----------------------------------------------------------- EUROZINE NEWSLETTER 03.2007 ----------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article of the month: Against love 2. New partner: Lettera internazionale 3. New articles
----------------------------------------------------------- 1. ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: AGAINST LOVE ----------------------------------------------------------- In August 2006, the international media were sent into a feeding frenzy over the story of Natascha Kampusch, the young Austrian woman who escaped eight and a half years' captivity in a tiny underground room in a suburb of Vienna. Endless discussion rounds with "studio experts", kilometres of newsprint about "Stockholm syndrome", record-breaking viewing figures for interviews with Kampusch herself... But the horrific nature of the crime aside, what was it about the story that exerted such fascination?
In a searing critique of social mores first published in "Wespennest", Rainer Just argues that the Kampusch case offered a distorted re-encounter with an emotional programme that runs in all of us: romantic love. The public and its media were only able to understand the Kampusch case as a sensational crime, as a criminal incident. That it was a case of ubiquitous, socially organized madness went unnoticed.
"The birth of love out of the spirit of totalitarianism expressed itself in exemplary manner in the Kampusch abduction story. A person is shut in, all the others shut out -- that is the ideological core of romantic love. I want only you! says love, I want you for me alone! says love, I want you to belong to me forever! says love. Whoever speaks thus thinks about one thing only: possession. "
It is uncanny, writes Just, "that any contemporary critique [of romantic love] must reiterate the [...] spirit of the Enlightenment, must start again from the beginning, as though the family and the theological construct of romantic love had never been questioned, as if the 'dark side of the Enlightenment' (Sade, Nietzsche, Freud), as if Marx, Adorno, and the Frankfurt School, as if Wilhelm Reich, Marcuse, and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, had never existed."
Rainer Just AGAINST LOVE. SEEKING THE LITERARY TRACES OF THE NATASCHA KAMPUSCH AFFAIR
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----------------------------------------------------------- 2. NEW PARTNER: LETTERA INTERNAZIONALE ----------------------------------------------------------- In its struggle against "the provincialism of the great European cultures", Lettera internazionale (the Italian edition of the Lettre network) publishes high-quality literature and literary essays. It also covers a range of social issues, including politics, economics, religious and ethnic identity, globalization, the environment, and the effects of the technological revolution. The journal is renowned for its reportages from Africa, India, China, and Latin America.
Read more about "Lettera internazionale", Eurozine's newest partner journal, including its current issue: http://www.eurozine.com/journals/lettera.html
----------------------------------------------------------- 3. NEW ARTICLES ----------------------------------------------------------- Abdolkarim Soroush ON REASON Reason's greatest rival is not religion, but revolution, writes prominent Iranian philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush. "The first resource that is squandered in a revolution is rationality and the last thing that returns is rationality. If it ever returns." 30.03.2007
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Ales Merenus IS MARCH STILL THE MONTH OF BOOKS? The "Month of Books" was introduced in Czechoslovakia in 1955 and predominantly served as a propaganda tool. Does this leftover from communist cultural policy still have a place in the cultural life of the Czech Republic? 29.03.2007
This article is available in English and Czech: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-29-merenus-en.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-29-merenus-cs.html
Juan Villoro STALEMATE IN MEXICO. ON A DIVIDED COUNTRY AND ITS DISCONTENTED LEFT In December 2006, Felipe Calderón was sworn in as Mexico's new conservative president. But with accusations of electoral fraud hanging over him, Calderón is the least-supported president in Mexico's history. 28.03.2007
This article is now available in Hungarian and German: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-28-villoro-hu.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-01-22-villoro-de.html
Boris Cizej LETTER FROM LJUBLJANA The editor of the Slovenian edition of "Le Monde diplomatique" finds that no news is not necessarily good news in a country afflicted by "lethargic hedonism". 28.03.2007
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Jacques Rupnik ANATOMY OF A CRISIS The Referendum and the dilemmas of the enlarged European Union The derailing of the EU constitution in 2005 raised fears that Europe would become divided and increasingly unstable. On the underlying causes and possible consequences of the crisis of the European project. 26.03.2006
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Jan-Werner Müller A "PAUSE FOR THOUGHT" WITHOUT THE THOUGHT? POSSIBLE WAYS TO TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE EU TODAY The one-year "pause for thought" launched by Europe's elites after the rejection of the EU constitution in 2005 was extended in June 2006. This time could be used to discuss the pros and cons of competing Euro-visions, writes Jan-Werner Müller. 23.03.2007
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Eurozine News Item CHANGING EUROPE: 50 YEARS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. A special focus featuring some of Eurozine's most outstanding contributions on the European project: From analyses of the current crisis to a hilarious parody of Brussels' literary ambitions. 23.03.2007
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Burkhard Müller THE CONCEPT OF GOD - AND WHY WE DON'T NEED IT In these newly religious times, it no longer seems superfluous to rearm the atheists with arguments. When push comes to shove, atheists can only trust their reason. 22.03.2007
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Rupa Gulab LETTER FROM INDIA Living the good life in booming India, one can almost forget social inequality, the conflict with Pakistan, and fundamentalist violence, reports Rupa Gulab. 21.03.2007
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Jesper Gulddal A HEAVY PRELUDE TO CHAOS. ASPECTS OF LITERARY ANTI-AMERICANISM IN THE INTERWAR YEARS Interwar European literature represented the US as the quintessence of a traumatic, unbridled modernity that prefigured the destruction of Europe. Jesper Gulddal surveys the uncharted territory of literary anti-Americanism. 20.03.2007
This article is available in English and Danish: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-20-gulddal-en.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-20-gulddal-da.html
Zygmunt Bauman, Lukasz Galecki THE UNWINNABLE WAR. AN INTERVIEW WITH ZYGMUNT BAUMAN In the East, impoverished masses are lured into anti-Westernism; in the West, the State seeks to regain its legitimacy via the War on Terror. A vicious cycle of global insecurity is underway. 19.03.2007
This article is now available in Catalan and English: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-19-bauman-ca.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-12-13-bauman-en.html
Jirí Pehe THE VIRTUAL FRONTIERS OF EUROPE Are countries that adhere to Enlightenment values and institutional norms, but that are not geographically part of Europe, also to be considered European? 19.03.2007
This article is now available in Catalan and English: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-19-pehe-ca.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-12-04-pehe-en.html
Louise du Toit FEMINISM AND THE ETHICS OF RECONCILIATION The failure of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to do justice to women rape victims was not a simple oversight but is constitutive of the symbolic order dominating the political landscape. 16.03.2007
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Irena Maryniak THE POLISH PLUMBER AND THE IMAGE GAME The Polish plumber is a cliché throughout Europe, which even the Polish tourist board has made use of. However, in the UK the joke veils a growing resentment towards workers from the new EU states. 15.03.2007
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Les Back PHOBOCITY. LONDON AND THE WAR ON TERROR In London post-7/7, the wail of police sirens has become the soundtrack of the "phobocity". But the phobocity is not created by the suicide bombers alone -- politicians and journalists also trade on fear. 15.03.2007
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Orhan Pamuk NEIGHBOURHOODS. OPENING ADDRESS AT THE 18TH EUROPEAN MEETING OF CULTURAL JOURNALS For Orhan Pamuk, "neighbourhood" implies openness to neighbouring cultures but also provincial mistrust. Cultural journals' role, he says, should be to encourage non-conformity. 13.10.2006
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Marco Pautasso ICH WÄRE GERNE EUROPEAN European identity as confusion of tongues? The Tower of Babel casts its shadow over Marco Pautasso's experiment in authentic European essay writing. 12.03.2007
This article is available in a mix of languages: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-12-pautasso-xx.html
George Blecher ANOTHER AMERICA? George Bush's State of the Union address reflected the current mood in the US: muted, sombre, and resigned. Is this new attitude suggestive of a change in the way the US is starting to look at itself? 09.03.2007
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Jadwiga Staniszkis REVOLUTIONARY ELITES, PRAGMATIC MASSES. THE POLISH POPULISTS' PYRRHIC VICTORY The new Polish elite feels it has no control over the processes for which it bears political responsibility. Only now is it understanding that European integration and globalization have put limits on its power. 08.03.2007
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Emilio Gentile FASCISM. A DEFINITION BY WAY OF ORIENTATION An increase in the use of a "generic" definition of fascism has seen the term being conflated with communism, even when those to whom it is applied clearly rejected such an association. 07.03.2007
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Klaus Ronneberger THE ART OF NOT BECOMING ACCUSTOMED TO ANYTHING. PRECARIOUS EMPLOYMENT IN FLEXIBLE CAPITALISM The vast reserve army of workers in precarious employment are the avant-garde of post-Fordism, constantly opening up new avenues for self-exploitation. 06.03.2007
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Hans-Peter Müller ON THE FUTURE OF THE CLASS SOCIETY While some Germans see nothing but pauperized masses, obdurate observers deny that social classes even exist. Hans-Peter Müller on the discourse and reality of today's class society. 05.03.2007
This article is available in German: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-03-05-hpmuller-de.html
David MacFadyen CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? MOBILE TECHNOLOGY IN RURAL RUSSIA With Siberia and the Urals close on the heels of Moscow in mobile phone ownership, Russia's expanses are rapidly coming to seem less vast. How the latest technology is challenging the monopoly of state-owned media. 02.03.2007
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