{"title":"Health versus humanity? Three recent German novels on biopolitics and citizenship","authors":"Marko Pajević","doi":"10.1177/00472441231221272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231221272","url":null,"abstract":"Three recent German novels, Juli Zeh’s Corpus Delicti, 2009, Zoë Beck’s thriller Paradise City, 2020,and Martin Schäuble’s youth novel Cleanland, 2020, present dystopian views of a future society based on a health system which, on the surface, is extremely successful but on closer observation represents the collapse of humanity. These novels represent a thoroughgoing critique of biopolitics as defined by Michel Foucault and radicalised by Giorgio Agamben and Achille Mbembe. This article investigates their criticism of biopolitics in the light of the transformation of society due to COVID-19 measures, focusing on the situation in Germany, albeit largely applicable also to other western countries. To shed light on the changes in our conception of citizenship, it first presents an analysis of the shift in meaning of the concept of ‘solidarity’ as an example of discursive change and reflects on the role of literature for societal development. Against that backdrop, the article examines the conflict of interests that sees health and security pitted against freedom as presented in the novels and explores further key aspects: the media, manipulation and fear, the counterworlds both inside and outside the shiny world of these affluent societies, and the constructed opposition between humanity and health system. These considerations will lead in the conclusion to a discussion of biopolitics in the context of the COVID-19 crisis with regard to digital culture and citizenship.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"111 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139444509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rethinking biopolitics: COVID-19, differential vulnerabilities and biopolitical rights","authors":"Daniele Lorenzini","doi":"10.1177/00472441231221274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231221274","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I develop a critique of the forms of differential vulnerability produced by biopolitical technologies of power which became particularly salient during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, I address some conceptual and methodological questions linked to Foucault’s work on biopolitics, and I argue that one of his most promising insights is the claim that biopolitics necessarily entails a politics of differential vulnerability. I then develop an immanent critique of this politics of differential vulnerability and show that it should be construed as a form of injustice. Finally, I argue that some of the most fundamental human rights can be conceived as ‘biopolitical rights’, that is, as rights whose normativity stems from the biopolitical mechanisms of power that manage our biological lives. I conclude by suggesting that a critical theory of biopolitical rights constitutes an effective strategic response to the current injustices created – before, during and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic – by the biopolitical production of the differential exposure of citizens to health, social and environmental risks.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"43 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139442614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ukraine and Russia, Ireland and Britain: Quasi-colonial subjugation, anti-imperial nationalism and conflict, end of empire, and ‘the lost peace’: A review essay","authors":"R. Bideleux","doi":"10.1177/00472441231210973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231210973","url":null,"abstract":"This essay reviews new books on the fraught relationships between Ukraine, Russia and North Atlatic Treaty Organization countries since 1990, and on comparative studies of quasi-colonial subjugation, the development of anti-imperial nationalism and conflict, and protracted and violent transitions to full national independence in Ireland and Ukraine. There are comparisons of the ways in which four centuries of recurrent tension, conflict and divergence between Ukraine and Russia either resembled or differed from the five centuries of fraught relationships between Ireland and Britain. Ireland’s Great Famine (1846–1849) is compared with Ukraine’s Holodomor (1932–1933). The essay also assesses conflicting attributions of responsibility for ‘squandering’ the opportunity to enhance European security and global peace during the 1990s, and for bringing about dramatic escalations of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 – initiating a ‘Second Cold War’ from 2014 onward.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"620 ","pages":"413 - 440"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139248557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conference report on <i>Miasto i Pamięc</i>, ‘Cities and Memory in Eastern Europe’, 27–29 October, 2021.","authors":"Stefan Halikowski Smith","doi":"10.1177/00472441231202514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231202514","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"106 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135136249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ukrainian identity in the images and symbols of Olena Kulchytska’s graphic works","authors":"Yaryna Horichko","doi":"10.1177/00472441231205726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231205726","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces the graphic work of Olena Kulchytska (1877–1967) within the cross-cultural context of Austro-Hungary and the Russian Empire pre-1914, where she received her training. Kulchytska is at once an internationalist and European artist and indebted to regional religious practice and local folkloric motifs. She practised her craft designing ex-libris bookplates, an important genre in Ukraine. The article then analyses the iconography of Kulchytska’s graphic works on military themes, emphasizing their significance in the context of Ukrainian identity. The parallels between the horrors she depicted and events from Ukrainian history (from the Early Middle Ages to the second half of the twentieth century) are identified, and the quite timeless character of most of the images and symbols is demonstrated. The practical significance of this study lies in its emphasis on the war theme in modern art, especially in the conditions of the current war in Ukraine.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"115 47","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135138505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lviv relived in exile: Józef Wittlin and <i>Mόj Lwów</i> [My Lwów]","authors":"Nina Taylor-Terlecka","doi":"10.1177/00472441231208298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231208298","url":null,"abstract":"The Polish-Jewish novelist, poet and translator Józef Wittlin (1896–1976), author of the classic Sól ziemi (1935, English Salt of the Earth, 1939), lived in Lwów (until 1918 Lemberg, today Lviv) for about 20 years until 1922. Thereafter, whether in Poland or from 1939 in exile first in France, then the United States, he cherished his memories of this architecturally distinguished and multiethnic city, publishing his memoir Mόj Lwów [My Lwów] with an exile press in New York in 1946 (English translation 2016). The article draws on archival documents from Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States and other published sources to give a history of the book’s conception and reception, above all in the exiled Polish diaspora, and makes a case for Mόj Lwów’s enduring significance as a work of imaginative reconstruction written in exile.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"105 27","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135137296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Soviet occupation of Polish Lwów (September 1939–July 1941) in light of some unpublished British diplomatic reports by John Russell, R.D. Macrae and Thomas Preston","authors":"Stefan Halikowski Smith","doi":"10.1177/00472441231207090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231207090","url":null,"abstract":"The Soviet occupation of Polish Lwów between September 1939 and July 1941 is investigated in light of some unpublished British diplomatic reports contained in dossier F.O. (Foreign Office). 371, file 116 in the National Archives, London and produced from first-hand experience of conditions in the occupied lands. The missions, primarily to secure the safe exit of British and Jewish subjects, contain information contributing to an understanding of the radical changes brought about in that territory, its impromptu incorporation into the Ukrainian SSR, the beginnings of mass deportations both to Siberian GULags and kolkhoz farms in Kazakhstan, and the steady eradication of private ownership.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"124 17","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135137147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Viktor A. Griza, Serhii M. Honcharuk, Volodymyr Ya. Mykhalov, Mykhailo M. Barnych, Oleksandr I. Balaban
{"title":"Changes in the representation of heroes in contemporary Ukrainian cinema","authors":"Viktor A. Griza, Serhii M. Honcharuk, Volodymyr Ya. Mykhalov, Mykhailo M. Barnych, Oleksandr I. Balaban","doi":"10.1177/00472441231206550","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231206550","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines current trends in the changing concept of the hero in recent Ukrainian cinema and the related tendency to neglect authentic Ukrainian culture on account of the pervasive influence of Western traditions in cinema. The article employs various, academic methods of art criticism: literary and film analysis, comparison, synthesis, analogy and typologisation. Analysing several films from the period of independent Ukraine, Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (2017, dir. Akhtem Seitablayev), Sniper. The White Raven (2022, dir. Marian Bushan) and Klondike (2022, dir. Maryna Er Gorbach), the authors show that the depiction of Ukrainian film heroes depends on contemporary local events. The contemporary hero of Ukrainian cinema emerges as an ambiguous figure.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":" 999","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135185935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Olga V. Shkolna, Olha D. Sosik, Maryna O. Hurenko, Roksolana V. Diachenko, Veronika I. Zaitseva
{"title":"Painted eggs in the Muslim and Christian traditions","authors":"Olga V. Shkolna, Olha D. Sosik, Maryna O. Hurenko, Roksolana V. Diachenko, Veronika I. Zaitseva","doi":"10.1177/00472441231205728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231205728","url":null,"abstract":"Eggs are a symbol of life, reproduction and restoration of nature for many nationalities. The oldest egg decoration ceremonies are known to have taken place among Zoroastrians, whose historical heartland lies in Azerbaijan, India and Iran. The ancient tradition of decorating eggs connects the culture of historical Persia to contemporary Europe. In many Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine, these practices persist up to the present where painted eggs serve as national symbols. While the patterns on the eggs and the style of painting may differ (Iran’s Nowruz holiday eggs are different from European Easter Eggs), there are similarities in the decorative techniques used by the Slavic peoples of Ukraine, Poland and Romania who have preserved the tradition of treating the egg as a sacred source and repository of nascent life which has a protective power.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"116 10","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135137448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Narrating war through visual language: Commemorative activity of ordinary people in Central Ukraine (Poltava oblast) in 2014–2021","authors":"Anna Glew","doi":"10.1177/00472441231206347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441231206347","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how ordinary people in the Poltava oblast (Central Ukraine) commemorated the Russia-Ukraine war during the 2014–2021 period (prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022). Focusing on physical commemorative objects constructed by ordinary people, this article investigates the commemorative activity of ordinary people in Central Ukraine who are ‘activated’ to carry out commemorative work by this turbulent and emotionally charged event in Ukraine’s recent history and seek to project their individual, private memories into the public arena. This article’s central argument is that ordinary people in Central Ukraine actively exercise their agency in the area of commemoration, to ensure the memory of the Russia-Ukraine war is present in the commemorative landscape, playing an important role in public meaning-making. Thus, by utilising different types of visual language, ordinary people narrate soldiers’ sacrifice in the name of the nation, presenting Ukraine’s response to Russia’s aggression as a righteous and noble struggle. Through linking this event to other periods of Ukraine’s history, they create plotlines of Ukraine’s centuries-long struggle for sovereignty and self-determination. Therefore, ordinary people contribute to the construction of narratives about history and the identity of the Ukrainian nation. This article is an empirical contribution to the body of knowledge on the commemorative activity of ordinary people as social memory actors, and it also contributes to the knowledge of how ongoing violent conflicts are commemorated.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":"105 23","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135137299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}