zag course will nullify their previous sacrifices, warns Roland Benedikter.

The Greek media “failed completely” to predict the consequences of debt-fuelled reality loss, says journalist Stelios Kouloglou in interview with Intellectum editor Victor Tsilonis. The very sector whose job it was to burst the bubble played a major role in creating and preserving it, he argues.

With the growth of the financial sector, the creditor-debtor relationship has become the dominant force in society. Yet, as David Graeber has demonstrated, debt as an instrument of power has been around since time immemorial. Remi Nilsen draws conclusions for a post-crisis order.

From Scandinavian democracy to target of British anti-terror laws: the whole world knows about the Icelandic crash, but how did the country get itself into such a mess? Andri Snaer Magnason tells a saga of privatizations, overreaching and astronomical pay checks.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says “climate change sceptics” also enjoy the right to free speech yet advises the media to take more care in identifying the credentials of “experts”.

A new EU data regulation directive fails to relax unduly tight restrictions on collecting and distributing data, writes David Erdos. Despite exemptions for use of private data in journalistic, artistic and research contexts, freedom of expression is still downgraded in European legislation.

Literary and cultural magazines carry far fewer essays by women than by men. This has to do with the essay form itself as well as engrained male dominance in editorial processes, argues Lena Brandauer. Quotas for women in literary and cultural publishing are a feasible solution.

Thrift represented an underlying drive shaping cultural priorities of men and women of different social classes in Britain from 1600 onwards, writes Beverly Lemire. In the nineteenth century, profound economic and social changes gave rise to institutional innovations that intersected with long established strategies of housewifery.

Differences between the Czech and Slovak national cultures begin with language and range from newspaper circulation to attitudes to corruption. Yet they don’t justify seeing the Czecho-Slovak split as blueprint for dismantling the EU, writes Martin Simecka.

Responding to Tony Judt’s appeal to the lost values of social democracy, Michael Ignatieff makes a strong argument for solidarity amidst recession, at the same time developing a version of progressive politics that emphasizes equality of opportunity and individual empowerment over both corporate and state-sector self-privileging.

Earlier this year, Eurozine partner Dilema Veche was almost dragged down with the rest of a failing Romanian print sector. But thanks to original journalism, inventive strategy and an independent attitude, the journal looks like pulling through all the stronger, says editor Mircea Vasilescu.

Situationism’s journey from its Parisian origins into Anglo-Saxon culture has been littered with feuds, schisms and excommunications. Writer and conceptual artist Stewart Home recalls the history and politics of Situationism and its British pendant, psychogeography.

Eastern Europe as such was never “backward” and marginality is the least of the region’s problems, argues Daniel Chirot. While some countries have shaken off the “post-communist” tag, in others it remains apt; meanwhile, new disparities are generating a leftwing revival that show pronouncements of the end of ideology to have been rash.

The modern consciousness as crisis. This was Reinhart Koselleck’s premise in his famous study of the origins of critique in the Enlightenment and its role in the revolutionary developments of the late eighteenth century. A commentary on a work of historical hermeneutics whose relevance remains undiminished.

Why does Europe find it so difficult to remember the facts of migration, both voluntary and forced? Reluctance to address the more noxious aspects of collective European identity impedes an engagement with migration history, argues Claus Leggewie.

Croatian novelist Dejan Sorak’s latest protagonist, a Machiavellian secret policeman, serves to critique the political system and ideological matrixes, writes Gjorgje Bozhoviq.