In the age of Google Earth and the Human Genome Project, tensions between information processed by machines and the human capacity to tell stories have intensified. Ragnild Lome traces the evolution of these tensions in literary and visual culture from the mid-twentieth century onward.
In a wide-ranging discussion of European identity and regional separatisms, scholar of European ethnology Ullrich Kockel considers how competing memories need not lead to conflict but can be turned into a creative force through cultural engagement based on mutual respect.
Self-censorship is even more harmful than censorship by the state, argues British writer and philosopher Roger Scruton, for it shuts down conversation completely. The damage done to public discussion of the most pressing issues of the day can be seen on both sides of the Atlantic.
When Adorno and Horkheimer wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment, interpersonal interactions were not yet directly part of the culture industry. But now that they are, it would be wrong to assume that the technologies of the big data revolution come with built-in ideologies, writes Lev Manovich.
Central Europe no longer exists, only East and West, as it used to be. That is the condensed version of the combined wisdom of many western analysts and commentators these days, writes Erik Tabery, editor-in-chief of the Czech weekly “Respekt”. From a Czech perspective, Tabery is certainly concerned for his country’s neighbours. But he also wonders why the West is quite so alarmed at what is happening in the East.
As part of a special focus in “L’homme” on gender and Cold War visual cultures, Nadège Ragaru goes behind the scenes of Konrad Wolf’s feature film “Zvezdi/Sterne”, to look at how the film’s Bulgarian and German partners conceived of the “Jewish catastrophe” and imagined gender roles.
Whatever happened to the lively and apparently healthy democratic process in Central Europe, during the decade that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall? Answers are more likely to be found in economic circumstances, argues Enda O’Doherty, than supposedly innate tendencies to reaction.
The European integration project urgently needs reconstructing from the bottom up, argues Wolfgang Streeck. This means taking into account the crucial importance of nations and nation-states as the principal sites of democratic self-government.
Wojciech Przybylski takes stock of the threat posed to privacy and human rights in Poland, following the country’s slide into constitutional crisis.
A show of EU concern for developments in Poland can do no harm, writes Stefan Szwed, but ultimately the fate of the country’s democracy is for Poles themselves to sort out. And, luckily, crises often come with opportunities; Poland’s PiS challenge is stirring a new political awakening.
In terms of prompting domestic and foreign concern over the rise of illiberal democracy in the European Union, the new Polish government has almost outdone the Hungarian governments of the past six years. Cas Mudde considers the likelihood of EU sanctions against both Poland and Hungary.
Twenty-five years after the USSR’s collapse, writes Maria Stepanova, history has turned into a kind of minefield, a realm of constant, traumatic revision. As a result, Russia is living in a schizoid present where the urgent need for a new language is far from being met.
The main issue surrounding the ugly events on New Year’s Eve in Cologne soon turned out not to be the assault of women per se, but the fact that perpetrators were, in police parlance, of “Arab and north-African appearance”. However, writes Slavenka Drakulic, it may well be that the tears of the women in Cologne that night bring bigger changes to Germany and Europe than anyone could have anticipated, least of all the women themselves.
The Slovak writer and artist Matus Ritomsky provides some insight into the mood in Slovakia, as the debate about events in Cologne and other cities in Germany on New Year’s Eve continues across Europe.
Leading artists, curators and practitioners in the creative industries discuss the prospects for intellectual resistance in the most precarious of circumstances: where state institutions tend to strangle much-needed social critique and one must use every available resource to avoid submitting to one’s own fatigue.
Europe has become steadily more introspective since the financial crisis broke out in 2008, writes Andrew Wilson. Moreover, with the refugee crisis and the Paris attacks grabbing European and global media attention, and Russia suddenly becoming an ally in the fight against ISIS, it seems that Ukraine has become a topic of the past. But should the West lose focus, Ukraine’s chances of success will be very slim.