| 1. |
- Andrén, Mats, 1958
(författare)
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Entanglements: Cultural Borders in Visions of European Unification
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Review. - 1062-7987. ; 28:3, s. 416-424
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article elaborates upon the idea of cultural borders from the perspective of European unification before EU-integration. It addresses discussions on how to manage or even transcend religious and linguistic borders, from William Penn, Novalis and Conrad Friedrich Schmidt-Phiseldeck, to Johann Caspar Bluntschli and Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. The historical contexts are nationalism and Europeanization. These are further illuminated by the use of constructivist theory and the concept of a ‘stagist theory’ from Dipesh Chakrabarty and Roberto Dainotto which legitimizes the domination of some nations over others.
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| 2. |
- Andrén, Mats, 1958
(författare)
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Introduction: Thinking Beyond Europe’s Cultural Borders
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Review. - 1062-7987. ; 28:3, s. 358-364
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cultural borders play a significant part in modern European history as well as in the present. This Focus has been chosen in order to enhance reflections on the transcendence of cultural borders; how the crossing is conducted, why we want to move beyond cultural borders, and what actually lies beyond them. The individual articles investigate ways to transcend borders, primarily those of the European nation state, in different genres from the nineteenth Century onward. This editorial article introduces the theme of thinking beyond borders and presents the contributions to this Focus. It attempts to situate the issue of Europe´s cultural borders within European history by delving into three relevant themes: the cultural construction of borders, the growing number of recognized nationalities, and the practices of Europeanization.
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| 3. |
- Andrén, Mats, 1958
(författare)
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Nihilism and Responsibility in the Writings of Karl Jaspers
- 2014
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 22:2, s. 209-216
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this article is to describe the connection of the concepts of nihilism and responsibility in the writings of Karl Jaspers. The article starts with his early writings in the late 1910s and traces his use of nihilism until the late 1950s. Jaspers first defines nihilism in a general, anthropological sense. It is essential to the human condition, which involves questioning everything. However, as his critique of contemporary society evolves, nihilism is treated as the impetus behind concrete threats such as National Socialism and the Second World War, as well as the post-war nuclear arms race.
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| 4. |
- Bechmann Pedersen, Sune
(författare)
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A Passport to Peace? : Modern Tourism and Internationalist Idealism
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Review. - 1062-7987. ; 28:3, s. 389-402
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Catchy slogans about tourism’s peace-promoting qualities abound—‘passport to peace’, ‘a vital force for peace’, and ‘the peace industry’, to name but a few. Yet, despite the critical scrutiny of the peace–tourism nexus in recent decades, its historical origins remain unexplored. This article traces the historical roots of the idea that tourism can help advance peace and international understanding. It examines the aspirations of the various international tourist organisations founded during the interwar and early post-war period. While the organisations sought to foster peaceful relations across national and cultural borders, their discourse of tourism as a force for peace also gave legitimacy to a transnational tourist industry and government attempts to secure hard currency in the Cold War.
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| 5. |
- Bolin, Göran, 1959-, et al.
(författare)
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The PowerPoint Nation : Branding an Imagined Commodity
- 2021
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 29:4, s. 445-456
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the formation of the modern nation state and the social imaginary of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the media and representational practices have, among most scholars, been ascribed a prominent position. The question is, however, how have changes in media technologies, from mass media to digital and interactive personal media, impacted on the national imaginaries over the past few decades? This article discusses what happens with the social imaginaries when national(ist) symbols are reproduced through the medium of PowerPoint, as one of the main tools for constructing images of the nation in nation-branding campaigns, i.e. promotional campaigns initiated by governments in conjunction with corporate actors with the aim of producing an attractive image of a country for foreign investors and tourists. It is concluded that the representational technology of PowerPoint produces a nation as an imagined commodity rather than an imagined community.
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| 6. |
- Bruhn, Jørgen, Professor, 1968-
(författare)
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Towards an Intermedial Theory of Medial Agency : Environing Media
- 2023
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 31, s. S132-S147
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Based on a rough conceptual divide of (parts of) media studies, including intermedial studies, this article presents two positions based on interests in media as transmission and representation, or media as ecological frame, or media agency. Following that, the article discusses how a new concept in environmental studies, 'environing media' or 'environing technologies' - where representation and media ecological agency seem to find a fruitful meeting point - is discussed in more detail. That description and discussion are put into a debate with central ideas of intermedial studies, before the final part of the article briefly exemplifies the theoretical ideas in the case of the IPCC report's Summary for Policymakers (2021).
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| 7. |
- Caspers, Lena, et al.
(författare)
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How could Expert Involvement Compensate for an Incomplete Capability of Legitimization through Democratic Representation? Debating the Grounds for Political Legitimacy in the EU
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 27:2, s. 275-299
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article contributes to the scholarly as well as societal decades-long debate on the state of democracy in the EU. The objective is to problematize, discuss, and come up with constructive ideas on the role of expert groups in the processes of legitimization of decision-making within the EU. The analysis is guided by a general research question: how could expert involvement compensate for an incomplete capability of legitimization through democratic representation? The empirical analysis of expert influence in decision-making is guided by a new modelling of the so-called Epistemic Community approach. The case chosen to illustrate the model is the authorization process of the emergency contraceptive ellaOne, within the institutional setting of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) at the European Medicines Agency. The empirical material consists of interviews with eight members of the CHMP. To guide the empirical analysis the paper introduces a two-dimensional model of the epistemic community approach, which distinguishes between the institutional preconditions and the ideational motivations of expert groups. The results indicate that the experts within the CHMP had an influence on the policy-making process thanks to favourable institutional preconditions as well as ideational motivations of the experts themselves. Our conclusion is that there is a need for 'institutional engineering' as regards the involvement of experts in decision-making, to sustain the legitimacy of expert involvement, and level out the institutional conditions for experts' influence on policy-making within the EU.
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| 8. |
- Crostini, Barbara, 1969-
(författare)
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Keeping Everyone on Board : Gregory the Great's 'Theory of Iconoclasm'
- 2022
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Ingår i: European Review. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1062-7987 .- 1474-0575. ; 30, s. S47-S53
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pope Gregory the Great (s. 590-604) wrote two letters to Bishop Serenus of Marseilles, reproaching his acts of iconoclasm that had led to schism in his community. These short documents are considered to contain Gregory's theory of art as a book for the illiterate and have been criticized for destroying the aura of sacred art to all subsequent Western developments. Here, I argue that the pope's fundamental contribution is to offer instead a theory of iconoclasm. Relying on previous ideas about the pedagogical and communicative power of art and its ability to reach a larger audience beyond the elite, Gregory defends the rights of the community of 'gentiles and illiterates' who find in portable painted panels an expression of their identity in the church at Marseilles. Serenus's wish to impose a superior orthodoxy on the pious if incorrect habits of his flock cannot justify his resorting to iconoclasm. The pope's vigorous condemnation protects the vulnerable minority and sets an important precedent against any acts of iconoclasm in the West.
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| 9. |
- Dahlstedt, Palle, 1971
(författare)
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Big Data and Creativity
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Review. - 1062-7987. ; 27:3, s. 411-439
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Big data and machine learning techniques are increasingly applied to creative tasks, often with strong reactions of both awe and concern. But we have to be careful about where to attribute the creative agency. Is it really the machine that paints like van Gogh, or is it a human that uses a high-level tool to impart one pattern upon another, based on her aesthetic preferences? In this paper, the author analyses the problem of machine creativity, focusing on four central themes: the inherent convergence of machine learning and big data techniques, their dependence on assumptions and incomplete data, the possibility of explorative search as a new creative paradigm, and the related problem of the opacity of results from such methods. The Google Deep Dream project is brought in as an example to illustrate the discussion. Information and complexity are brought into the discussion as central concepts for both creative processes and the resulting artefacts, concluding that the complexity of the interaction between the creative agent and the environment during the creative process is a crucial parameter for meaningful creative output. Based on the exposed limitations in current technologies, the author concludes that the principal creative agency still lies in the developers and users of the tools, not in the data processing itself. Human effort and input still matters. But we can take a constructive approach, regarding big data techniques as tools one order of magnitude more complex than what was available before, allowing artists to work with abstractions previously unfeasible for computational work.
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| 10. |
- Demker, Marie, 1960
(författare)
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Converted by un confit de canard: Political Thinking in the Novel Soumission by Michel Houellebecq
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Review. - 1062-7987. ; 27:4, s. 591-599
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- From a certain perspective, literature is always political. Literature in a broad sense has been a source of uprisings and protest at least since Martin Luther nailed his theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 - and probably much further back in history than that. Narratives are the most potent way to articulate both political praise and criticism within a given society. In his political satires, British author George Orwell reviled all kinds of totalitarianism and the idea of a socialist utopia. Swedish writer and journalist Stieg Larsson wrote explicitly dystopian crime stories targeting the Swedish welfare state. German novelist Heinrich Böll turned a critical eye on the development of the tabloid press and the use of state monitoring in German society. In the same tradition, Michel Houellebecq has been seen as a very provocative writer in his tone and in his use of political tools. He has articulated a nearly individual anarchist perspective combined with authoritarian and paternalistic views. In Soumission, Houellebecq uses the European idea of multiculturalism to explode our political frames from within. This article explores the perception of religion in Soumission, assesses the critique Houellebecq directs towards French society and European developments, and examines Houellebecq's perception of democracy and politics. The following questions are addressed: does Houellebecq's critique come from a classical ideological perspective? Does he describe any elements of an ideal society - even if only as the reverse of a presented dystopia? What kind of democracy does the text of Soumission support or oppose?. © Academia Europaea 2019.
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