Culture

openDemocracy author Heather McRobie speaks with Ollie Brock about her upcoming novel where she looks at both Radovan Karadzic – who is standing trial for war crimes during the Serbian genocide of 1994 – and 19th-century philologist Vuk Karadzic

Russian national pride has been badly dented by poor performance at the winter Olympics. It is being widely read as a political failure, reflecting the effects of corruption, and a regime which promotes PR over professionalism

A film called Honey took top prize at the 60th Berlin Film festival, presided over by Werner Herzog, this year’s jury supremo. And there were six more prize-winners…

Chittagong Hill Tracts shaken by riots and arson. India and Pakistan take steps to rebuild their relationship. Niger leaders rule themselves out of elections. Darfur rebels contradict president’s claim that the war is over. All this and more in today’s briefing.

The literature of human fall and frailty illuminates the political fate of Britain’s prime minister.   

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Chekhov’s birth, his English biographer Rosamund Bartlett celebrates the writer’s last days in Yalta, and leads the campaign to restore his house

Freedom is the goal rather than the ground of human rights. But freedom is also essentially dependent on others and other cultures. Achieving the conditions for freedom - human rights - is humanity's overriding moral obligation.

As French President Nicolas Sarkozy attempts to drive through a ban on the niqab and burqa, Laurie Penny describes how the Islamic veil has become yet another item of women’s clothing for men to fight over for their own ends

A spell-binding history of cannibalism in the middle ages: its use as a propaganda tool, and place in Christendom's self-image; the cannibal as a philosophical hypothetical, and a justification for colonialism; and Richard the Lionheart's fondness for "Saracen's head's all hot"

Throughout Russian and Soviet history, the intellectual has played a central and hugely influential role in society. Today, that has changed. A recent internet vote on the country’s most influential intellectual saw instead postmodern ambiguity emerge victorious, writes Lyubov Borusyak

What's depressing is the film's theory of value

Following the threatened demonstration of Islam4UK in Wootton Bassett, Lucy Noakes explores the fraught history of war remembrance. The article launches Lest we forget: remembering historic conflicts, openSecurity’s new editorial project in association with History & Policy, asking historians to reflect on wars gone by and the light they shed on present conflicts.

The bedrock of our assumptions about human preeminence is shifting as scientists and philosophers explore the social complexity and intelligence of other species

Before Kenya can succeed in stemming the radicalisation of its Muslim minority, the US will have to change its Somali policy

Ever since Ricardo, the defense of international trade has been about productive efficiency. But much more important is that civilisation is a process of cultural exchange, and hybridity is a source of the truly human in the form of new meanings

A Belarusian novel encourages citizens to question their own role in perpetuating the regime that governs them. The authorities’ response suggests it has touched a nerve, says Natalia Leshchenko.

The Guardian newspaper has its intellectual and moral roots in the northern English city of Manchester. The distance it has travelled - and the condition of the country it has left behind - is measured in the character of its online "Comment is Free" forum, says Christopher Harvie.