“Just over two weeks after the death of Vaclav Havel, another Czech literary figure who played a key role in his country’s Communist-era dissident movement, Josef Skvorecky, died of cancer Tuesday. He was 87.”
Brno: above & below ground
Posted in Uncategorized on 5 January 2012 by delclem
Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, has gained itself a reputation in recent years as a trade fair & university town, and as a racing course. The city now launches two new tourist sites underground (an alchemist´s lab & a punishment room) and in the air (the Brno observatory) > MORE (c) wieninternational.at, 2011
Austro-Pop as “counter-hegemonic resistance”?
Posted in Uncategorized with tags A3, Austria, Austro-Pop, Discourse Analysis, Haider, hegemony, Music, politics, STS, Waldheim on 4 January 2012 by delclem
“Recent political and social developments in Austria have been widely portrayed in simplistically metonymic terms, with controversial figures such as Waldheim and Haider being perceived to epitomise Austrian society as a whole.” In his paper, Christian Karner analyses “the discursive/lyrical content of some of the songs by STS and Austria 3, two of the most successful bands within the genre of Austrian popular music. Approaching these two case studies from the theoretical perspectives of discourse analysis and cognitive anthropology, he tries to show that ‘Austro-Pop’ has – at important junctures in recent Austrian history – served as a tool of ideological resistance and created sites of social critique and cultural introspection.” (…) I have to admit: I am not really sure about this…
Inside Italian Camps
Posted in Uncategorized with tags camps, gypsies, Italy, Robin Hammond, Roma on 2 January 2012 by delclem
Photographer Robin Hammond travels to the Roma camps in Italy to document the plight of the people there against the discrimination they face from the rest of the country (c) THE GUARDIAN, 2008-11 > More photos > Article
Can Eastern Europe’s Greatness Return?
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Eastern Europe on 1 January 2012 by delclem
“A critical reading of European history and an eye-witness report of pre-1989 citizen protests in the Eastern bloc highlight overlooked narratives and the undervalued potential of the region.” Essay by Guy Kiddey (c) VIENNA REVIEW, 2011
Kulturkampf in Budapest
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Budapest, Hungary, Kulturkampf, Little Warsaw, Nationalism on 31 December 2011 by delclem
Little Warsaw: The Battle of Inner Truth – Budapest, 2011
(while a cultural struggle of sorts is taking place in Hungary…)
Images of an era
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, exhibition, photography, postwar on 30 December 2011 by delclem
Until the end of January everyone has a chance to immerse themselves in the world of Austrian photography after 1945 > MORE
(c) wieninternational.t, 2011
k. & k. Manhunter
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Andrew Krivak, First World War, Literature, Slovakia, sniper, United States on 29 December 2011 by delclem
Set in a world that has faded from living memory, The Sojourn by the Slovak American author Andrew Krivak is a searing coming-of-age story about a sniper in the Austrian Army on the Italian front in the First World War.
Review (c) THE VIENNA REVIEW, 2011.
Grande dame of Austrian anthropology
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Anthropology, Austria, Etta Becker-Donner, exhibition on 28 December 2011 by delclem
“Etta Becker-Donner was a pioneer in the field of anthropology. She would have turned 100 this year. Her birthday comes as a welcome occasion for the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna to commemorate the great field researcher, scientist and former museum director with a small, but fine exhibition” > MORE
(c) wieninternational.at, 2011
City within the city
Posted in Uncategorized with tags cultural space, Ljubljana, Metelkova, Slovenia on 27 December 2011 by delclemMetelkova: 18 years of utopian freedom in Ljubljana
Copenhagen has Christiania, Berlin has Tacheles, and Ljubljana has Metelkova City, its very own autonomous cultural center.
Metelkova is situated in the former barracks of Yugoslav People’s Army which were left abandoned after Slovenia became independent in 1991. Some 200 volunteers squatted the premises in 1993 after their formal request to use the barracks as artistic space fell on deaf ears.
> MORE (c) BTurn, 2011 (reblogged)
delirium clemens 