Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
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Lebanon used to be a blessed harbour in a brutal region - with beautiful women, fat wallets and parliamentary democracy. But appearances were deceiving. The country has become a battlefield where all conflicts are carried out in microcosm. Lebanese author Selim Nassib writes an instructive history of the Lebanese inferno, fired by other peoples' wars as well as its own.
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Since the conflict flared up in Lebanon, many voices in Europe and the Middle East have been seeking to make head or tail of the goings on. We give a press review from the German feuilletons as well as several interesting articles in their entirety. Selim Nassib tells the history of Lebanon as battlefield. Imre Kertesz, Navid Kermani and Tjark Kunstreich ask whether it's possible to discuss Israel and the Lebanon conflict without referring to the Holocaust.
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Elke Heidenreich is smitten by the Glyndebourne Festival in England and asks herself why can't Germans do this - enjoy the exquisite pleasure of opera without feeling obliged to analyse it to death?
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In Elet es Irdalom, Rudolf Ungvary asks why Günter Grass remains silent while Iran is threatening Israel. Ornette Coleman talks about his music in L'Express. In Der Spiegel, Salman Rushdie describes Islamic terrorists as bourgeois adventurists. Il Foglio recommends that UN soldiers in Lebanon should listen to Rossini's "L'italiana in Algeri" for lessons on how to behave. The Gazeta Wyborcza observes the growth of nationalist historiography in Ukraine. Prospect celebrates the Soviet writer Vasily Grossman. And Ramin Jahanbegloo explains his concept of "soft universalism."
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Israel is not only defending its territorial security, it is fighting an Islamic anti-Semitism which European politics are determined to ignore. When it comes to the crunch, the Europeans' "critical dialogue" and culturally-obsessed interpretations, not to mention their playing down of anti-Semitism, have contributed to keeping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict alive. By Tjark Kunstreich
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Post-Holocaust morality and the violence of today: Navid Kermani says Israel weakens itself if it builds on military might, and forgets its past as victim.
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The new permanent exhibition at the German Historical Museum has reopened in Berlin's Zeughaus. Historian Christoph Jahr says the show is too soft on the GDR, makes unreflective use of both communist and Nazi lingo and is overly rooted in the idea of the nation-state. Lots to say, but little substance. (Image: Bernhard Stigel: Kaiser Maximilian I, 1496)
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In an interview with Eszter Radai, the Hungarian author Imre Kertesz talks about his new novel "Dossier K.", the breed of Euro-anti-Semitism after Auschwitz and how to survive a dictatorship.
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The weekly paper Wprost has revealed that Zbigniew Herbert worked for the Polish secret service, and the Gazeta Wyborcza is not amused. The New Yorker takes a look at Daniel Libeskind's Denver Art Museum. In Outlook India, Taslima Nasrin gives three cheers for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Heti Vilaggazdasag doesn't want to be lectured to by either Günter Grass or Istvan Szabo. And De Groene Amsterdammer explains why you can't access the website of the University of Virginia from Iran.
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What is it that people find in St. Moritz, 1,856 metres above sea level? Is it the proximity of the sky? The snow, the cold, the peace, the pure air? Or is it a sense of their own impermanence? German novelist Thomas Hettche travels in the footsteps of Nietzsche and the jet set to Switzerland's exclusive resort.
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The Grass confession has spawned no end of consternation, reprobation and contemplation among Germany's intellectual elders. The writers Eva Menasse (born 1970) and Michael Kumpfmüller (born 1961) wonder when their generation will have a chance to set the tone of German debate - on issues that really matter, and without the deadening bass tone of German history in the background.
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The Gazeta Wyborcza fears that nationalism is threatening European unity. In the Spiegel, writer Irene Dische suspects Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder will always find an object for his hatred. In The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh looks for the real reasons behind America's support for Israel's tactics in Lebanon. In Heti Valasz, historian Andreas Oplatka wonders whether the leader of Hungary's 1956 revolution, Imre Nagy, was a communist through and through. Il Foglio details the current spy intrigues between China and Taiwan. In The Spectator, Boris Johnson insists he's a British fish.
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Having claimed for sixty years that he was no more than a conscripted flak helper in World War Two, Günter Grass now admits that he actually served with the Waffen SS. He also explains that his first exposure to "real racism" came after the war, in an American prisoner of war camp, where the black soldiers were treated as second class citizens. Roman Bucheli finds the Nobel Prize laureate's recent revelations a little hard to swallow.
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Reactions by authors and critics to Nobel Prize winning author Günter Grass' confession that at 17 he served in the Waffen SS, the most brutal Nazi combat unit. An international press review. Updated Thursday September 14, 2006
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French philosopher Andre Glucksmann exposes the apocalyptic notions that haunt 21st century minds, coloring perceptions of the war in Lebanon. But does anyone really believe that Islamic extremists would lay down their arms after erasing Israel from the map?
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For Walrus, Lisa Moore travels from Newfoundland to Tasmania. In Outlook India, Asiya Andrabi takes delight in sketching out the approaching Islamic world domination. The Spectator holds Russia responsible for Israel's existence. The Gazeta Wyborcza introduces Poland's lastest export hit: priests. Die Weltwoche experiments with guinea pig testicles. In The Believer, Steven Soderbergh mulls over the interplay of sex and politics. And in Elet es Irodalom, Laszlo Vegel explains the misunderstandings between Eastern and Western intellectuals in the Handke debate.
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Katja Nicodemus raves about Claude Chabrol's new film with his favorite actress, Isabelle Huppert. As an investigative judge in "Comedy of Power," Huppert is a modern femme fatale, mowing down corruption and male condescension with weapons of wit and writ.
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For years, Andre Müller has been widely recognised as one of Germany's most intrepid, and most dreaded, interviewers. In 1979 he met and interviewed Arno Breker, who became infamous in the Nazi era as Hitler's favourite sculptor. We have translated the text in full. (Image: Arno Breker: Bereitschaft (Readiness), 1939. Courtesy Breker Archiv Düsseldorf)
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In Elet es Irodalom, Imre Kertesz explains why criticism of Israel is often just a smokescreen for the new Euro-anti-Semitism. In the London Review of Books, Elias Khoury suggests Israelis want to destroy Lebanon as revenge. The Spectator recalls how the British government helped put General Franco into the saddle. Merkur honours two dissidents of German historiography: Götz Aly and Gerd Koenen. In Die Weltwoche, Jürg Ramspeck remembers the good old days when journalists still had personality. In Al Ahram, Al-Jazeera's Washington bureau chief fumes over western "Mideast experts." And Esprit mourns the demise of Serge July's "total newspaper."
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