Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
more
Le Monde des livres | Tygodnik Powszechny | The Economist | Le Nouvel Observateur | Nepszabadsag
Le Monde des livres 08.02.2007 (France)
Recent weeks have witnessed a growing rumble of discontent among friends and followers of Pierre Bourdieu. This was provoked by linguist and philosopher Jean-Claude Milner who, on Alain Finkielkraut's radio programme "Repliques", accused the sociologist of anti-Semitism. On February 8, a number of intellectuals wrote to the Liberation to protest against these "absurd and ludicrous" accusations. Jean Birnbaum summarises Milner's arguments, which fire directly at two of Bordieu's books, "The Inheritors: French Students and Their Relations to Culture" and "State nobility. Elite Schools in the Field of Power". According to Birnbaum, Milner's "objective was to provoke thought", because of what he considers are the "disastrous" consequences of Bordieu's theories on young immigrants. He quotes Milner: "The astonishing thing about Bourdieu is his general style, his use of rhetoric which involves twisting the meanings of words. He describes as 'inheritors' groups that have no inheritance and uses the term 'state noblesse' for something that has nothing to do with noblesse. I myself am an example of what he calls meritocratic elitism. But what inheritance he is referring to? My parents had no money, and French was not their mother tongue!"
Tygodnik Powszechny 12.02.2007 (Poland)
Since Archbishop Wielgul of Warsaw confessed to having collaborated with the communist police, Poland has turned the spotlight on its communist past. Conservative politicians and newspapers are flocking to point the finger at Adam Michnik, the one-time leading dissident and now editor-in-chief of the influential Gazeta Wyborcza, for having stonewalled lustration processes in cahoots with the (post) communists. Michal Olszewski declares: "The day of reckoning is here. Gazeta Wyborcza and Michnik himself, with their strategy of national reconciliation and forgiveness, are on the defensive. All the talking is now being done by people who have had enough of differentiation and who like things black and white. Communism was bad, the failure to address the communist past in 1989 was bad. The time has come to take revenge on Michnik for all the real and alleged misdemeanours."
The Economist 12.02.2007 (UK)
The Economist finds Ayaan Hirsi Ali's autobiography as fascinating as it is problematic. "Read as a modern coming-of-age story set in Africa, the book has a certain charm. Read as a key to the thinking of a woman who aspires to be the Muslim Voltaire, it is more problematic. The facts as Ms Hirsi Ali tells them here do not fit well either with some of the stories she has told in the past or with her tendency in her political writing to ascribe most of the troubles of the Muslim world to Islam." Follow the multicuralism debate launched by Pascal Bruckner here.
Le Nouvel Observateur 08.02.2007 (France)
To mark the publication of his book "A Sultan in Palermo" in France, Pakistani author, journalist and filmmaker Tariq Ali talks in an interview about Islamism, Iraq, and his youth in London in the 60s where he mingled with the likes of Mick Jagger and John Lennon. Things look black for Iraq, he states: "In my opinion, the Kurdish areas in the north will separate and come under Israeli/American protection. A major part of the south will become an Iranian protectorate, while the middle will be dominated by the Saudis or by Syria. The times of an independent Iraq with its own territorial sovereignty are over. Like Afghanistan, the country is a veritable time bomb."
Nepszabadsag 10.02.2007 (Hungary)
Political scientist Laszlo Lengyel has read the new book of essays by Adam Michnik, and agrees with Michnik that Western Europe has "lost interest in our region". "Far from taking an active part in shaping Europe, we are still very much an outsider, be it a reverential or a sceptical one.... It's not easy to go on beseeching Europeans in Brussels or other European capitals to help protect Europe's periphery from the barbarians, and at the same time to see their cold calculating looks and indifferent smiles. It's as if they were saying: Dear Central Europeans, handle your barbarians yourselves, we've got enough problems! Michnik hates the Poland which seeks to be the historical 'guarantor' of Western Europe, which puts demands on Europe and the world, but itself supposedly has no debts. Michnik has no time for the Poland – and the Central Europe – that sees only its own suffering, and wants to have all its sins absolved. Michnik wanted Poland to become a normal country. Now he stands there, still on the periphery, and must continually point to the special, other Poland, just to attract people's attention at all. As a Central European it's impossible to become a member of the inner circle of the European club. Our enterprises, newspapers and opinions remain forever Polish or Hungarian. We will never sit on the management boards in Munich, Paris or Milan, we will never belong to the decision makers. All we have is the choice of remaining at home as vice regents, or of emigrating. Europe, take care that after having won us, you don't lose us just as fast!
RSS
Twitter
The Republicans are waging a war against women, the New York Magazine declares. Perhaps it's because women are so unabashed about reading porn in public - that's according to publisher Beatriz de Moura in El Pais Semanal, at least. Polityka remembers Operation Reinhard. Tensions are growing between Poland and Hungary as Victor Orban spreads his influence, prompting ruminations on East European absurdity from both Elet es Irodalom and salon.eu.sk. Wired is keeping its eyes peeled on the only unassuming sounding Utah Data Center.
In Telerama, Benjamin Stora grabs hold of the Algerian boomerang. In Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic tells the Venetians that they should be very scared of Chinese money. Bela Tarr tells the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Berliner Zeitung that his "Turin Horse", which ends in total darkness was not intended to depress. In die Welt, historian Dan Diner cannot agree with Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands": National Socialism was not like Communism - because of Auschwitz.
In Perfil author Martin Kohn explains why Argentina would be less
Argentinian if it won back the Falklands. In Il sole 24 ore, Armando
Massarenti describes the Italians as a pack of illiterates sitting atop a
treasure trove. Polityka introduces the Polish bestseller of the season:
Danuta Walesa's autobiography. L'Express looks into the state of
Japanese literature one year after Fukushima.
In Merkur, Stephan Wackwitz muses on poetry and absurdity in Tiflis. Outlook India happens on the 1980s Indian answer to "The Artist". Bloomberg Businessweek climbs into the cuckoo's nest with the German Samwar brothers. Salon.eu.sk learns how to line the pockets of a Slovenian politician. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Navid Kermani reports back impressed from the Karachi Literature Festival. 
In La Vie des idees, historian Anastassios Anastassiadis explains why we should go easy on Greece. Author Aleksandar Hemon describes in Guernica how ethnic identity is indoctrinated in the classroom in Bosnia and Herzogovina. In Eurozine, Klaus-Michael Bogdal examines how Europe invented the Gypsies. Elet es Irodalon praises the hygiene obsession of German journalists. And Polityka pinpoints Polish schizophrenia.
The New Republic sees a war being waged in the USA against women's rights. For Rue89, people who put naked women on the front page of a newspaper should not be surprised if they go to jail. In Elet es Irodalom, historian Mirta Nunez Daaz-Balart explains why the wounds of the Franco regime never healed. In Eurozine, Stephen Holmes and Ivan Krastev see little in common between the protests in Russia and those in the Arab world.
In Letras Libras Enrique Krauze and Javier Sicilia fight over anarchy levels. In Elet es Irodalom Balint Kadar wants Budapest to jump on the Berlin bandwagon. In Le Monde Imre Kertesz has given up practically all hope for a democratic Hungary. Polityka ponders poetic inspiration and Wislawa Szymborska's "I don't know". In Espressso, Umberto Eco gets eschatological.
Poland's youth have taken to the streets to protest against Acta and Donald Tusk has listened, Polityka explains. Himal and the Economist report on the repression of homosexuality in the Muslim world. Outlook India doesn't understand why there will be no "Dragon Tattoo" film in India. And in Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic looks at how close the Serbs are to eating grass.
In the French Huffington Post, philosopher Catherine Clement explains why the griot Youssou N'Dour had next to no chance of becoming Senegal's president. Peter Sloterdijk (in Le Monde) and Umberto Eco (in Espresso) share their thoughts about forgetting. Al Ahram examines the post-electoral depression of Egypt's young revolutionaries. And in Eurozine, Kenan Malik defends freedom of opinion against those who want the world to go to sleep.
Il Sole Ore weeps at the death of a laughing Vincenzo Consolo. In Babelia, Javier Goma Lanzon cries: Praise me, please! Osteuropa asks: Hungaria, quo vadis? The newborn French Huffington Post heralds the birth of the individual in the wake of the Arab Spring. Outlook India is infuriated by the cowardliness of Indian politicians in the face of religious fanatics.
In Nepszabadsag the dramatist György Spiro recognises 19th century France in Hungary today. Peter Nadas, though, in Lettre International and salon.eu.sk, is holding out hope for his country's modernisation. In Open Democracy, Boris Akunin and Alexei Navalny wish Russia was as influential as America - or China. And in Lettras Libras, Peter Hamill compares Mexico with a mafia film by the Maquis de Sade.
Are books about to become a sort of author-translator wiki, asks Il Sole 24 Ore. Rue 89 reports on the "Tango Wars" in downtown Buenos Aires. Elet es Irodalom posits a future for political poetry. In Merkur, Mikhail Shishkin encounters Russian pain in Switzerland. Die Welt discovers the terror of the new inside the collapse of the old in Andrea Breth's staging of Isaak Babel's "Maria". And Poetry Foundation waits for refugees in Lampedusa. 
Technology Review sees Apple as the next Big Brother. In Eurozine, Per Wirten still fears the demons of the European project. Al Ahram Weekly features Youssef Rakha's sarcastic "The honourable citizen manifesto". Revista Piaui profiles Iraqi-Norwegian geologist Farouk Al-Kasim. Slate.fr comments on the free e-book versions of Celine's work. And Die Welt celebrates the return of Palais Schaumburg.
Andre Glucksman in Tagesspiegel looks at the impact of the Putinist plague on Russia and Europe. In Letras Libras Martin Caparros celebrates the Kindle as book. György Dalos has little hope that Hungary's intellectuals can help get their country out of the doldrums. Le Monde finds Cioran with his head up the skirt of a young German woman. The NYT celebrates the spread of N'Ko, the West African text messaging alphabet.
MicroMega cheers recent landmark Mafia convictions in Milan. Volltext champions Hermann Broch. Elet es Irodalom calls the Orban government’s attack on cultural heritage "Talibanisation". Magyar Narancs is ambiguous about new negotiations with the IMF. Telerama recommends the icon of anti-colonialism Frantz Fanon. Salon.eu.sk quips about the dubious election results in Russia, and voices in the German press mark the passing of Christa Wolf. And in the Anglophone press Wired profiles Jeff Bezos, while the Columbia Journalism Review polemicises the future of internet journalism.