IWMpost 132: Art and Society

IWMpost

Publishing house

Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen

Year

2023

In line with the profile of the IWM and the IWMpost, this issue covers a wide range of topics. For the first time, however, the largest section of an IWMpost issue consists of essays that center on art and literature, and that use them as entry points to reflect on social issues. The essays that form this section address the political implications of pioneering work by artists (Prakash, Orzoff, Antonova), discuss the interplay between art and politics (Antonova, Koprivica), focus on literary ways of mirroring and documenting reality (Hagedorn, Rybkowska), and problematize the encounter between art and science (Grasso).

No IWMpost issue is complete without essays that address issues of democracy. The respective essays in this issue focus on experiments and tools of democratic renewal: watchdog parliaments (Keane), citizens’ assemblies (Cesnulaityte), EU reform (Alemanno), and WhatsApp groups (Barbosa). The contributions on populism (Samaddar, Wyss) and feminist politics (Haastrup, Shparaga) are also closely related to this focus on democracy. Gjuričova in turn discusses in her essay why political history is worth rescuing.

In a section on the war in Ukraine, Dovzhyk criticizes the epistemic injustice of Western reporting while Fedirko addresses the rise and transformation of the informal war economy. Two further essays deal with issues of migration and human trafficking. While Ramsauer and Çağlar discuss the heuristic challenge that the religious conversion of asylum seekers poses to the authorities, Banerjee strives for a balanced picture of trafficked women.

Finally, Ludger Hagedorn honors the memory of Karel Schwarzenberg, a long-time friend and supporter of the IWM, who sadly passed away last November.

I hope you enjoy the read!

Evangelos Karagiannis