“Bubbles is the first volume of Peter Sloterdijk‘s hugely ambitious and suggestive trilogy Spheres (1998-2004) to appear in English. Here he attempts nothing less than a metaphysical history of enclosed spaces, utopian or practical pods and domes, real and fantastical atmospheres or ecosystems.” Review (c) THE GUARDIAN 2012
Illustration: carpet by Margret Eicher Sloterdijk facing the Holy Inquisition of Trivial Taste
“Hermann Hesse spent his life searching for truth and inner harmony outside Germany. Yet his quests to the East ultimately led him back to the West and to the realization that the alternatives he found in the East offered no short cut to salvation. To mark the 50th anniversary of his death, Gunnar Decker presents a new biography of the successful author, one which also explains the Orientalism in his work.” >review (c) Qantara.de 2012
A fierce debate has been raging in Germany and Austria for weeks how ‘lawful’ the religiously motivated circumcision of little Jewish and Muslim boys is… Does it conflict with the basic human rights of personal integrity and self-determination? Or is it a sign of closet xenophobia against religious groups? See the articles below.
This letter was allegedly written by Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler on 23 July 1939: is it authentic or fabricated? There were letters written indeed, it seems; but this one? >more Btw., a controversial movie on this topic was shot in 2011.
On the alleged decline of the ‚Austrian’ language.
Language seems to be a hot topic in Austria this year. After a series of other incidents, the Viennese daily Die Presse alarmed the sunny nation last Sunday that the Austrian variant of German is in danger of extinction. A survey among first-year students of German at the University of Vienna carried out by linguist Peter Wiesinger has revealed that one third of the young adults use German-German expressions even in cases where there is an Austrian word, eg. Junge instead of Bub („boy“, „lad“). Continue reading
The Czech village Lidice
was destroyed by German occupying forces on 10 June 1942 in reprisal for the assassination of Nazi deputy governor and Holocaust mastermind Reinhard Heydrich by British-trained Czech patriots in late May (“Operation Anthropoid”; see my earlier post on the subject matter). The exiled Bertolt Brecht dedicated his script to the Hollywood movie Hangman Also Die! from 1943 to Heydrich’s assissination; the director was the Austrian Fritz Lang). However, most inhabitants of Lidice perished after the attack… > Text on the literary legacy of the massacre (c) Radio Prague, 2012
Also see the letter the German president J. Gauck wrote to the Czech president on the occasion of the anniversary.
“IT MUST, in many ways, be annoying for Dr Merkel and the Germans to have to hear the whingeing of the Portuguese, Irish, Greeks and Spaniards. For the Germans have come through problems unimaginable to most nations. Defeat in two world wars, hyperinflation in the 1920s, dictatorship and a divided country. One item in the litany of German disaster in the 20th century is often overlooked – reparations inflicted on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles after the first World War.” >Text (c) IRISH TIMES, 2012
Is the renowned German art exhibition documenta in Kassel censoring (other) art?
“Amidst fervent interest and speculation regarding the artist list of the upcoming 13th edition of the exhibtion, which has the art world looking for any clues possible to upset the traditionally secret document, documenta artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and the catholic church have exchanged blows over a sculpture installed on the spire of Kassel’s St. Elizabeth’s Church. The work, Stephan Balkenhol’s “Man in the Tower” (2012), is a rough-hewn wooden rendering of a male figure dressed in a white shirt and grey trousers, with arms outstretched as if on a crucifix.” > text (c) ARTINFO, 2012
> website documenta 13
delirium clemens 