I have finally posted a pdf of my article in the issue of the Norwegian journal Samtiden devoted to the trial of the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. The essay is called “Markedslogikk og kulturkritikk: Om Breivik og ubehaget i den postmoderne kulturen” (“Market logic and cultural critique: About Breivik and the Discontents of Postmodern Culture”), Samtiden, nr. 3, 2012, ss. 20-30. Click here to find the pdf!
Posts Tagged ‘terror’
The Debate about Eskil Pedersen
Posted on 23 September 2012
My latest column (in Norwegian) about the debate about Eskil Pedersen’s actions at Utøya is now available online. It appeared in print in Dagens Næringsliv on Saturday 22 September.
Op-Ed about Breivik Trial in the New York Times
Posted on 25 August 2012
On August 23, David L. Paletz and I published an Op-Ed essay about the Breivik trial in the online edition of the New York Times, under the title “In Norway, a New Model for Justice.”
On August 24, the British paper The Guardian based the beginning of its editorial about the Breivik case on our essay (the link to our paper is at the end of the first paragraph.)
The French website Rue89 quotes our essay on August 25.
Essay on Anders Behring Breivik in Samtiden
Posted on 14 August 2012
In late August, the Norwegian journal Samtiden will publish an issue in part devoted to the trial of the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. I have contributed an essay called “Markedslogikk og kulturkritikk: Om Breivik og ubehaget i den postmoderne kulturen” (“Market logic and cultural critique: About Breivik and the Discontents of Postmodern Culture”).
An excerpt from this essay was published in Dagbladet on August 25, 2012.
Emperor and Galilean and terrorism
Posted on 3 August 2011
I have uploaded a brief essay I wrote for Dagens Næringsliv (in Norwegian), about the connection between Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean and terrorism. The pdf file has a beautiful photo from the National Theatre’s brilliant production of the play.
Art, love, and the terror in Norway
Posted on 24 July 2011
Like other Norwegians I am in shock at the terrible events in Oslo and at Utøya on 22 July. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.
I was not in Norway when the horror happened. On 22 July, I was giving a talk about Ibsen’s 1873 play Emperor and Galilean at the National Theatre in London. I only learned about the bombing in Oslo and the massacre at Utøya later that night. When I discovered that the terrorist in Norway saw himself as a crusader against Muslims, I realized that Emperor and Galilean is more dreadfully relevant than ever, for it is about the horrors — persecution, torture, murder, crazed search for martyrdom, wars — produced by religious fanaticism, by people hell-bent on being right, on forcing others to submit to their will, but who have no capacity to love.
In London last week I also saw Tosca. When the heroine find herself blackmailed by Scarpia, the ruthless chief of police, she sings one of the most touching arias in the history of opera: “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” – I lived for art, I lived for love — an aria in which she wonders how it can be that she, who has never hurt a soul, now is caught in the brutal web of ruthless power. Puccini’s opera shows that people who live for art and love may find themselves destroyed by people who live for power. There is no happy end for Tosca. Yet she was right to live for art, and for love. As one of the young survivors of Utøya said to CNN: “If one man can show so much hatred, then think of how much love we can all show together.” That response effectively undermines the terrorists’ agenda. It will take a long time for Norway to recover from the horrors of 22 July 2011. But in a response like that one, we glimpse a possibility: maybe, one day, something new, something that, like art, requires love and imagination to come into existence, can be built in the ruins of terror.