Articles

In 1983, Hal Foster edited a seminal collection of cultural criticism, The Anti-Aesthetic. So how is it that Foster now sees real possibilities in the aesthetic? And could it be that, in lieu of a defining human marginality, a version of the human might yet be resurrected?

Without a proper understanding of the way the global (data) economy actually works, we can’t effectively reinvent our culture. So says Geert Lovink in conversation with István Józsa. Lovink’s solution: while building independent infrastructures remains of primary importance, net criticism needs updating and upgrading, before it becomes subject to deletion.

On Friday 13 November, Paris suffered an unprecedented set of terrorist attacks less than a year after those targeting Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket. Once again, we review the responses of Eurozine partner journals, associates and authors.

He and his family fled Iraq for Poland in the 1970s, never to return. Basil Kerski knows from firsthand experience that integration can be a long and difficult process, but it usually enriches receiving societies and new arrivals alike. As further migrations and intercultural encounters undoubtedly await Europe, Kerski argues in favour of European solidarity.

Today, bordering operates at all levels, writes Don Flynn: from the geopolitical bordering that expresses the changing balance of power between states; to the reconfiguration of state administrative procedures at the behest of economic and technological imperatives; to the experience of the border as it impacts on everyday lives.

In a response to Edit András’s recent article on Hungary’s contemporary art scene, artist Orshi Drozdik takes exception to the art historian who passes judgement on the artist without stopping to consider either the artist’s oeuvre or the true circumstances of the artist’s life.

There is now a need to readdress urban commons through the lens of the digital commons, writes Dubravka Sekulic. The lessons to be drawn from the free software community and its resistance to the enclosure of code will likely prove particularly valuable where participation and regulation are concerned.

Eastern European states are expected to renounce their post-totalitarian victim status and re-gained national homogeneity in order to show solidarity with western Europe in the refugee question. No wonder that they resist, writes Slavenka Drakulic.

Belarus, Estonia, Russia and Ukraine: four countries whose destinies are tightly interwoven. Now the S. Fischer Foundation, the German Academy of Language and Literature, and Allianz Cultural Foundation have created a transnational platform for discussing the most pressing country-specific topics in a common European context.

Not only is it time to modernize the humanities but also to humanize technology, says Lev Manovich, new media theorist and professor at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Manovich explains how to use big data to question the way we think about and study culture.

The image of a single face pouting at the camera on a phone clumsily extended to the perfect angle: this is just the beginning of the story, writes Nishant Shah. Every selfie triggers an avalanche of data that is generated, collated and consolidated beyond your imagination or control.

Entering trans-human areas always requires a certain courage and decidedness, just like any serious ethical action, writes Esa Kirkkopelto. And a trans-human ethics may well provide an answer to the claim of transformation that planetary crises impose upon our lives today.

How to restore legitimacy, once the state has been captured? Elena B. Stavrevska reports on developments in Macedonia during the past year, concluding that rather than looking westward for a sustainable solution, citizens should continue with their own efforts to determine the country’s future.

What exactly does it mean to be a creature of language and desire? Psychoanalysis is careful to distinguish animal need, which can be fulfilled, from human desire, which can never be satisfied. But in the cultural sphere, argues Lilian Munk Rösing, the human/animal divide swiftly becomes blurred.

Decades after first encountering Anglo-Saxon perspectives on democracy in occupied postwar Germany, Jürgen Habermas still stands by his commitment to a critical social theory that advances the cause of human emancipation. This follows a lifetime of philosophical dialogue.