Physical Dramaturgy: Ein (neuer) Trend?

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. more more

GoetheInstitute

Much ado about Sarrazin

Monday 22 August 2011

Published a year ago, the controversial book "Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany is doing away with itself) by former banker and Berlin Finance Senator Thilo Sarrazin sparked intense discussion. Hamed Abdel-Samad asks: what has the Sarrazin debate achieved beyond polarisation and insult? And how can Germany avoid cultivating its own classes of "future foreigners"?
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Pascal Bruckner and the reality disconnect

Friday 14 January, 2011

The French writer Pascal Bruckner wants to forbid a word. Which sounds more like a typically German obsession. But for Bruckner, "Islamophobia" is one of "those expressions which we dearly need to banish from our vocabulary". One asks oneself with some trepidation which other words we "dearly need" to get rid of: Right-wing populism? Racism? Relativism? By Alan Posener
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The invention of Islamophobia

Monday 3 January, 2011

Criticism of religion is not racism. The term Islamophobia is all about intimidation. Above all, it is intended to silence those Muslims who question the Koran and who demand equality of the sexes. By Pascal Bruckner
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Finance senator to fire starter

Thursday 9 September, 2010

TeaserPicReviled as a racist by some, celebrated as a defender of the west by others, Thilo Sarrazin has written a book on the slow death by immigration of the German republic. He must be thrilled that "Germany is doing away with itself" is flying off the shelves; less so that it has been almost uniformly slated by press and politicians alike. For this though, the former SPD finance senator and Bundesbank board member only has himself to blame. By Joachim Güntner
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Minaret and swastika

Friday 18 December, 2009

TeaserPicTo advocate the Swiss minaret ban with the arguments of Anne Applebaum, Henryk Broder and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is to apply to the sort of fundamentalist logic which the west left behind - historically speaking - an amazingly short time ago. If we don't want to return to a pre-1648 world, Gustav Seibt argues, what we need now is two-way tolerance.
photo:hewy
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The dream of an apocalypticist

Friday, 31 July, 2009

In a footnote to his latest book, Timothy Garton Ash distances himself from the term "Enlightenment fundamentalism", which he had used in reference to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. John Gray picked up on the ammendment immediately and took him to task in The New Statesman. Perlentaucher editor Thierry Chervel is baffled by Gray's twisted pessimism.
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Submission in advance

Monday 16 February, 2009

TeaserPicThe fatwa against British Indian author Salman Rushdie was issued 20 years ago. Today, says Thierry Chervel, Islamism has the West more firmly in its grip than ever before – thanks to our left-wing intellectuals.
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Notes on a post-secular society

Wednesday 18 June, 2008

Last year secularists and multiculturalists converged at signandsight.com to debate Islam in Europe. Both parties want a liberal society where autonomous citizens live peacefully side by side, but the slightest political provocation is enough to unleash an intellectual Kulturkampf. Jürgen Habermas considers both positions and points beyond them to a post-secular society, where religious and secular mentalities are open to a complementary learning process. (Photo: Wolfram Huke)
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A twelve-minute film about the Koran

Monday 17 March, 2008

No-one knows what the anti-Koran film 'Fitna' by the Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders contains exactly. But fearing Muslim anger many are ready to make concessions regarding the fundamental freedom of expression. Gelijn Molier looks to nineteenth century philosopher John Stuart Mill for advice.

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The Gypsies – a Romanian problem

Wednesday 19 December, 2007

The deportation of Romanians from Italy in the wake of a murder committed by an ethnic Roma has caused a stir in Romania. Yet whereas Romanians object to this discrimination abroad, they fail to see that at home the Roma are treated with nothing but hatred and disdain, and neither the Church nor the state is doing anything about it. By Mircea Cartarescu
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Don Camillo and the Imam

Wednesday 28 November, 2007

Italy has been slow to address the danger of radical Islam. For too long it was the domain of right-wing rabble-rousers while the left slumbered away in "Islam correctness". At last the left-wing liberal Reset magazine has launched a proper debate. By Franz Haas
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Not my son

Monday 26 November, 2007

The Amsterdam district of Slotervaart, where Theo van Gogh's murderer lived, continues to be plagued by outbreaks of violence from youths in the immigrant communities. Many of their parents have withdrawn from what they perceive as the hostile outside world, which they invariably blame when their children go astray. By Margalith Kleijwegt
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The ideal Yugoslavian

Thursday 26 July, 2007

Anyone who counts Danube Swabians, Slovenians and Italians among his forefathers and lives as a Bosnian Croat first in Sarajevo and then in Zagreb, is entitled to call his birth a political project. Miljenko Jergovic tells the story of his family, of people whose identities have more to do with what they are not, than what they are.
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Alarm bells in Muslim hearts

Monday April 23, 2007

How sex-obsessed is a culture that teaches a woman that she is basically a walking, sitting or reclining set of genitals? How over-aroused is a society in which men are expected to have no qualms about pouncing on any woman who happens to walk by, unless a divinely ordained dress code forbids them to do so? Dutch writer Margriet de Moor looks at Islam in the light of Europe and Europe in the light of Islam. (Photo © Maria Neefjes)
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A final rejoinder

Thursday 12 April, 2007

This need not be a case of either Hirsi Ali or Tariq Ramadan. Timothy Garton Ash and Ian Buruma set Pascal Bruckner straight on a few last points.
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