Stage designers is developing more and more into the most important element of stage productions. It is set designers or ?spatial artists? like Johannes Schütz, Muriel Gerstner, Stéphane Laimé and Olaf Altmann who are ?to blame? ? they are the ones who can turn an evening at the theatre into a total work of stationary art....
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Despite a serious blow to the Kaczynski twins' lustration law by Poland' s Constitutional Court this May, the country will continue to x-ray its past. Ryszard Kapuscinski, prize-crowned author and reporter who died this year, is the latest of a string of intellectuals to have their secret police past uncovered. By Thomas Urban (Photo: Irmi Long)
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Russia has long since degenerated into morally bankrupt totalitarianism. Europe used to take a proud stand on freedom. So why isn't it doing anything? By Andre Glucksmann
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"In America I learned that Europe is possible." A conversation with Bernard-Henri Levy about his trip through the USA, the neo-conservatives after the disaster in Iraq, the fascist roots of Islamism and France before the elections. By Thierry Chervel (Photo: R. Escher)
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The recent represssions of demonstrations by "The other Russia" suggest that Putin's regime is very concerned about the opposition. But why? He has the country solidly under his thumb, his ratings are good, the people fear his departure. But of course, as Sonja Margolina reports, "controlled instability" has certain advantages.
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After the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the "Blue camp" is now trying to pull off a cheap copy. But Ukrainians are reacting calmly to the happenings on Independence Square. By Oksana Zabuzhko
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The Iraq War enjoyed more public support among intellectuals than any other war since 1914. Today it can safely be said to have been a disaster. Gustav Seibt asks why so many thinking people took a such supportive stance and finds the answers in a misplaced attachment to historical analogies.
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Granting the 2007 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Anna Politkovskaya would not be a gesture of criticism directed at Russia as a whole, but a sign of hopeful expectations for the country, its people and its culture. By Gerd Koenen and Norbert Schreiber
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One fifth of the population of Chechnya has died in the war there. The West has played deaf. Studies Without Borders is the initiative of a few French students to bring Chechen students to Europe to study. A drop of hope in an ocean of indifference. By Andre and Raphael Glucksmann.
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Amid reports of brutal sexual abuse in broad daylight - linked with political intimidation - there are also stories of courage and creativity in an Egypt whose ties with Europe remain strong. In her letter from Cairo, Mariam Lau writes about despair and hope in the streets of the capital.
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In a recent speech in Israel, singer, song-writer and polemicist Wolf Biermann castigated Germany for misjudging the tragedy in the Middle East conflict and sympathising with radical Muslims out of patronising contempt. (Photo: Hans Weingartz)
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The murder of Anna Politovskaya shocked not only the world, but critical voices in Russia as well. Philosopher Michail Ryklin talks with Caroline Fetscher about the new degree of fear in Russia.
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In one of the last articles she wrote for the Novaya Gazeta before being murdered on October 7, 2006, Anna Politkovskaya paid tribute to the recently fallen Buvadi Dakhiev. A warlord with humanity, he was a rare find in Chechnya.
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The Arab intellectual behaves like a despotic father. No internal family matter may be exposed to the outside world. Regardless of what the reality may be, a facade of unbroken unity must be maintained. In private talks you hear opinions that are radically different from what is published in the newspapers the next day. By Khalid al-Maaly (Image © Brigitte Friedrich, Cologne)
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In response to the uproar caused by Benedict XVI's speech in Regensburg, Abdelwahab Meddeb, one of France's most respected Arab writers, considers why peaceful disputes between Christians and Muslims were possible in the Middle Ages but not today. An interview with Michael Mönninger.
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On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, George Bush has become the perfect scapegoat. When attacks and threats increase, he is to blame. But the rise of international terrorism is not Bush's doing. We are not seeing a new Vietnam, but a new Chicago, an ethnic-theological Mafia and gang war. To accept, or not to accept, the law of the human bomb? That is the question facing our fledgling century. By Andre Glucksmann
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