Journal Service - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
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The Erosion of the American Arts: Cultural Memory versus “Social Acceleration”
No full textA tidal continuum submerging the arts with entertainment may be traced in stages from silent film to film with sound, then color; to TV with its laugh and applause tracks; to YouTube, with its loud and irrelevant ads; to social media and the segmentation of Americans into consumers of political and cultural pabulum. The ease with which entertainment pays commercial dividends, the alacrity with which it can today be produced and acquired, are fatal enticements. At every stage, engagement grows ever more supine. Are these impediments deeply rooted in the American experience, even within the very ethos of democracy and freedom? Certainly there is an impressive lineage of writings analyzing an American aversion to artists and intellectuals. An enduring philosophical argument against the American arts was launched by Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School. Much more recently, positing “a new theory of modernism,” the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls the governing dynamic “social acceleration”—and his prognoses are grim. With so much at stake, where does hope lie? Contrary to what might be thought or assumed, it cannot be said that America was never a fit home for the arts. During the Gilded Age, no one pondering issues of shared American identity would consider omitting the arts. In the decades after World War I, the arts were more widely but also more superficially acquired. I emphasize the possibilities for innovation in my own field: orchestras. They were once an American bellwether. Two recent controversies drive home the moment—the resignation of Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and the engagement of Klaus Makela as music director of the Chicago Symphony. Curating the American musical past, comparable to the efforts of art museums, remains unattempted. A case in point is the Charles Ives Sesquicentenary, ignored by the major US orchestras
Thomas Buergenthal and the Americas: A Comprehensive Contribution to Human Rights Protection
No full textWhile Thomas Buergenthal’s contribution to the field of human rights is certainly of global importance, it had a particular impact in the Americas, especially during the crucial initial phase of the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS) with the Court as its core institution on which Buergenthal served as one of the first group of judges from 1979 to 1991. In a nutshell, Buergenthal’s contribution may be characterized as a comprehensive and decisive effort to the regional protection of human rights in a threefold way: prudent proactivity (A.), active promotion and optimization (B.), interaction and critical follow-up (C.). At the same time, Buergenthal pursued a strategic-progressive approach which offers valuable lessons for the protection of human rights going well beyond the Americas. Buergenthal’s contribution to human rights and to international law in general cannot be overestimated. His principled and at the same time prudent strategic approach will be greatly missed, especially in our challenging times where international law is under attack at various fronts
Ezra Pound’s Enjambment from Italian Fascism to American Neo-Fascism
No full textThe extensive evidence that Pound was a committed and influential propagandist for fascism and, by 1935, a hardened antisemite is typically dismissed by Pound’s defenders on grounds that he was more than just a fascist and racist. Inevitably, fascists are more than just fascists: Mussolini was a journalist; Hitler a painter; and Quisling a military officer. All also led fascist movements and contributed to the Holocaust. The same is true of fascist writers: Celine was initially a travelling doctor and Hamsun received the Nobel Prize for Literature long before he gifted it to Goebbels in 1943. People contain multitudes; and yes, fascists are also people. Somehow these truths have wholly eluded Ezra Pound’s hagiographers. Further proof is therefore adduced in this article of Pound’s central role in the launching of postwar American fascism. Short case studies of Eustace Mullins, John Kasper and Matthias Koehl — who all visited Pound during his institutionalisation at St Elizabeths — makes plain that Pound became more than even a leading poet and fascist propagandist after 1945: he was also a leading neo-Nazi. This can no longer be denied. Pound took ideas seriously; when are we going to take his core ideas seriously
The Aesthetics of Secrecy in Contemporary America: A Conversation
No full textThis “conversation” explores questions which first appeared during the Snowden era, a time when the stakes surrounding — and the theoretical resources for — thinking about secrecy had more clarity than they seem to now. Returning to earlier work, Potolsky and Birchall consider ways to update their accounts of the aesthetics of secrecy for a world shaped by the explosion of online conspiracism and by renewed urgency surrounding questions of race, gender, and identity. There has since been a dramatic shift in the ways that we conceive secrecy, the form that it takes, and how we think about the dichotomy of public and private. The “conversation” is built out of four questions posed by the authors to each other, with revised answers forming the basis for this discussion
Remedying a Legal Black Hole: The Future of Human Rights Jurisdiction in the Mediterranean Sea
No full textThe coastal States of the Mediterranean Sea tend toward a steady decrease in their search and rescue capacities. When a migrant boat sends out a distress signal, many ships in its vicinity either ignore it, merely observe the ship, or even move away from it. Rather than allowing people in distress onto rescue boats, the coastal States control the activity from a distance via, for example, mere distress calls. This lack of action occurs despite their legal obligation to protect under the law of the sea. Due to a maritime legal black hole, those stranded are effectively rendered rightless. This article examines whether a new jurisdictional approach may serve as a remedy and explores an intermediate design. It will assess this jurisdictional approach based on progressive Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Human Rights Committee cases while bearing in mind potential advantages and drawbacks
Frequentierte Ruhestätte
No full textDie Hausarbeit behandelte schwerpunktmäßig verwaltungsrechtliche Fragestellungen. Sie forderte von den Kandidatinnen und Kandidaten, sich mit einer weniger vertrauten Fallkonstellation aus dem Friedhofsrecht auseinanderzusetzen, in der eine eigene und freie Argumentation im Mittelpunkt stand. Letztlich folgt eine Fallfrage zu den europäischen Grundfreiheiten, welche zum klassichen (examensrelevanten) europarechtlichen Repertoire gehört
Was für eine Schreinerei?!
No full textDer diesem Beitrag zugrundeliegende Sachverhalt wurde als Abschlussklausur in der Vorlesung Sachenrecht I (Mobiliarsachenrecht) im Wintersemester 2022/2023 bei Herrn Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Volker Lipp gestellt. In der Bearbeitungszeit von zwei Stunden war im Schwerpunkt das Erlöschen eines Vermieterpfandrechts sowie der gutgläubige Erwerb einer Sache zu prüfen. Insbesondere die Bearbeitung von Aufgabe 1 ist angesichts des Einstiegs über einen Herausgabeanspruch zu Verwertungszwecken für Anfänger:innen anspruchsvoll
Containing the Containment: Using Art. 16 ASR to Overcome Accountability Gaps in Delegated Migration Control
No full textWhen the European Court of Human Rights found Italy responsible for push-backs on the high seas in Hirsi Jamaa based on Italy’s effective control over the individuals, it simultaneously solidified the concept of jurisdiction as a prerequisite of human rights obligations and provided States with deeper knowledge on how to avoid responsibility. Since then, instead of pushing the migrants back themselves, destination States increasingly delegate the task of migration control to third States. Under the guise of “capacity building”, they fund, train, and equip third States to exercise containment measures and carry out pull-backs. By way of bilateral agreements, destination States remain in control of the migration flow while avoiding any direct contact with the migrants that would trigger their human rights obligations. One example for this is the Italian-Libyan cooperation under the 2017 Memorandum of Understanding, which was renewed in 2020. Migrants intercepted by Libya are systematically detained in prisons under horrific conditions, which is in clear violation of their human rights. The present article explores ways to allocate responsibility on destination States for their involvement in those human rights violations notwithstanding the lack of jurisdiction. In particular, the article deals with the question whether the general international law of State responsibility is applicable alongside international human rights law. Responsibility for complicity, as lined out in Art. 16 of the Articles on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts, is compared to the concept of due diligence obligations in international human rights law, dismissing the claim that the latter poses lex specialis. Subsequently, Art. 16 ASR’s substantive requirements are applied to the case study in order to test the provision’s capability to overcome the accountability gap