Articles

Olivier Corpet was present at the European meetings of cultural journals from the very start. Writing in 1986, the founding editor of “La Revue des Revues” reported on a movement that was steadily gaining momentum.

For Walter Famler, editor of the Viennese journal “Wespennest”, the European Meetings of Cultural Journals have been an inducement to carry on in the journals business – and an opportunity to pursue a variety of less official interests.

Eurozine has expanded the scope for bringing together intellectuals from eastern and western Europe – a concern as relevant today as it was directly after 1989, writes Transit managing editor Klaus Nellen.

Johan Öberg, former editor of Swedish journal “Ord&Bild” and organizer of the Gothenburg meeting in 1992, recalls the network’s successes and failures – and retells a strange story about a legless Finn.

Gaby Zipfel, editor of “Mittelweg 36” and pioneer of Eurozine, came to the European Meeting of European Cultural Journals in 1992 expecting to be the only woman among seasoned male professionals. And so she was – but that didn’t matter.

Antonin J. Liehm, editor of the Czech magazine “Litérarní noviny” until 1968 and founder of “Lettre Internationale”, has been at the forefront of numerous attacks on the “provincialism of major cultures”. One theme has persisted throughout: the idea of an international magazine.

Chocolate cigarettes, AIDS, and homes for battered wives. Hanna Hallgren conducts a critical, poetical search for the European identity.

How would you bring up a child if you took the lessons from postmodernism literally? The young Swedish writers Athena Farrokhzad and Tova Gerge present a postmodern parenting guide, a matricide or an infantile declaration of passion. Please read it biographically.

Pär Thörn, one of Sweden’s most acclaimed young writers, studied the discussions between the executive managers on the web forum www.ledarna.se (“the executives”). The result of his copy-pasting was the following text.

Recent literary debates in Sweden have dwelled on authors’ love lives and penchant for designer handbags, yet there is more edifying material out there if one listens carefully. Hans Koppel’s satire of suburban lifestyle, for example, or the social critique of experimental writers Per Thörn and Ida Börjel. A new edition of Lars Gustafsson’s science fiction proves he is still in a league of his own, while Magnus Hedlund’s fiction exploring of the boundaries of human existence is so powerful that it seems inadequate to describe him as a “Swedish writer”.

“Laughter distorts the body and is testimony to lack of control” is one explanation for why there is almost no laughter in ancient Greek sculpture. The question was posed by Yannis Tsividis to archaeologists, art historians, classical philologists, and curators. Their replies raise as many questions as they answer.

Ukraine’s pro-western government coalition has collapsed after only one year. Viktor Yushchenko’s victory in the elections in September 2007, called after the pro-Russian “parliamentary coup”, represented an opportunity for the gradual improvement of democratic institutions, writes Mykola Riabchuk. The latest crisis is yet another symptom of the political “pluralism by default” that undermines Ukraine’s long-term democratic consolidation.

Having condemned hyper-sexualized culture, the American religious Right is now wildly pro-sex, as long as it is marital sex. By replacing the language of morality with the secular notion of self-esteem, repression has found its way back onto school curricula – to the detriment of girls and women in particular. “We are living through an assault on female sexual independence”, writes Dagmar Herzog.

The Bronze Soldier controversy in Tallinn in April 2007 encouraged the view that there is an integration problem among the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia. However the crisis was more a product of the fears of national conservative sections among the Russian and Estonian populations in the face of an increasing convergence of the aspirations of both groups, writes Martin Ehala.

How should the West react to Russia’s unrestrained pursuit of national interest? A policy of engagement defined as a focus on national interest, and a radical turn from value-based foreign policy to nineteenth century Realpolitik, is not a workable option for relations between Russia and the West, argues Ivan Krastev.

“There is only one way to turn signals into information, through interpretation”, wrote the computer critic Joseph Weizenbaum. As Google’s hegemony over online content increases, argues Geert Lovink, we should stop searching and start questioning.