CULTURE

As a child in communist Romania of the 1980’s, I remember pilaf was one of the staples in the Ottoman-influenced cuisine of the south of the country. My mother and my grandmother used to put it in the oven, after...

Recently, the opinion has taken root in Israel, and among many Jews and non-Jews internationally, that the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is antisemitic, calling for the destruction of the state of Israel and...

Despite popular belief, the majority of Europeans do not have access to learning foreign languages, and being bi- or multilingual is still a privilege for most.  With English becoming the most recent lingua franca, cutting back on the EU’s multilingualism...

At one point in his 1984 essay ‘Permission to narrate’, Edward Said described urging family and friends in Beirut to record what was happening during the Israeli siege, in order to tell the world ‘what it was like to be...

In economic terms, state socialism is usually associated with the monopoly of an authoritarian state over core elements of the economy such as trade, the distribution of resources, and the regulation of wages and prices. Yet, limited forms of legal...

Migration is one of today’s most powerful, and most entrenched, imaginaries. The word conjures up images of walls, borders, police, uncertainty, destitution, misery, and death. Migration is most commonly discussed as a menace, an unwanted but ‘necessary evil’, a reluctant...

The Swedish welfare system has become unrecognizable, writes Niklas Altermark in Fronesis. Once based on solidarity between the working and middle classes, recent decades of government have fragmented the once progressive system. ‘The result of this transformation is a welfare...

In the early days of March 2022, as Russian troops were approaching the outskirts of Kyiv, international media were focused primarily on the Ukrainian frontlines. Journalists paid little attention to the informal meeting of EU leaders at Versailles, nor to...

When intellectuals and politicians start talking obsessively about their country’s great ‘originality’, ‘special path’ and a ‘unique mission in the world’, it’s a sure sign they’re facing mounting problems in forging a modern democratic polity, civic nation and respectable international...

Imagine a workweek that wraps up after four days, leaving you three days to relax, enjoy quality time with loved ones and follow personal pursuits. Through pilot projects or full legal recognition, the four-day workweek is no longer a pipedream,...