Writing East and West

Author: michael kreutz Page 1 of 12

Writer, speaker, traveler.

心想事成 – Happy New Year of the Dragon!

Believe it or not, Chinese New Year begins today – and it is the Year of the Dragon. The dragon (龍 lóng) symbolizes strength and success in Chinese culture and, especially this year, has a kind of superpowers.

Luis Buñuel auf der Bühne

Kürzlich hatte ich das Vergnügen, Luis Buñuel auf der Bühne zu erleben, natürlich nicht ihn persönlich, der schon lange nicht mehr unter den Lebenden weilt, sondern in Form eines Stückes, das sich “Der Würgeengel” nennt, von Psalmen und Popsongs handelt und an das gleichnamige surrealistische Filmdrama Buñuels anlehnt.

‘Maoist Legacy’ Project

The “Maoist Legacy” project is a treasure trove of digitalized documents contributing to the question of historical justice after the death of Mao Zedong. It includes a project bibliography, non-Chinese language works, magazine and newspaper articles, interviews with informants in Hong Kong, caricatures, and more.

Warum dieser Hang zu Graphiknovellen?

Keine Ahnung, was all die Redakteure und Blogger dazu treibt, unter der Rubrik “Comic” fast ausschliesslich sogenannten Graphiknovellen zu huldigen, die das Medium Comic der Belletristik gleichstellen wollen, am Ende aber häufig weder das eine noch das andere sind, sondern nur hochtrabende Geschichten, die in mittelmässige Bilder umgesetzt wurden.

Iranian Secularism

I have been saying this for many years: secularism, or rather the idea of a predominantly secularist state, i.e. a state separate from organized religion, is not simply a Western idea that has no traction in societies in the rest of the world. A notable article in Aeon argues on behalf of Iranian secularism and why proponents of postcolonialist theory fundamentally misunderstand it:

Friedells “Kulturgeschichte” über Darwins Lehre

Wer Darwins Evolutionstheorie in anzweifelt, ist nicht unbedingt Anhänger eines christlich begründeten “intelligent design”.Der österreichische Schriftsteller Egon Friedell (1878-1939) hat versucht, die Entstehung der Arten gegen Darwin zu erklären, ohne sicb auf die Religion zu berufen.

Istanbul like you’ve never seen it before

Watch this. Syrian-German filmmaker Waref Abu Quba Rund has assembled around 2,900 photographs of Istanbul into a kaleidoscope of sensuality, “a mesmerizing journey into the past, paying homage to Islamic, Ottoman, Greek, and Byzantine art forms.”

Israel belongs where it is

75 years after its declaration of independence, Israel is still widely misunderstood

The origin of modern Israel is usually told as follows: Pogroms since the 19th century, culminating in the Holocaust, prompted Jews to emigrate to Palestine, where they enlisted British aid to revitalize their ancient state while marginalizing the native Arab population, creating a conflict that simmers to this day. From this perspective, the Jewish state is a historical anomaly and a persistent alien to the region, born of events on another continent.

Alexander the Great’s literary quest

More than ten years ago I published an article on Alexander the Great in the political discourse of the 19th century Levantine national movements when he struck a chord with the masses and was the perfect historical poster child for all manner of independence efforts from the Ottoman Empire.

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