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ESPRIT 5/2005
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"Esprit" looks back on a fragile spring in the Middle East. In the Lebanon, the murder of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February triggered an unprecedented popular mobilization which has spontaneously been compared to Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Since then, the country has become the focus of international attention. Pressure from the Arab nations and from the West has resulted in the withdrawal of Syrian forces, and with them the heavy patronizing of political, social, and economic life. Hopes are running high, but for the Beirut dream not to be disappointed, the dangers in a country whose dynamics constantly threaten to erupt must be assessed.

Paris-based Lebanese political scientist Joseph Bahout discusses in an interview the political reforms that are essential in Lebanon, and the factors that will hinder them as Syria's grip loosens. Beirut intellectual Samir Frangieh considers the Shi'ite problem and asks how state institutions can be rebuilt without confessional boundaries being reinforced. Other articles deal with the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, American diplomacy in the Middle East, and the reforms underway in Oman that upset the illusion of "democracies without democrats".

Returning to France, editor-in-chief Marc-Olivier Padis argues in his lead article "Has France lost its European vision?" that the upcoming referendum on the EU constitution shows how out of touch his country has become with Europe. Unexpectedly, the referendum campaign has exacerbated political tension in France, especially among the Socialists, making the outcome of the vote on the constitutional treaty unpredictable.

Also to look out for in this May issue: the philosopher Raymond Court provides a critical analysis of the debate which took place in Munich in January 2004 between the Frankfurt philosopher-sociologist Jürgen Habermas and the future pope Joseph Ratzinger on the "prepolitical moral foundations of a liberal state".

For the full table of contents of "Esprit" 5/2005:

>>>>http://www.eurozine.com/partner/esprit/current-issue.html

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LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE 5/2005
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The May issue of the German edition of "Le Monde diplomatique" celebrates the ten-year anniversary of "diplo" in German. In her editorial, Marie Luise Knott looks back on a decade of adapting a French newspaper to German publishing traditions and reading habits. While the first international editions were copies of the mother-paper, today they make up a heterogenous group of publications, each with an individual character. Over the last five years, the German edition of "Le Monde diplomatique" has widened the perspective of the French original with numerous articles of its own.

Transcending borders is thus the natural focus of several of the contributions in this anniversary issue, many of them original pieces commissioned by the Berlin editors.

Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, explores the long-forgotten history of cultural, religious, and scientific exchange between China and India, and calls for the ties of the past to be re-established.

Paris-based anthropologist Fariba Adelkhah writes on "Sex in Iran", describing how the struggle of the younger generation of Iranians to negotiate their sexual needs has become an explosive topic of public debate and political rhetoric.

Historian Philipp Ther explains why the German "Kaiserreich" was an empire and not a nation-state; Hungarian literary scholar, poet, and novelist Gábor Schein shows how shifting and diverse interpretations of the nation's myths influence Hungarians' historical awareness; and philosopher Petra Gehring analyses the appeal of determinism in discussions of the outcomes of genome and neural research, asking why notions of free-will must be exchanged for this reductive world-view.

Also to look out for: Iraq experts David Baran and Mathieu Guidère demonstrate how Iraqi insurgents, when excluded from the political arena, turn to the internet to justify their actions and rally support.

Of course, the upcoming French referendum is also a topic for debate in "Le Monde diplomatique". Contributions providing useful and crucial background information include Anne-Cécile Robert's analysis of the negative response of the French Left to the EU constitution.

In the online edition only is the editors' selection from the last ten years. Among the articles to read -- or re-read -- are: Tithankar Chanda on Indian literature in English (1995); Manuel Vázques Montalbán's critique of the "Diana industry" that flourished after the death of the Princess of Wales (1999); and Doris Lessing on "Robert Mugabe and the tragedy of Zimbabwe" (2002). These and other recommendations can be read on the website of "Le Monde diplomatique".

For the full table of contents of "Le Monde diplomatique" 5/2005:

>>>>http://www.eurozine.com/partner/mondediplo/current-issue.html

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COGITO 41-42 (2005)
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The latest issue of "Cogito" is dedicated to the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment: Immanuel Kant. Following last year's bicentenary of Kant's death, the Istanbul-based journal has managed to muster a dream-team of Kant scholars and interpreters.

Across well over 500 pages, "Cogito" publishes new texts by, among others, Karl-Otto Apel, Manfred Baum, and Paul Guyer (published in German or English in parallel to the Turkish). There are also several translations into Turkish of recent and influential texts on Kant: Jürgen Habermas's "Kant's idea of perpetual peace: with the benefit of 200 years' hindsight"; Umberto Eco's "Kant and the Platypus"; Slavoj Zizek's "Kant with Sade; the perfect couple"; and Hannah Arendt's notes on "Kant's political philosophy". John Rawls, whose work has not yet been published in Turkish, is represented with a text on Kant's moral philosophy, a piece that also functions as a good introduction to aspects of Rawls's own philosophy.

As an appendix to this monumental issue, "Cogito" publishes a roundtable discussion between Karl-Otto Apel, Manfred Baum, Paul Guyer, and the "Cogito" editors Kaan H. Ökten and E. Efe Çakmak. The discussion was recorded at a Kant symposium organized by "Cogito" in October 2004, and will be published in Eurozine soon.

For the full table of contents of "Cogito" 41-42 (2005):

>>>>http://www.eurozine.com/partner/cogito/current-issue.html

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VIKERKAAR 4-5/2005
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Last year, Estonian journal "Vikerkaar" co-hosted the Eurozine conference "The Republic of Letters? Cultural journals in a European public space" in Tallinn. "The Republic of Letters" is the main theme of the latest issue; several speeches from the conference are included.

Thierry Chervel, founder and editor of the German online magazine and press review "Perlentaucher", is harsh in his critique of European media. "The European clumsiness in the use of the internet is sadly repeated in the European, or at least the western European, public spheres ('Öffentlichkeiten') and extends to the exclusive circles of the intellectual public. Unlike in the US, where most dailies remain free of charge online, many newspapers in Europe have bid farewell to the internet readership." If Europe wants to create a public sphere, then European newspapers must finally wake up to the chances the internet provides, concludes Chervel, who recently launched "signandsight", an English sister-site to "Perlentaucher".

In his article "Energizing the European public space", Eurozine editor-in-chief Carl Henrik Fredriksson praises the cosmopolitanism of Europe's cultural journals. However, "this cosmopolitanism is small-scale". Cultural journals "may represent a partial, contrarian public space, but their scope is much too limited to nurture a forum that can shape public opinion and steel people's wills". Therefore, Fredriksson concludes, "it appears that only one path is open for meeting the challenge posed by a heterogeneous collective of nationally-oriented viewers, listeners, and readers: a European public space spearheaded by established national media."

Alongside other contributions from the Tallinn conference (Bernhard Peters and Marju Lauristin), "Vikerkaar" also publishes an Estonian translation of Krzysztof Pomian's article "The Republic of Letters: a utopian idea and lived reality" (originally published in French in "Le Débat"). Pomian, a historian, shows how the "Republica litteraria" emerged at the same time as the notion of Europe -- and how the two concepts have now made a joint comeback.

Other articles of note: Timothy Garton Ash and Timothy Snyder on the Orange Revolution (from "New York Review of Books"), and Estonian sociologist Mikko Lagerspetz on "Deliberative democracy and the limits of discursive order", which applies Jürgen Habermas's theory to Estonian society, finding that it opens up elitist interpretations that can be used to legitimize neo-liberal policies and brand minority voices as irrational.

For the full table of contents of "Vikerkaar" 4-5/2005:

>>>>http://www.eurozine.com/partner/vikerkaar/current-issue.html

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INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 2/2005
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At the beginning of 2005, "Index on Censorship" joined the Taylor and Francis group, the academic journal publisher owned by Routledge. "Time to move on?", the second issue to be published under this new arrangement, deals with the commemoration of the Holocaust, asking whether received ideas of guilt and victimhood need to be readressed.

Moris Fahri's "Courage to forget" is taken from a speech delivered to the Belgrade Circle in 2002. In it, Fahri, a Turkish Jew and Roma blood-brother, introduces the concept of "forgetness". Forgetness requires courage and provides an alternative to remembering, which, as evidenced by the atrocities in Kosovo and Rwanda, does not alone prevent the repetition of genocide.

Adam Phillips, a Freudian pyschoanalyst, continues the theme in his article "The forgetting museum", in which he discusses the relation between commemoration and false memory syndrome. While in psychoanalysis, forgetting is associated with the healing process, in connection with the holocaust the opposite is seen to be the case. Phillips argues that this may create false memories, whose effects, from the psychoanalytical perspective, are impossible to predict.

Sarah Blau, an upcoming Israeli stand-up comedian, describes in her article "You must be joking!" young Israeli Jews' unwillingness to inherit victim status and their dissatisfaction with the "instrumentalization of the Holocaust". The article appears for the first time in "Index" after being removed from the web-pages of the Israeli daily "Haaretz" as a result of pressure from the conservative lobby.

Other authors writing on the theme of forgetting are Christian Semler, lawyer and former leading theorist of the German Extra-Parliamentary Opposition, on the desire of the younger German generation to normalize the past, and Jewish-German author Esther Dischereit on "being Jewish in Germany". Contributions outside the theme include Elnura Osmonalieva's photo-journalistic record of the first 24 hours of the revolution in Kyrgyzstan; Catherine Merridale's article "Amnesiac nation", on Russians' evasion of individual responsibility and collective repentance; and Timothy Snyder's "Balancing the Books", on the need for a European history that includes both eastern and western European experiences (published in Eurozine last month).

For the full table of contents of "Index on Censorship" 2/2005:

>>>>http://www.eurozine.com/partner/indexcensorship/current-issue.html