MTR-to-do

FUTURE: Environmental disasters, global warming, crisis of civilization and planetary apocalypse have given rise to ideas about the doom of the earth and the end of time. Through a radical anthropology, a couple of authors make an attempt to restore our faith in the world.

JENIN THEATRE: Recently many Palestinians were killed in Jenin. What does Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation entail in today's desperate situation? For The Freedom Theater in Jenin, the answer is still a cultural intifada. A performance is now being shown at the Human festival in Oslo.

UKRAINE: The Russians have now presented a large number of documents that show exactly which bacteria and viruses have been developed, and which spreading mechanisms would be used. Ukraine experimented with insects and drones for the spread of various diseases.

SUBJECTS: Hartmut Rosa points out that today's late modern people react to the flood of information without "developing a stable understanding of what is relevant, of direction and prioritization". But does the well-educated academic here become an ideologue with religion as a weapon against an increasingly purpose-rational world where the economy colonizes the social?

PHILOSOPHY: Italian Giorgio Agamben describes and envisions different courses for our thinking than today's more technologically nihilistic will-driven production paradigm. Two books delve into other possibilities than the 'fire' he believes we find ourselves in. In this essay, Astrid Nordang tries to bring out some of this complicated material.

Mike Davis: According to activist and historian Mike Davis, wild reservoirs, like bats, contain up to 400 types of coronavirus that are just waiting to spread to other animals and humans.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH: The opportunity to say something is always very limited, says MODERN TIMES's regular writer in this essay about different authorities' use of force. Away from today's mass media, an "underground" network of intellectuals has now emerged, including experienced journalists, intelligence officers, renowned professors and politicians.

RUSSIA: Mikhail Shishkin has long pointed out that Russia, unlike Germany, has never come to terms with its totalitarian past.

PHILOSOPHY: Agamben's sketches for a theory of civil war are thus perhaps also a contribution to a new theory of revolution. Revolution beyond politics. Where the revolution is finally thought beyond any notion of a state and standing upright like a soldier who salutes. MODERN TIMES has chosen to print the afterword to Agamben's book about the civil war.

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: With topics such as forced marriage, child marriage, rape and honor killings, Professor Unni Wikan has studied people all her life, but not least – the Muslim. She has had to avoid that.

WOMEN'S MATCH: For far too long, Western authorities have relied on Iranian reforms and an illusion of a vibrant democracy. A Europe that has committed itself to human rights and feminist values ​​in foreign policy must now – also regarding Women's Day on 8 March – support Iran's women and give them the opportunity to be heard. Women in Iran are no longer fooled by the hope of reform.

TECHNOLOGY: According to Kevin Kelly, technology writer, photographer and publicist, the best thing you can do sometimes is slow down technology.

ENVIRONMENT: "It's about changing people's mindset," says Volker Schlöndorff (83) to MODERN TIMES. The veteran German director himself describes his film about agronomist Tony Rinaudo's reconstruction of forests in Africa as propaganda.

POWER: Is it possible to explain why the resurgence of free market ideas has resulted in persistent unemployment, rising inequality and financial crises? According to Philip Ther, the corona pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have led to the end of an era – the world as imagined after 1989.

Role models: In public Latin America, the addiction heroes Bolívar and San Martin or Che Guevara and Evita are either idolized or satanized through paintings and photographs. This book takes a closer look at why.

PSYCHOLOGY: Love is not a project of isolation, but a project of freedom, according to Seyda Kurt: The freedom to be able to choose for oneself is about radical tenderness, about justice.

FICTION: The controversy in the media mogul family over the corporate throne escalates further in the HBO series Succession, which in an impressive and captivating way is able to take the pulse of the present and big capitalist business at its most brutal.

In Radikalisierter Konservatismus ("radicalized conservatism") by the Austrian political scientist and journalist Natascha Strobl, we get a well-written analysis of how conservatism can become radicalized....

PASOLINI: 100 years: On the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of Pier Paolo Pasolini (March 5, 1922), MODERN TIMES has chosen to print an essay on a theme between power and the oppressed – as it is throughout his large film production.

PHILOSOPHY: While postmodernism involved an explosion, today's posthumous condition, according to Marina Garcés, involves a liquidation of all possibilities – an implosion. Yes, are the hopes we cling to today just market-adapted needs for hope?

ACCELERATION: We have interviewed the thinker Armen Avanessian about "accelerationism" and the possibility of a new political thinking.

ESSAYS: The Coronation is a thought-provoking but naive collection of essays about the pandemic as a social phenomenon.

EUROPE: MODERN TIMES recently visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and met one of the founders of the Conference on the Future of Europe – where the following topics have been discussed: democratic values, climate change, social justice and job security, human rights, European defense and digital transformation. This is the basis for ORIENTERING this time, as we on the following pages have asked a number of Norwegian opinion leaders about much of the same. And here with Daniel Freund, who is a member of the party Die Grünen in Germany, we could not help but talk about climate.

Netflix: Media professor Amanda Lotz provides some interesting perspectives on the global streaming services' business models and Netflix's success.

ARAB MOVIE DAYS: The thriller Huda's Salon takes a feminist look at the position of women in the Israeli – occupied West Bank, while the distinctive family drama Costa Brava, Lebanon deals with Lebanon's ongoing waste crisis.