I haven’t had the time to catch up with signandsight in recent weeks — but here the site’s most recent posts: Legacy of denial Germany has been rocked by the disclosures surrounding the series of neo-Nazi murders of Turkish citizens. In the wake of these events, Former GDR dissident Freya Klier calls for an honest look at the xenophobia cultivated by the policies of the former East Germany, where the core of … Read more Latest signandsight roundups
Interesting essay by Orhan Pamuck in today’s Guardian. Below, the opening paras; you can read the whole piece here. The souring of Turkey’s European dream In the schoolbooks I read as a child in the 1950s and 1960s, Europe was a rosy land of legend. While forging his new republic from the ruins of the Ottoman empire, which had been crushed and fragmented in the first world war, Mustafa … Read more Orhan Pamuck on Europe
… the great pile of unread or half read books keeps accumulating, mutating, collapsing, merging, diminishing (ever so slightly), but mainly growing by leaps and bounds. The idea was of course to review them here on NOMADICS, but books are patient while events vent their urgencies, real or imagined. And thus I rarely get around to review books (not an activity I have ever taken vast pleasure in, except … Read more On my left…
(”Jacqueline de Romilly chez elle en 2004″, photos Olivier Roller) Jacqueline de Romilly who passed away yesterday at 97, was a magnificent Hellenist & Greek scholar, who collected firsts: the first woman accepted at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the first woman professor elected to the Collège de France, the first woman elected to the “Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres,” the second woman (after Marguerite Yourcenar) elected to the Académie … Read more Jacqueline de Romilly (1913-2010)
Here are this week’s signandsight noticings on the ongoing Oskar Pastior affair: Oskar Pastior’s Securitate past After it emerged that the Romanian-German poet Oskar Pastior (more here) had been working for the Romanian Securitate under the name “Informant Stein Otto“, all his friends hoped that these revelations would not be followed by a slew of incriminating evidence regarding his spying activities. A former friend of Pastior’s, the Romanian-German author … Read more Oskar Pastior Fortsetzung
“The Foreign Ministry and the Past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic” by an independent historian commission Former Finance Senator Thilo Sarrazin’s bestseller “Germany is abolishing itself. How we are putting our country at risk”. Both published by Random House Below the opening paragraphs of a signandsight article you can read the complete version of by clicking here. Hitler’s diplomats debunked “The Foreign Ministry … Read more From Germany: “The Foreign Ministry and the Past”
On a number of occasions NOMADICS has spoken in praise of the poet Oscar Pastior, such as on the occasion of him receiving the Büchner Prize posthumously (click here). Pastior was indeed a splendid poet (check out, for example, the translations of his work published by Burning Deck). But now the following disturbing bit of information has just come in via signandsight, which refers back to the original article … Read more Oskar Pastior as Securitate Informant?
a new play by Robert Kelly this week in Manhattan, next week in Woodstock– Directed by Crichton Atkinson and starring Carey Harrison as Oedipus Manhattan: Wednesday through Sunday, SEPTEMBER 8-12th at 7PM ‘OEDIPUS AFTER COLONUS’ is being shown at HERE Arts Center in Manhattan. FIVE NIGHTS ONLY! MAKE SEATING IS LIMITED All Tickets $15 HERE – September 8th – 12th @ 7pm 145 6TH Ave. (Enter on Dominick, 1 … Read more Robert Kelly’s “Oedipus After Colonus”
Tony Judt died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s disease — on Saturday. Over the years I have immensely enjoyed the historian’s brilliant and insightful essays (at times acerbic-romantic, at times outrageous-calmly British) Of course I have not always agreed with his stances, intellectual or historical. Let me just mention along those lines of disagreement his claim that the 70ies were an intellectually disastrous period in France because … Read more Tony Judt (1948 -2010)
via shivabel again: This late 16th century suite of ornamental letters by Giacomo Paolini is known as ‘Grotesque Alphabet in Mythological Landscapes’. Music by Claudio Monteverdi, ‘L’Orfeo — Toccata’. A – ‘Ateone mutato in Cervo da Diana’ B – ‘Bacco trionfante’ C – ‘Cadmo mutato in Serpente con la moglie’ D – ‘Dedalo’ ‘Icaro’ E – ‘Enea che porta Anchise suo padre sulle spalle’ F – ‘Fetonte guisa il … Read more Grotesque Alphabet