Suchergebnisse

Europe : is it in motion? -- The unprecedented problem -- Thinking across spaces -- From spaces of identity to mental spaces -- Banal transnationalism, or the demystification of elsewhere -- Neither for you nor against you (cool loyalties) -- Always a question of a greeting -- Parting from phantoms -- Whoever looks always finds -- Above the countries

Abstract
This article explores issues covered in Wuhan Diary, a day-by-day account by the Chinese author Fang Fang of her experiences during the height of the pandemic crisis in the city of Wuhan during the early months of 2020. It seeks to bring out what is distinctive and innovative about the text. Most notably, this concerns the mobilization of social media, such as Weibo and WeChat, as a basis for social communication and the dissemination of information within and beyond the city. The resultant text is not a diary in the conventional sense but, rather, a vast montage of diverse kinds of material that have been electronically cut up and pasted together. A particular focus of the discussion concerns ethical support and solidarity among citizens of Wuhan at this time of acute disruption. In this context, the article suggests a significant, and maybe surprising, affinity between Fang Fang's immediate concerns and issues raised in the ethical philosophies of Paul Ricoeur and Gabriel Marcel.

This article is concerned with contemporary developments in European culture, with particular respect to new forms of transnational and transcultural mobility and communication. There is a growing sense that Europe has become a space of complexity and diversity—although, of course, the reality is that it was always so. In the context of the new articulations of complexity, however, it becomes crucial to develop more imaginative and resonant forms of understanding and dealing with cultural change. Certain possibilities are put forward—though only as possibilities among many potential others. The article is critical of many attempts to deal with the vital political issues by mainstream social sciences. The key issue, it is argued, concerns how we might elaborate upon actually existing discourses of cosmopolitanism. European cosmopolitan thinking has a long history and provides both intellectual and imaginative resources for the present conjuncture.

In this present discussion, I am concerned with the recent demolition and devastation of Sulukule, a predominantly Roma district located in the historical peninsula (Sultanahmet) of Istanbul. In order to address key issues, I think that it is necessary to explore the wider cultural setting and resonances of this aggressive action of urban–global "upgrading" in the city. The contemporary, general logic of metropolitan globalization should be situated in the specific and distinctive context of Istanbul's evolving urban identity. There are three principal objectives. The first is to describe the process by which Istanbul's Faith local municipality initiated a program of radical "urban renewal" in the cause of gentrification in the historic, central zone of the city. The second objective is to situate the developments in Sulukule in the context of the longer-term cultural imaginaire through which the city's historical trajectory has come to be conceived (as elaborated preeminently in the literary texts of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar and, subsequently, Orhan Pamuk). Third, I explore the new conceptual and ideological frame that is now coming to be mobilized to serve as a rationale for the reinvention, in the name of urban modernization, of Istanbul's cultural heritage, sense of identity, and logic of purpose. Much can be learned about the contemporary transformation of Istanbul through the prism of the recent, hard Roma experience.

This article is concerned with cultural policy for diversity in contemporary European societies. What it argues for is the need now to move beyond the national frame within which diversity policy has been hitherto conceived. A key development comes from the global migrations that have been occurring through the last twenty years, and which have brought a new cultural complexity to the European space. What this article suggests is that this complexity might actually be a productive resource for European culture generally. And what it maintains is that, in order to realize this potential, there is a need to address cultural policy from a perspective that is both transnational and transcultural. Transcultural diversity policy is crucial to the elaboration of a new European cosmopolitanism.