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1. ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: EVEN NAMELESS HORRORS MUST BE NAMED
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Must the author of a book or film about the Holocaust or Gulag be a survivor? Many share Elie Wiesel's opinion that a novel about Treblinka or Majdanek is not only about blasphemy, it "is" blasphemy. To fictionalize the camps is to embellish the experience, to dress it up, to rob it of its essence: only the uncompromisingly spare prose style of a Varlam Shalamov can do justice to the reality.

Steve Sem-Sandberg disagrees. The Swedish author's novel "The Emperor of Lies", just published to great acclaim in English, French and German translation, is set in the Ghetto of Lodz. As a member of the generation introduced to the Holocaust by the TV series of the same name, Sem-Sandberg is very aware of the dangers of sentimentalization. Yet is Holocaust kitsch somehow connected to the effective prohibition of the fictionalization of it by non-survivors?

"The Holocaust is something we would rather solemnly commemorate than actively remember; Auschwitz is turning into a place of pilgrimage, a place in which to exorcise evil rather than investigate it, while the concrete suffering in that and other places is reduced, with the help of popular culture, to images of boys in pyjamas and little girls with plaits."

Criticism of fictional accounts of the camps, then, have less to do with the fact that one cannot write and more to do with the fact that one must not, or should not. By believing that the only appropriate response to victims is "non-committal genuflection", argues Sem-Sandberg, we insulate ourselves from an experience that literature is able to convey. All successful fiction, Shalamov included, employs dramatic technique:

"Anyone who wants to engage critically with this literature has to realise that outlawing metaphor is not enough to bring out 'the truth' about anything at all. Literature that is meaningful does not arise out of some kind of refining process. It does not restore, or create safe havens. Literature that is meaningful tears down boundaries and knocks our self-knowledge off course. This is where the moral force of literature and its aesthetic justification lie."

Steve Sem-Sandberg
Even nameless horrors must be named

This article is available in English, German and Swedish:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-23-semsandberg-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-23-semsandberg-de.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-23-semsandberg-sv.html

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2. NEW FOCAL POINT: DECISION TIME FOR THE EU
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When the global financial crisis broke at the end of 2008, Europe's leaders complacently maintained that the problem was an Anglo-Saxon one. Now, with trillions having to be poured into national economies too big to fail -- Greece, Ireland, Portugal, even Italy and Spain -- the eurocrisis is threatening to overshadow the original banking collapse of 2008.

Brought on by the global economic recession, the eurocrisis has been exacerbated by serious faults built into the monetary union. In a new Eurozine focal point, published in cooperation with the Allianz Kulturstiftung, contributors including Jacques Delors, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrike Guérot, Daniel Daianu and Ulrich Beck discuss whether the EU is not only broke, but also broken -- and if so, whether Europe's leaders are up to the task of fixing it.

Read all articles in the focal point The EU: Broken or just broke?:

http://www.eurozine.com/comp/focalpoints/eurocrisis.html

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3. EUROZINE EVENTS IN OCTOBER
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In October we organize two events in Vienna, presenting the recent books by Eurozine contributors Timothy Snyder and Steve Sem-Sandberg.

On Thursday 20 October at the IWM, Timothy Snyder talks to Sybille Steinbacher about "Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler and Stalin". Snyder's book views the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, taking place between Germany and Russia, during a time when Hitler and Stalin both held power. "A lifetime's work by a Yale University historian who deserves to be read and reread," wrote "The Economist".

Steve Sem-Sandberg's novel "The Emperor of Lies", set in the ghetto of Lodz, has just been published to great acclaim in English, German and French translation. "With this book, Sem-Sandberg steps into the magic circle of leading European writers," wrote Anna Paterson in "The Independent". But it is also a controversial book. Can one fictionalize the Holocaust at all? On Monday 24 October at the Hauptbücherei, Sem-Sandberg talks to Martin Pollack about the book and about the many dos and don'ts surrounding literature about the Holocaust.

More on the events featuring Steve Sem-Sandberg and Timothy Snyder:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-10-03-newsitem-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-10-03-newsitem2-en.html

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4. SUPPORT EUROZINE!
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As a regular reader of Eurozine, you know that the platform continuously presents articles by authors from all over Europe and provides an invaluable window to European debates on the most pressing issues of our times.

This task is carried out with great commitment by our partner journals and staff -- and requires funding! Eurozine is partly financed by public subsidies -- from the European Commission (Culture Programme), the Austrian Ministry of Culture and the City of Vienna -- but most of our financial means are raised privately: through cooperation with international foundations, syndication of articles and contributions by partner journals.

But we also rely on you, the readers who use Eurozine as a source of information and ideas. If you appreciate our work and would like to support our contribution to the establishment of a European public sphere worthy of its name, please make a one-off donation or set up a standing order!

To donate to Eurozine:

http://www.eurozine.com/support_Eurozine.html

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5. NEW ARTICLES
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Boaventura de Sousa Santos
The university in the twenty-first century
Towards a democratic and emancipatory university reform
Universities can regain their legitimacy only through radical democratic restructuring. Countering the brain-drain -- so far the main result of the transnationalization of education -- will only be possible by embarking on a counter-hegemonic process of educational globalization.
03.10.2011

This article is now available in English and Lithuanian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-07-01-santos-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-10-03-santos-lt.html

Aleida Assmann
Here am I, where are you?
Loneliness in the era of communication
The Internet has abolished loneliness, or rather got rid of its negative effects to a hitherto unimagined degree, writes Aleida Assmann. Borders between sociability and loneliness are shifting and the pressure of social conformity lessens as computer nerds turn into savvy heroes.
03.10.2011

This article is now available in German, Hungarian and Lithuanian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-03-09-assmann-de.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-08-09-assmann-hu.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-10-03-assmann-lt.html

Cornelia Klinger
Tricolour – three colours of justice
The modern notion of justice linked to ideas of human rights and democracy is highly complex, pulling in different directions. Cornelia Klinger explains how "justice" as we understand it today can be inferred from the conceptual trinity of the French Revolution.
03.10.2011



This article is now available in Estonian and German:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-10-03-klinger-et.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-12-01-klinger-de.html

Ulrich Beck
Cooperate or bust
The existential crisis of the European Union
The critique that Europe lacks representative legitimacy may well be correct, argues Ulrich Beck, but not when based on the principle of "no nation, no democracy". Cosmopolitanization demands post-national approaches to democratic accountability in Europe.
29.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-29-beck-en.html

Eurozine Review
The fictions of finance
"Index" says art is first in line for censorship worldwide; "openDemocracy" asks whether the eurocrisis is a moral crisis; "Blätter" thinks the Web can still be saved; "Syn og Segn" seeks solutions to Internet extremism; "Gegenworte" has discovered the fountain of youth; "Le Monde diplomatique" (Oslo) encounters south-Slavic cultural unity on Mount Tito; "Kulturos barai" celebrates Tadeusz Konwicki's visions of homeland; and "Ord&Bild" talks to Steve Sem-Sandberg about writing and research.
28.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-28-eurozinerev-en.html

Yasmine El Rashidi
Art or vandalism?
Where the Mubarak regime was once the target of political graffiti in Cairo, now it is the interim council. But when there's little to distinguish graffiti from burning flags, veteran oppositionist Yasmine El Rashidi is in two minds about its artistic value.
27.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-27-elrashidi-en.html

Eva Birkenstock
Images of age in change
The image and reputation of the aged correspond neither to their numeric representation in society nor to their economic power, writes Eva Birkenstock. The fastest growing demographic group lacks status, orientation and future resources.
27.09.2011

This article is available in German:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-27-birkenstock-de.html

Roger Scruton
Unreal estate
Freemarket disregard for the elementary moral truths of debt and obligation is to blame for the current crisis, says Roger Scruton. But the call for a return to economic morality is no endorsement of the financial fictions of the social democratic state.
27.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-27-scruton-en.html

Jonas Bals
The Rose Revolution
Culture warriors like Anders Breivik style themselves as victims of an all-consuming political correctness administered by the "European elite". Norway's centre-right must confront its own role in the rise of this type of rhetoric, writes Jonas Bals.
26.09.2011

This article is available in English and Norwegian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-26-bals-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-26-bals-no.html

Steve Sem-Sandberg
Even nameless horrors must be named
It is high time to lift the aesthetic state of emergency that has surrounded witness literature for so long, writes Steve Sem-Sandberg. It is not important who writes, nor even what their motives are. What counts is the "literary efficiency".
23.09.2011

This article is available in English, German and Swedish:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-23-semsandberg-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-23-semsandberg-de.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-23-semsandberg-sv.html

Tanja Petrovic
Thinking Europe without thinking
Neo-colonial discourse on and in the western Balkans
EU member states draw upon a reservoir of colonial discourse to assert superiority over the extra-European Other; western Balkan states compensate by turning the same discourse against neighbours lower down the ladder of EU accession, writes Tanja Petrovic.
22.09.2011

This article is available in Catalan and English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-22-petrovic-ca.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-22-petrovic-en.html

Ariadne Lewanska, Pierre Manent
Migration, patriotism and the European agendum
An interview with historian of ideas Pierre Manent
A European patriotism can be generated only through political acts that create a sense of solidarity, says historian Pierre Manent. If invocations of Europe are to be anything but vacuous, Europe must be decisive in defining its interests and demarcating its boundaries.
21.09.2011

This article is available in English and Polish:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-21-manent-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-21-manent-pl.html

Ivan Krastev, Gleb Pavlovsky, Tatiana Zhurzhenko
The politics of no alternatives or How power works in Russia
An interview with Gleb Pavlovsky
In interview with "Transit", former dissident turned "political technologist" Gleb Pavlovsky talks about the workings of political power in the former Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia.
21.09.2011

This article is now available in English, Estonian and Romanian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-06-09-pavlovsky-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-21-pavlovsky-et.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-21-pavlovsky-ro.html

John Grahl
Crisis in the Eurozone
Europe's dogmatic belief in the intrinsic stability of market economies caused imbalances in competitiveness to be ignored as long as easy credit provided the illusion of growth. Present stabilization arrangements are inadequate: necessary is a Europeanization of debt, argues John Grahl.
20.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-20-grahl-en.html

Kenan Malik
The tragic ironies of Breivik's terror
The irony is not just that Breivik's hatred of Islam should lead to a horror that many took to be Islamic, but also that nothing so resembles Breivik's mindset as that of an Islamist jihadist, writes Kenan Malik. Both use the language of the "clash of civilizations" to justify their atrocities.
19.09.2011

This article is now available in English and Romanian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-07-31-malik-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-19-malik-ro.html

Knut Olav Åmås
More debate, not less
"More debate" and "more democracy" has been the quiet call of defiance after the terror attacks in Norway. A good idea, says Knut Olav Åmås, culture and op-ed editor at "Aftenposten" -- but one that also brings discomfort. Conflicts in society must remain visible.
19.09.2011

This article is now available in English and Romanian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-07-28-amas-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-19-amas-ro.html

Remi Nilsen
The literal metaphors of a terrorist
Is there something extreme in Norwegian society? asks Remi Nilsen, editor of the Norwegian edition of "Le Monde diplomatique" after the tragedy in Oslo. Anders Behring Breivik's writings are not the wild fabulations of a madman. We have heard it all before.
19.09.2011

This article is now available in English, Romanian and Slovenian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-07-26-nilsen-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-19-nilsen-ro.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-19-nilsen-sl.html

Isabel Hernández
From Spain to the Americas, from the convent to the front
Catalina de Erauso's shifting identities
Isabel Hernández analyses the autobiography and gender transgressions of the 17th century nun Catalina de Erauso: She seized the first chance to run away from a convent and went to South America where, dressed as a man, she enrolled in the Spanish army.
16.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-16-hernandez-en.html

Jörg Lau
The republic of outsiders
The outsider and non-conformist as saviour of the world: Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski took this revenge fantasy seriously, writes Jörg Lau. But what separates Kaczynski from his hero Thoreau, whose works paved the way for the civil rights movement and political ecology?
15.09.2011

This article is available in German:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-15-lau-de.html

Eurozine Review
The heresy of common sense
"New Humanist" tracks the tremors after 9/11; "Merkur" refuses to conform to non-conformism; "The Hungarian Quarterly" offers no way out of the intractable Roma problem; "Osteuropa" examines the siege of Leningrad as problematic lieu de mémoire; "Samtiden" takes comfort in what isn't happening in Norway; "Du" venerates Roberto Bolaño; "Studija" sheds light on the Venice Biennale; "Dialogi" criticizes moonlighting theatre critics; and "Vikerkaar" ponders the Finno-Ugric scattergun approach.
14.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-14-eurozinerev-en.html

Zsigmond Falusy
Gophers
"Sometimes I think these people no longer care," says the mayor of a village in northeastern Hungary. "They have crossed every limit." A reportage on relations between Roma and the majority offers little reason to be optimistic about an improvement in the current, dire situation.
13.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-13-falusy-en.html

Jörg Ganzenmüller
Memory's minor theatre of war
The Leningrad blockade in German memory
The siege of Leningrad claimed around 1 million lives, largely through starvation. Yet Leningrad has occupied a minor place in the German memory of WWII: well into the 1970s West German schoolbooks were reproducing versions of events established by the Nazi generation.
13.09.2011

This article is available in German:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-13-ganzenmueller-de.html

Barbara Fässler
177 days of running
Reflections on the Venice Biennale 2011
Reviewing the Venice Biennale in its totality is impossible, writes Barbara Fässler, who approaches the critic's monumental task by selecting three specific motifs: the problem of light, the notion of nation and the principle of interaction.
13.09.2011

This article is available in English and Latvian:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-13-fassler-en.html
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-13-fassler-lv.html

Stephen Howe
Aftershock
A decade after the destruction of the Twin Towers, we need to resolve that "Islam", as a singular noun, or "Muslims" as a collectivity are simply not good things to think with or about, let alone for or against. Stephen Howe tracks the tremors after 9/11.
09.09.2011

This article is available in English:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-09-howe-en.html

Georg Franck
The urban commons
On the sustainable city's challenge to urban planning culture
All of the ideas for a sustainable urban structure point to the compact city, but this might be a shortsighted view. What is needed now, Georg Franck suggests, is to fundamentally reconsider the organism that is the body of the city.
07.09.2011

This article is available in German:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-07-franck-de.html

Tim B. Müller
Reform and rationality
With regard to recent publications Tim B. Müller analyses the relationship between the horizon of expectations of modernity and the scientification of the political in the Cold War.
06.09.2011

This article is available in German:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-09-06-muller-de.html

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The Eurozine newsletter is published with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/index_en.htm
(This work programme has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.)