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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Continuing the NZZ's series of first-hand accounts of climate change by international writers, Siberian-born Juri Rytcheu pokes fun at polar meteorologists and admits he wouldn't mind it getting a bit warmer.
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In Lettre International, Mircea Cartarescu tells of the first woman he had sex with. The TLS sees a very dark future for Russia. Przekroj presents computer scientist Lukasz Foltyn, who is now entering politics. Outlook India shows the limits of Habermas' concept of public sphere in the Indian context. The New Yorker thinks it knows why Murdoch wants to buy the Wall Street Journal. Elet es Irodalom considers what is still the West European public. And Die Weltwoche finds documenta too elitist.
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Both the Venice Biennale and the Documenta in Kassel have taken the dark side of modernity as their theme. Looking at how the two mega-exhibitons do battle, Hanno Rauterberg prefers Kassel's investigation of evil to Venice's concession to it. (Untitled, from the series Spring-Sow-Plum-Scene, 1996, mask 6, 2003. © Aoki Ryoko)
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American general Antonio M. Tabuga explains to Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker that the USA violated the Geneva Convention at Abu Ghraib. Il Foglio succumbs to the charm of Romanian minimalism at the Venice Biennale. The London Review of Books presents a history of the Berlin Wall. In Asharq al-Awsat, journalist Al-Sayed Yassin tells why he joined - then left - the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. Elet es Iroladom denies that Clemenceau's Hungarian daughter-in-law was to blame for Hungary's losing major parts of its territory. Christopher Hitchens goes to bat for Marx in The Guardian. And The New Criterion investigates why the art world is a disaster.
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It was the fall of communism and its attendant anxieties that gave birth to the European ideal. The first task of a new Europe must be to hack out clear paths through the jungle of ideologies, because a civilisation that does not clearly proclaim its values, or leaves its proclaimed values high and dry, treads the path to perdition and terminal debility. By Imre Kertesz
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European democracy exists largely within nation-states, and not in the continental dimension. Even the ponderous TV channel "Euro-News" has not succeeded in creating a European public sphere. But without a European consciousness there will be no European federation. For this to happen interpreters are needed, to explain the motives of one side to the other. By Adam Krzeminski
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Coinciding with the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper asked writers from around the world for their perspectives. Read how global warming has effected lives from Bombay to the high Alps, from The Netherlands to Nigeria and beyond. We present stories by Hans Maarten van den Brink, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Romesh Gunesekera, Kiran Nagarkar, Leo Tuor and more...
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Is today's art no more than the fashion of the day? Are there only niches in art, each with its own cutting edge? Brigitte Werneburg asks what contemporariness means in a world where the lines are blurred between fashionable art and artistic fashion.
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The American thinker Richard Rorty passed away on Friday at his home in California. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas tells what makes Rorty unique among intellectuals, and what binds Rorty, orchids, and justice on earth.
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Two Polands are clashing, writes Adam Michnik in The New York Review of Books. In Elet es Irodalom, Peter Esterhazy is in awe of Poland's Catholic liberal intellectuals. Outlook India meets the Bhuttos, a Shakespearean royal family. Downright naive! writes historian Henri Beunders about Al Gore's book, "Assault on Reason" in Trouw. Umberto Eco separates the Piedmontese from the Neapolitans in the Nouvel Obs. Al Ahram introduces the Arab magic realist Ibrahim Farghali. And The New York Times takes a look inside the income gap.
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The more I suffer, the better it is, thought Lidwina of Schiedam (1380 - 1433). She remained bedridden for forty years after an accident, and was subsequently canonised. There are more similarities than differences between this Roman Catholic saint and the modern radical Muslimas of the Hofstad Network, says Dutch sociologist Jolande Withuis. An essay on the potential threat of terrorism from young Dutch Muslimas.
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In a new sequel of the NZZ's climate change series, Kiran Nagarkar affords a lung-clogging view from Bombay, where this winter the smog was a block of dirty concrete that started a couple of metres from where you stood and stretched all the way to the sky.
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Continuing the NZZ's climate change series, Sri Lankan author Romesh Gunesekera tells how everything is perfect for the model farmer with a mathematical mind. Until the rain messes up his calculations.
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In a disused dockyard in Rostock, the "Art goes Heiligendamm" initiative has put the final touches to its G8 intervention. The preferred topic among the artworks is borders and overcoming them. Aside from that they deal anything that's good: information, documentation, irony, utopia, anti-consumerism. By Irene Grüter
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DU magazine travels down the Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. The New York Review of Books is delighted that at last France is once more an exciting place. For the London Review of Books, Fritz Stern is perfect - for the Germans. Boudewijn Chabot defends "good death" in De Groene Amsterdammer. Tony Blair warns in The Economist against the sophistication of Islamic terrorism. Elet es Irodalom tells of Hungarian writers in Berlin. And The New York Times knows what Jesus ate at the Last Supper: shrooms.
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Of mothers and children: Sasha Waltz has staged Pascal Dusapin's "Medea" opera in Luxembourg. Yet while the spirit races, the dancing is in slow motion. By Christiane Peitz
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