Eurozine – Europe talks to Europe

Eurozine, a growing network of over 80 partner journals and associated partners from 34 European countries who converse in 32 languages, first started with a translation programme that has made a large number of articles by Eastern, Central and South Eastern European authors and intellectuals accessible to a broad international audience. Building on the results of the translation programme of 2007, Eurozine launched in 2008 a three-year project that consecutively focuses on three fields of activities grouped under the headings “Net Magazine”, “Talk Series” and “Book Publication”. The aim is to ensure that Eastern, Central and South Eastern European countries are included in European discourse.

Eurozine selects original articles and translates essays of partner journals featuring topics of current interest such as minorities, migration and borders, European perspectives, European identity, the media and freedom of speech, and populism. These special focuses thus highlight topics of particular relevance in European discourse from different perspectives, with the main emphasis on Eastern, Central and South Eastern European perspectives.

During the first year, Eurozine commissioned three introductory essays on the current literary landscape of various Eastern, Central and South Eastern European countries. Since then, the website has been gradually built and its texts have been continually published in renowned literary journals from all over Europe. A group of essays describing the current literary climate in specific European countries, regions and languages are printed in the collection “Literary perspectives: The re-transnationalisation of literary criticism”.

Central to the project “Europe talks to Europe” is a series of high-profile debates in different central and eastern European cities. The discussion series started in autumn 2009 in Budapest with the highly anticipated talk Dilemma ’89: My father was a communist, followed by Warsaw hosting Breaking the bonds of national mythology. Memory and European citizenship. The discussions will be a constant companion of discourse culture throughout 2010. Already in Spring 2010 Bucharest and Brno were chosen for Economy and ethics in crisis. A new-old east-west divide? and The critical divide. Marxism: radical alternative or totalitarian relic? respectively. In Bratislava the talk Multiculturalism at its limits? Managing diversity in the new Europe proved to be quite popular in September. The next debate will take place in Sofia this December under the title Democracy live. Media, politics and the tyranny of the opinion poll.

Detailed information about the debates you will find here