Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe Vladimir Putin’s speech this week focused on the history of the Ukraine as a justification for Russian aggression argued that Ukraine was created by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution as an administrative convenience and that it never was a “real” nation with a deep history of its own. Other heads of state in Europe and elsewhere panned the speech. Ingrida Simonyte, the …
Notes from the Polish Border with Belarus The heavily policed Eastern borderlands of Poland, Podlachia, saw significant changes in the latter half of December. The number of police personnel and road checkpoints began dwindling away. Previously, one could hardly drive ten kilometers without being stopped and being subject to inspection. Each car trunk, no matter how big the vehicle, was checked multiple times. In theory, judging from the …
In mainland China today, Hannah Arendt has an important presence in both the academic and the public sphere. CNKI—China’s main academic database—records more than a thousand pieces of scholarly writings that have “Arendt” in their titles, dating back to the 1990s. Arendt is also among a small group of contemporary Western thinkers whose influence is beyond the boundaries of academic research. Concepts coined by Arendt, such as the …
Reflections on the Democracy Seminar Launch We “zoomed” our launch event for the Democracy Seminar in December. We discussed the relationships between collaboration and democracy. The discussion featured Obaidullah Baheer from Afghanistan, Daniel Peres from Brazil, Karolina Wigura from Poland, Shireen Hassim from South Africa, and Jeffrey C. Isaac from the U.S.A., and a few dozen others joined us from around the world: watching, listening, and questioning the …
France’s presidential election will be held in April. Emmanuel Macron will seek re-election. Will he be able to overcome the failures of his two predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, and restore the tradition of the long presidencies of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac? His biggest rivals are on the right, the most unpredictable of whom is Éric Zemmour. Éric Zemmour, the far-right candidate for the presidency of …
“The time,” once again, is “out of joint,” but the spirit of Ágnes Heller defies Hamlet’s bitter prediction about how quickly people forget. “[A] man’s memory may outlive him by six months. But he’s got to build churches for that to happen, or else he’ll have to put up with being forgotten…, like the hobby horse in the popular song” (Act III,2). While no builder of churches she, …
The Case of Osman Kavala It’s been more than four years since Osman Kavala’s detention. On October 18, 2017, the day he was taken into custody, we all thought that “they probably won’t arrest him” and on November 1, when he was arrested we said to each other “they probably won’t keep him for long.” Today, 10 December 2021, marks the 1501st day of Osman Kavala’s detention and …
The Case of Andrea Pető Andrea Pető is a Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University. She is an extremely well-published scholar (see her bio here), a distinguished historian who has also been a leader in the development of Gender Studies in Hungary and throughout Europe. Many readers of Democracy Seminar will be familiar with her work. Last week Professor Pető “made news” when …
Thoughts Anticipating the Democracy Seminar Webinar on Collaborating with Enemies, Opponents and Friends The Democracy Seminar has been very active the past few months, considering global authoritarian developments and exploring the democratic responses to the developments. We have also been polishing our new platform, in anticipation of the official launch of the platform on December 3rd. Here are my introductory thoughts on the topic of our launch event, …
Reflections on the Pandemic, Global Warming, Democracy, and the Social Condition On September 12, 2021, I delivered the keynote lecture at the Graduate School for Social Research Summer School, in Wierzba, Poland. The response to the lecture has convinced me that I should share it with my colleagues and the public in Democracy Seminar. J.C.G. God is not dead. The specter of Communism, the thousand-year Reich, and the …
