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The Israel-Hamas War: Where is Europe?

By Manuela Achilles and Peter Debaere

In the early hours of October 7, 2023, militants of the Islamist group Hamas and a few other armed Palestinian organizations struck Israel across the security border surrounding Gaza.

Tribar by Andra Rotaru

Translated by Anca Roncea

on the first day we were met by a dying child. basking in the sun, sitting
on a manhole cover. around, there were three other children: one with
a torn eye, one with dermatitis and an ear torn off and another very
pale, soaked in blood.

Pina by Titaua Peu

Translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman

The trees up and down the esplanade are scraggly and bare. A few kids all bundled up are playing on a grayish stretch, with their au pair watching them. Plenty of Black girls in the mix.

The Unbearable Lightness of Translating: Szilárd Borbély’s Works in English

By Judit Hajnal Ward

Kafka’s Son––what a captivating title! It translates well into any language. Additionally, it sends an instant message about the book’s subjects and dimensions: paying tribute to an unparalleled author in East Europe, capturing the complexities of the father-son relationship, tracking an author’s path in creative writing through space and time, all in a posthumous, unfinished novel placed in a Kafkaesque world.

Excerpt from We Were Never Brothers by Pia Edvardsen

Translated by Mauricio Ruiz

I sit alone at the airport in northern Norway to see my paternal grandmother before she dies. The bus rides on the new road, no one drives on the old road anymore. Just my dad. He will always drive on the old road, because that’s where his father used to drive.

Self-fulfilling Prophesies: Domestic Terrorism, Islamist Separatism, and Muslim (Non)belonging in France

By Carol Ferrara 

It’s been nearly six years since the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo terror attack that killed twelve people working for the famous satirical magazine. Carrying out a coordinated multi-sited attack, another team of attackers also took sixteen hostages at a Hypercacher—a Kosher grocery store in the Paris suburbs—killing four individuals there, as well as a policewoman in Montrouge, and staging a second hostage situation nearby.

Are the Balkans Still the Other of Europe? Untangling the Post-conflict Realities with an Outsider’s Gaze: An Interview with Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă

Interviewed by Dragoș Ioniță

Working for the last five years with professor Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă, a young researcher from Romania who specializes in this region and in EU’s foreign policy discourses, I managed to discover the less-approached ways of understanding and even problematizing the Balkan region, its people, its politics, and its passions, while mapping various stereotypes that all our lenses are formed of when approaching the topic.

The Great British Kakistocracy

By Stuart P. M. Mackintosh

Facing the ongoing pandemic, Johnson and his pals have handled the emergency in a manner Trump would also approve of, with friendship trumping competence and capability, and money flowing to toadies with no oversight or assurance on their ability to get the job done.

Why Free Movement is the Beating Heart of Europe: Say No to EUxit

By Lauri Tähtinen

As of late April, eighteen of the twenty-six member countries of the Schengen Area were conducting internal border checks. In May, European Union institutions awoke to the need to “reopen” Europe before summer, the high season for the tourism industry which has been responsible for one tenth of Europe’s GDP.

Across the Waves: How the United States and France Shaped the International Age of Radio by Derek W. Vaillant

Reviewed by Kimberley Peters

As expressed in Vaillant’s own words, the book aims to explore the “users and developers of US-French broadcasting to illuminate the complexity of international broadcasting and reveal its consequences for cultural affairs and geopolitics,” and does so through careful, detailed research, drawing on a variety of textual and sound archives, making for a rich and expressive account.

Co-determination and the 2020 Presidential Election  

By Kyle Shybunko

Presidential candidates in the current Democratic primary campaign are proposing major structural changes to America’s political economy in a way not seen since perhaps Ronald Reagan’s 1980 run for President, when he called for the liberalization of America’s labor market, deregulation of industries across the board, and welfare reform.

Remembering and Forgetting Vichy

By Richard J. Golsan

To today’s casual visitor, Vichy seems an attractive, prosperous provincial French town. One of Europe’s most celebrated spas, it has enjoyed a long and largely prosperous past.

Vichy: The Dark Legacy of an Accidental Capital

By David Lees

For historians of modern France, it can sometimes appear that all roads lead to the small spa town of Vichy. Such is the legacy of World War II in France that the four “dark years” of German Occupation and Vichy rule still cast long shadows over French society today.

The Town That Deleted Its Past

By Richard Carswell

The visitor to Vichy today will look in vain for the Hôtel du Parc, seat of Marshal Pétain’s government from 1940 to 1944. The building still exists. But there are no signs to indicate its former incarnation. It is now a block of offices, apartments, shops and the local tourist office, where an official will tell you—on request—that, yes, this was the site of the Hôtel du Parc. The only sign of the building’s association with the defunct regime is closed to the casual tourist.

Vichy versus France: A Defiant Refusal to Remember

By Kirrily Freeman

In this engaging book, Mallet examines the factors that shaped the wartime experiences of the town of Vichy (which was the provisional capital of France and seat of Marshal Philippe Pétain’s collaborationist government from 1940 to 1944), the responses of the local population, and the ways in which these experiences and responses have been remembered locally (or not remembered) since the end of World War II.

The Fire This Time: April 15, 2019 at Notre-Dame in Paris

By Caroline Bruzelius

Fires were the scourge of Medieval and Early Modern buildings and cities (think of the Great Fire of London, 1666). But they were also the opportunity for great creativity and innovation, an incentive to introduce new updated architecture and to produce cities built largely of non-flammable materials (London, Paris). In the Middle Ages, some cathedrals burned over and over (Canterbury, Chartres, Reims), but the destruction of the old churches stimulated the construction of the glorious structures in the Gothic style that we know today.

The Catholic-ness of Secular France

By Carol Ferrara

French identity and its Catholic-ness has been reified against France’s Muslims—underlining for far-right nationalism why and how France and Islam are seemingly incompatible.

The Apology by Tiffany Hsiung

Reviewed by Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager and Minkyung Kim

Grand master narratives of contemporary history rarely correlate war with womanhood, especially if the latter has some dark, shameful, and controversial nature, like the infamous stories of comfort women.

Fairytales, Brexit Halloween Nightmares, and the Birth of Little England

By Stuart P. M. Mackintosh

Boris Johnson’s election as leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on July 23, 2019, may result in a damaging, hard, disorganized Brexit on Halloween, October 31. But the economic reality of a hard Brexit could be obscured by fairytales about the glorious future awaiting Britannia when she is freed from the shackles of the European Union, and able once again to sail the seas and chart her own economic and trade course.

The Social Democratic Road to Socialism: An Interview with Bhaskar Sunkara

Interviewed by Kelly McKowen

Oscar Wilde’s utopia was socialism, a social order that he believed would overcome the misery and exploitation wrought by industrial capitalism. More than a century later, as issues like inequality and climate change swell the ranks of the left in Europe and abroad, one hears renewed calls to set sail for a society that lies beyond the capitalist horizon.

Feeling Unsettled, but Eager to Debate: A Letter from the US

By Esther Dischereit

It’s no different in Brooklyn: of the 1,825 students accepted into an elite high school, 95 are black. Well-off parents pay for private tutoring long before the entrance exam so their children will pass the test. The result is that black and Latinx children are left waiting outside the door.

Let the People Rule: A Letter from the US

By Esther Dischereit

The words Let the People Rule can be found on an inscription in this city. This slogan, which Andrew Jackson proclaimed a long time ago, earned him the name of “Jackass” from his enemies. Since then, the Democrats are happy to use the image of a donkey in their campaigns.

In the Name of Humanity: A Letter from the US

By Esther Dischereit

Elizabeth has almost finished her degree in International Relations. She had an interview for the Foreign Service on Saturday that lasted all day. Is that her President? She rolled her eyes; she doesn’t believe that impeachment proceedings could succeed.

Colours of a Journey: An Archive of Human Mobility

By Senka Neuman Stanivukovic

How to assemble, curate and circulate an archive of human mobility? The Colours of a Journey (CoJ) is a collective that addresses these questions by envisioning an archive of human mobility that apprehends the variegated practices and experiences of movement.

Against Freedom: Scene 1 by Esteve Soler

Translated by H.J. Gardner

A fence separating one country from another in Europe. On one side, MOTHER, about 45 years old; on the other side, her SON, about 20 years old. They are connected to each other by the umbilical cord that supplies nourishment to the fetus. The cord is still functioning, moving nourishment from one body to the other.

In Remembrance of Kristallnacht

By Louie Dean Valencia-García

Eighty years ago today, November 9, 1938, an order was given by Nazi German authorities to terrorize and arrest German Jewish citizens, resulting in tens of thousands of people being sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, marked a violent escalation against Jewish people.

America First and the End of Pax Americana

By Stuart Mackintosh

As we approach the two-year mark of the Trump Presidency, the implications and the effects of the “America First” policy are becoming clear. Supporters of the multilateral rules-based world order are alarmed. We are witnessing the end of Pax Americana; the end of a generally benign U.S. hegemony; the end of U.S. support for a global system created by America and her allies after the Second World War.

Politics of Turkish European Belonging in the Era of “National Rebirth”

By Özgür Özvatan

European welfare states witness both the challenges of Turks’ political inclusion and the rise of the populist radical right firmly warning against the threat of “Islamization.” Turks in Europe, perceived as Europe’s dominant Muslim group, create complex dilemmas for “native” Europeans as well as their “non-native” Turkish fellows. The latter recognize drastic changes in the way they are treated in their everyday life and are portrayed in the public sphere in the aftermath of 9/11.

The “Brexit Moment” and British Academia  

By Mike Finn

In the Brexit debate, academic expertise itself came under visceral attack. Overwhelmingly, academics backed the Remain cause, and as the political scientist David Runciman has noted, universities and their environs often became isolated pockets of Remain resistance in otherwise Leave-dominated areas once the votes were tallied.

A World of Regions, but Not of Europes

By Giuseppe Spatafora

The end of the Cold War significantly strengthened the forces of globalization and internationalization: the political and economic developments in Eastern Europe, the post-Soviet space, Southeast Asia and Latin America opened up previously sealed markets and fuelled exponential growth of trade and financial interchange.

Constitutionalism in Russia: A Missed Opportunity

By Stephen F. Williams

The years 1905-1917 presented Russia with an opportunity to move smartly toward the rule of law and constitutionalism. In October 1905, Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, in which he promised a popularly elected legislature, the State Duma, and committed the regime to the principle that law could become effective only with approval of the Duma.

EU’s Balkans Test: Geopolitics of a Normative Power

By Enika Abazi

Fatigued by expansion and challenged by the refugee crisis, Brexit, Catalonian independence, and the aftershocks of the financial crash, the EU project faces major internal challenges, which perhaps should require the EU to revise its policies to make membership more attractive.

From Being to Living: Euro-Chinese Thought Lexicon by François Jullien

Reviewed by Anca Pop

François Jullien is a world-renowned French philosopher and sinologist, a most widely translated thinker with a prolific oeuvre on Chinese thought and culture. Having uniquely forged an intellectual reputation as an intercultural philosopher, he aptly holds the Alterity Chair at “Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme” in Paris.

China-EU Relations in the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with Mario Telò

Interviewed by Daniela Irrera

Mario Telò is an eminent scholar in the International Relations and European Studies field. He has just edited Deepening the EU-China Partnership: Bridging Institutional and Ideational Differences in an Unstable World with Ding Chun and Zhang Xiaotong (Routledge, 2018) where he discusses the relations between China and Europe and launches some perspectives on the future of this partnership, facing the regional and global political and economic developments and the challenges posed by the current instability.

Translating the Interior Galaxies of Anise Koltz

By Marci Vogel

As reflected in its title, Galaxies intérieures straddles the worlds of material and spirit, creating a convergence of inner and outer realms, an interior emotional galaxy intimately tied to earthly experience — personal, political, and linguistic.

The Big Impossible, an Art Series

By Jacob Dahlstrup 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene

Reviewed by Alison Sperling

Haraway engages the feminist techno-scientific thinkers and ideas that have always marked her work, as she stays with different sticky, murky, complicated practices and companions, laying out the ethical dilemmas presented on a damaged planet and making suggestions about how we are to navigate them.

Understanding the EU Aid Policy in Unpredictable Times

By Daniela Irrera

Among the EU policies, humanitarian aid has been one of the most expressive, expected to represent and apply the European principles and values in the world. It has changed a lot over the decades in its strategy, actors, and tools, trying to adapt to the transformations in the global environment and to fulfill international duties.

The Return of Politics, the End of Merkel? Germany’s New Grand Coalition

By Julian Jürgenmeyer

Martin Schulz went head-on against Angela Merkel: the German chancellor was a “vacuum cleaner of ideas,” sucking up the programmatic core of other parties and selling it as her own whenever public opinion polling promises a profit; her “systematic refusal of politics” was responsible for the rise of right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD); her election campaign nothing short of “scandalous.” The problem with Schulz’s fierce attack: it came too late.

Belgrade, 1941 by Biljana Jovanović

Translated by John K. Cox

Ivan urged his mother impatiently on, watching her root around in the ruins on Uskočka Street. He screamed at her, flapping his arms, cursed, threatened her, looked around in nervousness and fright: It’s already getting dark! But Milica, not paying him any heed, sat down on a smashed ceiling joist, and, now with her cane and now with her bare hand, she picked through the indistinguishable mass of rags, furniture, burnt scraps…

Primavera, an Art Series

By Sokari Douglas Camp

In this art series, Nigerian artist Sokari Douglas Camp finds herself inspired by European painters William Blake, Botticelli, and Michelangelo. These pieces aim to signify beauty and hope.

Germans on the Kenyan Coast: Land, Charity, and Romance

Reviewed by Mark Lawrence

Nina Berman’s Germans on the Kenyan Coast: Land, Charity, and Romance is a thoughtful effort to draw connections between the ever-vexed land question in the postcolonial world, the frequently oversimplified complexity of the history behind this, and the often-marginalized ways in which the personal has played as important a role as the political in externally-driven material development in Africa.

Generation Identity: A Millennial Fascism for the Future?

By Louie Dean Valencia-García

While many elements of the extreme far-right were suppressed after the Second World War, today, neo-fascists, white nationalists, far-right traditionalists, and new groups have emerged, such as Génération Identitaire (Generation Identity)—a trans-European, networked group of primarily young people who advocate for a “Europe of Nations.”

Writing into A Cultural Divide: An Interview with Sana Krasikov

Interviewed by Masha Udensiva-Brenner 

Krasikov immigrated to the United States in 1987 from the Soviet Republic of Georgia. Her critically-acclaimed debut short story collection, One More Year, was published in 2008. She was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists of 2017. I spent an afternoon with Krasikov in the Hudson Valley discussing her novel in the context of the recent global paradigm shift, and Russian-American political attitudes.

How Fascist is Arktos? A Traditionalist Confronting Fascism

By Louie Dean Valencia-García

From its beginning, ITP/Arktos heavily promoted the work of far-right philosopher Julius Evola, whose ideas were popular amongst fascist thinkers and in the press under Mussolini. Politically, Evola located himself to the right of fascism. Like many of his fascist contemporaries, Evola wanted to eschew modernity to restore an imagined, glorious past, delving into a sort of occultism that obscured the rhetoric of his fascistic ideologies.

History Repeating Itself: The Rebirth of Far-Right Ideology and Internal Strife

By Louie Dean Valencia-García

Established by many of the original ITP collaborators, most of whom no longer are with the company, Arktos dominates the field of far-right publishing, and has published and translated authors with the purpose of radically transforming the conservative and neoliberal right—calling forth a return of the “real right,” as Arktos C.E.O., Daniel Friberg, articulates in his less-than-eloquent manifesto work published in 2015.

ABCs of Arktos: People, Ideas, and Movements

By Louie Dean Valencia-García

Over the last decade, ITP/Arktos has created a trans-European and global Nationalist-Traditionalist network, translating and editing texts that have appealed to supporters of both nationalist and neo-traditionalist ideologies.

Populism Is a Problem. Elitist Technocrats Aren’t the Solution.

By Sheri Berman

Democracy today seems to be in constant crisis. Democratic backsliding has occurred in countries from Venezuela to Poland, and autocratic leaders, including Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, proudly proclaim that the era of liberal democracy is over.

The Rise of the European Far-Right in the Internet Age

By Louie Dean Valencia-García

Over the course of this series, readers will be introduced to a hybrid print/digital publisher that has brought esoteric, fascist ideologies back from the grave. Each installment will delve into another aspect of the media company, outlining Arktos’ history, while describing more broadly the ways its collaborators are using both the internet and analogue media to promote fascistic ideologies.

The Legacy of the Georgian Revolution

By Eric Lee

While the Russian Bolsheviks were clamping down on trade unions, which were dismissed by Trotsky as being under the control of “chatterboxes,” in Menshevik-led Georgia they thrived – retaining their independence from the state and winning a constitutional right to strike. They also played a key role in a remarkable institution known as the Wages Board, which consisted of ten representatives each from the employers and trade unions.

A Revelatory Biography: The Genial Genius

By Anne Price-Owen

For over three decades, devotees of the painter-poet David Jones have waited eagerly for the definitive biography and attendant revelations concerning this extraordinary artist and poet, and they have not been disappointed. Thomas Dilworth’s book is a compelling read, and his claim that Jones was the greatest native British Modernist working in twentieth century Britain is convincingly articulated.

“Trotskyists on Trial:” Defining Spanish Republican Antifascism in the Spanish Civil War

By Jonathan Sherry

All too often, the Spanish Civil War is discussed by way of subsequent events. The trend is just as marked in public discourse as it is in academic study. Whether intellectuals conceptualize the terms of World War II as the “first chapter” in the battle between the Axis and Allied powers, or in the Cold War lexicon as a struggle against Communist or Soviet domination, the ideological and historical complexity of the conflict is often swept under the carpet.

Broken

By Mark Römisch

Among the many challenges that Europe faces in the wake of the recent refugee crisis is the integration of millions of immigrants and the rise of xenophobia and nationalism at the same time. The photographic work Broken highlights an aspect of the crisis that is not necessarily obvious to those who are in support of the refugees or for those who want to refuse them entry to their country.

Exiles: Interviews by Kader Attia

Interviewed by Kader Attia

Many Syrian refugees are suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as delirium. These people were already ill in Syria before they arrived here. The delirium is mostly political; they feel persecuted by ISIS, the Syrian army. It has to do with politics rather than religion. We see more patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder than patients who are truly depressed.

Shanty Town Deluxe

By Roger Eberhard

It is quite common for wealthy tourists to visit impoverished countries without ever exposing themselves to the extreme penury its citizens suffer.

Sustainability and the Transformation of Transnational Politics

By Thomas Henökl

The EU is about to digest the separation from Great Britain, a major member state, and one of Europe’s two military powers. Setting a precedent of sorts, Brexit, so far, may appear to be a negative example of how to prepare for common challenges and multilateral cooperation in times of turbulence.

Forget Workers Going Out on Strike – In Future It Should Be Consumers

By Aude Cefaliello

I belong to a generation that has been told there is no other choice other than to be flexible in the labour market. It means being flexible about where you go to work, when you go to work, and about what work you are going to do. For many of us, the idea of a long-term employment contract in a company where there is the possibility to progress belongs to another time.

Big Business Prioritizes Climate Change Over Labour Rights – Here’s Why

By Kelly Kollman and Alvise Favotto

When the Trump administration was still deciding whether America should remain in the Paris climate agreement, the president’s closest officials lined up on different sides of the debate. Those in favour of the agreement included Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, a career property developer, and the secretary of state and former chief executive of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson.

So Much for Dutch Tolerance: Life as an LGBT Asylum Seeker in the Netherlands

By Sarah French Brennan

Aziz is from Kabul in Afghanistan. His boyfriend was murdered by his own family in early 2014. They threatened to kill Aziz too, so he fled. After he arrived at an asylum camp in the Netherlands, the family beat his mother and siblings. He sought asylum claiming he was in fear of his life, but the Dutch authorities rejected the application.

Windows, Gates, and Bridges, or the Architecture of the Bill

By Hunter Doyle and Sofia Pia Belenky

Zooming to the scale of the individual bill, it is clear that the note itself reflects both of these trends, the cultural narrative or mythology, as well as the private desire for territorial accumulation. Each euro note has an architectural theme ranging from classical to  “modern” twentieth century. As the bill increasses in value, the architectural period becomes more contemporary.

Citizen of the English Language: An Interview with Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

Interviewed by James Crossley

I hoped this story would go beyond the Persian diaspora. It is about all migrant communities, all refugees, all people exiled either by choice or because of necessity. We do need labels, to flag the limits of our knowledge, the extent of our ignorance, but as Aminatta Forna says, labels can also limit who we are.

Euro-Visions: Europe in Contemporary Cinema by Mariana Liz

Reviewed by Roger Hillman

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ongoing emergence of a new, multi-faceted European identity has been a gradual process. In a valuable contribution, this book takes stock of a work-in-process after its first quarter century, the melting pot fusion that is Europe, as reflected (but not in a vulgar Marxist sense) in European cinema

Announcing the EuropeNow Film Festival

By Jake Purcell

EuropeNow is collaborating with the World of Film International Festival Glasgow to make the EuropeNow Festival, featuring films from across the globe that address sustainability and transformation in Europe.

Locating Myself in the Anthropocene

By Julie Reiss

Like many people, I had been concerned about the frightening implications of the Anthropocene long before I even heard the word. As I worried about the widespread destructive impact of human activity on the earth, I became aware that geologists were debating whether that impact was so far reaching that it had caused a distinct geological epoch: the Anthropocene.

“We Are Poor,” the Czechs Have Realized with Horror

By Jan Čulík

While the Czechs as members of a ten million nation know very well their international influence would be greatly diminished if the EU ceased to exist, their dissatisfaction of what they increasingly see as a position of second rate citizens within the EU could in future become a deeply destabilizing factor.

Artist Spotlight: The Thousand Colors Of Nik Spatari

Curated by Antonio Laruffa 

When you talk about Nik Spatari, it is a very complex figure you are dealing with. Like the pagan god Janus, this artist might be seen as a man with two faces; like the god that can look to the past and the future, Spatari has been and still is a protagonist of artistic movements that span two centuries, both representing 20th-century Avant-garde and being an independent pioneer in 21st-century art.

compass, europenow journal

Compass by Mathias Énard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell

Reviewed by Yasmin Roshanian

With language, Mandell encompasses this urgent tie to the past. The history is fed to us in visceral images of women required to veil, drug rings flowing with opium, rotting buildings crippled with rickety bedframes, and cigarette burns dented in wood. As Franz recollects his most poignant memories from Tehran, he revisits a city still reeling from a revolution.

Why is the Czech Republic So Hostile to Muslims and Refugees?

By Jan Čulík

The significant upsurge of refugees, which came into Europe in 2015, was met with unprecedented anger and hostility from an overwhelming majority of citizens of most of the post-communist Central European countries. It would appear that a synergy of several historical, cultural, political, and economic factors has created this fiercely hostile reaction.

Analysis: Europe’s Center-Left Risks Irrelevance

By Sheri Berman

Economically, much of the continent suffers from low growth, high unemployment and rising inequality, while politically, disillusionment with the European community as well as domestic institutions and elites is widespread. Partially as a result, right-wing populism is growing, increasing political instability and uncertainty even further.

Language Cafes as a site of Wider Cultural Integration

By Claire Needler

This project aims to influence policy and practice, and to make tangible improvements to the lives of migrants who have settled in Scotland. Our focus is participatory action research, working with migrants and stakeholders to find local, grassroots solutions to issues they have identified.

Who Did Europe March For?

By Mary Wang

In European countries with growing right-wing movements, the upcoming elections should serve as a reminder that merging bodies into one space isn’t always enough. Instead, those in countries like France and the Netherlands, who will elect new governments in March, will need to understand that even in countries where the female body isn’t immediately under threat, female solidarity means voting against the politicians who will hurt immigrant and colored bodies more.

President Donald Trump EuropeNow

Trump, Brexit, Populism, and the Dawn of the Liberal World Order

By Thomas Henökl

Never before has the change of administration in the United States caused this much concern globally, and never before has a US President incited so much tension ahead of taking office. As the hopes for a Damascene conversion for the new POTUS are waning, one thing has become evident by now: the path of naive unilateralism that the forthcoming American government is set to follow will prove to be of little help for international development or a burgeoning global policy of common good.

The Politics of Hair

By Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough

While city attitudes toward women cutting their tresses had by then become more liberal, in small towns and villages the daring ones were branded morally delinquent and sentenced a priori to eternal damnation. A popular saying: “Short hair, short on brains” expressed prevalent attitudes.

End the Potemkin Villages

By Robert van Voren

The tragedy of Leonidas’ death is the fact that he did not have to die. The fact is that Vilnius airport has three defibrillators and none of them was touched. As I said, none of the airport staff tried to resuscitate him, and instead waited until the ambulance arrived–too late to save his life.

Cockroaches by Scholastique Mukasonga

Translated by Jordan Stump

But just then a crowd appeared, bellowing, with machetes in their hands, and spears, bows, clubs, torches. We hurried to hide in the banana grove. Still roaring, the men burst into our house. They set fire to the straw-roofed hut, the stables full of calves. They slashed the stores of beans and sorghum. They launched a frenzied attack on the brick house we would never live in. They didn’t take anything, they only wanted to destroy, to wipe out all sign of us, annihilate us.

Dispatch: Brexit and Higher Education

By Jake Purcell

On December 1 and 2, Columbia University hosted Brexit: Before & Beyond, a set of panels and events that brought together journalists and scholars from both European and American universities to discuss the events that precipitated the UK’s vote to leave the EU, as well as the continuing fallout from that referendum.

Dispatch: Post-Brexit International Relations

By Mary Wang

John Lancester’s “Brexit Blues,” published in the London Review of Books starts with an explanation of the “Overton window,” a concept in political science that describes the range of ideas that are deemed acceptable by the public at one time. The crucial insight of Joseph Overton, the inventor who lent his name to the concept, was that this window of acceptability could be shifted.

Analysis: Europe’s Traditional Left Is in a Death Spiral

By Sheri Berman

Europe today is a mess. The strongest countries face lackluster economic growth, while the weakest, like Greece, are struggling to recover from depression-like downturns. Politically, things are even worse, as disillusionment with European and domestic institutions and elites is at record levels, and support for far-left and far-right parties is growing, creating political instability.