Lucy, Heart Editor 

New house? Make it a bright pink windmill

Whether you're travelling through the countryside in the Czech Republic or the Republic of Ireland, you'll see them: oversized houses, painted bizarre colours, and sometimes even featuring turrets and ornamental windmills. In countries where individual wealth has increased quickly over the last twenty years, people are sometimes scarily eager to show that they have the most oddly-shaped carport in the village - and Czech photographer Jan Kruml has documented some of the most weird and wonderful examples. Kruml has campaigned in the past to encourage Czech villagers to maintain their heritage and restore old buildings rather than building new ones inspired by their exotic holidays. His work raises interesting questions: should kitsch eyesores be banned, or does everyone have the right to make their home a castle?

What happened to the revolution?

If Marx travelled forward in time and found himself in the year 2012, watching bankers spend their bonuses or seeing Chinese workers queuing up for jobs making iphones at one of the Foxconn factories, he might have been surprised. Not all of his predictions have come true: for instance, how can we explain the fact that the financial crisis has not yet resulted in a mass revolt by the global proletariat? John Lanchester sets out to answer this question in a lecture called Marx at 193, which is very accessible to non-economists and features a fascinating description of "the world's most typical human being."

Women who "sell" their "assets": businesswomen, or victims?

Pole-dancing: can it be empowering? Or does it always encourage sexual inequality? The question of sexual empowerment divides young women today, with books such as Catherine Hakim's Honey Money suggesting that women should use their attractiveness for their own gain. Poet Sabrina Mahfouz tackles the question in her poem First Night, about a stripper's first night on the job. Mahfouz is an impressive performer, and the poem has many great moments linguistically (look out for the double use of "hard") - but what I really like about it is the way she creates a clamour of disorientating voices. For me, the feeling of overload which you have at the end of the poem reflects many women's sense of confusion and uncertainty when it comes to the question of empowerment.

Philip, Brain Editor  

Putin and the EU

Despite the protests in Russia's biggest cities among the growing and new Russian middle classes, Putin has been elected for another six years. What is to be expected from his presidency and what is the EU's role in this? In a paper published for the European Council on Foreign Affairs right before the election, Ben Judah and Andrew Wilson already see the "end of the Putin consensus." They argue that the protests have significantly changed the situation in Russia: on the international level, a weaker Putin could lead to a less co-operative foreign policy, on the domestic level, reforms seems unlikely and a more populist presidency can be expected. This leaves the EU in a difficult position – as could already be witnessed in the reactions to Putin's election. While the EU might find it tempting to support opposition movements, Russia is an important partner in terms of energy, and Putin might represent such involvement as "destabilisation from the West" to regain support. Wilson and Judah give a good, concise overview of pre-election Russia and an outlook on future EU foreign policy – worth a read. 

Solving the European debt crisis?

Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher and public intellectual, argues that this is not essentially a question of printing money or cutting public spending: in the long run, the debt crisis can only be solved by an integration of citizens into the EU, a more lived democracy. Habermas points to the name of the so called Fiscal Compact, the "Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance," and maintains that the German focus on "stability" and silence when it comes to "coordination" is deeply rooted in a democratic deficit. His article is a critical analysis of Merkel's policy and its consequences as well as a description of how this crisis might open a possibility for the development of the EU. As such it is an expression of Habermas' belief in the future of this project – a must read.

How did it come to all this?

Each week, two E&M editors share their favourite European reads. From blog posts to essays, it can be anything that amused them, worried them or got them thinking about Europe.

Juliane, Diaphragm Editor 

HAS TECHNOLOGY FIGURED US OUT?

I love it when science and technology present easy solutions to complex problems. The notion that you can answer some of life's most troubling questions in one single sentence is deeply appealing to me. Nevertheless, when I first read about complexity scientists having explained the way culture has spread in Europe, I was somewhat... offended. For me, European culture is fascinating, interesting and compelling because it cannot be explained in one sentence. So when a bunch of complexity scientists (which, on a side note, is the coolest academic title I've come across) explain to me that the main reason, or perhaps one of the main reasons, that the democracies of ancient Greece and the Roman empire still remain the most influential and persisting cultural movement in European history is ... that Italy and Greece are located not in the centre, but on the edge of the European continent, I am quite frankly insulted. However, the possibility that they might be right is puzzling and fills me with curiosity. See if you agree here and download the whole paper here if you're interested.  

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE FILM OF THE YEAR... SORT OF

This is a movie that I'm more excited about than I care to admit. A few reasons: 1) It's just about as tacky as science fiction will ever get. Which in itself is a reason to love it. 2) It's one of the few examples of real, not just imagined, fan-funding (the movie has been planned for ages, but director Timo Vuorensola did not have the money to make it happen - until he urged people who wanted to make it happen to pitch in, actually funding enough for proper production of the whole thing). In other words, even before the first screening, the movie had a huge and loyal pool of fans, which in this day and age is quite the accomplishment. 3) The movie, which, just to be clear, is about AN INVASION OF NAZIS WHO HAVE BEEN HIDING ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON SINCE 1944, opened at the Berlin Film Festival Berlinale this year. I love it. I love what it says about Germany being able to deal with their past in, if not unproblematic ways, then at least openly and with the realisation that the past is actually in the past. 4) It's a pan-European project actually said to have a chance of being a blockbuster in the US, which always is a weird satisfaction for me. Intrigued? Read more about what is perhaps the most inappropriate, yet surely entertaining, film experience of the year here.

This week, two of E&M's best writers share their favourite European reads. From blog posts to essays, it can be anything that amused them, worried them or got them thinking about Europe.

Ziemowit Jóźwik

Not only for parishioners

Even though tons of paper were wasted explaining the sources of the current economic and financial crisis we (including the world leaders) still seem to have more questions than answers. Within dozens of narratives, one is especially interesting for me. Remember some of the points which the Archbishop of Canterbury (or "the turbulent priest" to stay in the British context) Rowan Williams made as a Guest Editor of the New Statesman magazine last year? Well, now Pope Benedict XVI has also decided to take part in the discussion and call for global financial reform. The magazine Foreign Affairs gives us a detailed analysis of the Pope's Note, which was presented at the last G20 Summit. Are the world's leaders ready "to cede their own sovereignty in the interests of global humanity's common good?" I'd argue that the Catholic social teaching can still provide us with some rerum novarum ("new things").

Modern Islamism

Once we've acknowledged that Europe isn't supposed to end up as a cathedral, nor as a cube let's see what's happening in its Southern neighbourhood. Almost a year after the Arab Spring, it's still not easy to assess the outcomes of the revolutionary wave that swept across the North Africa. The elections held in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco led to the victory of Islamist parties. Will they have a pragmatic stance or try to introduce Sharia rules to the law? What kind of problems are they going to face in the near future and what did they inherit from their authoritarian predecessors? And finally, how will the Islamists' electoral triumph influence relations with the EU? Professor Moha Ennaji gives a fascinating response in his article "The Maghreb’s Modern Islamists" at Project Syndicate.