Living language | Eurozine

These are strange and dark times we live in, writes Christopher Granoff in an editorial for issue 50 of the magazine. atlas (Denmark). As we become increasingly desensitized to modern horrors, our language also appears to be dead. News articles that repeat the same events in lifeless, formulaic magazines, stale marketing copy, and political slogans that are repeated until they have little meaning. Thinking itself seems to be on the verge of death.

To commemorate the 50th issue, atlas wants to bring prose to life and celebrate vibrant, well-crafted, and reflective writing. “Living people need to speak living languages ​​to other living people.”

Manosphere story

Savvy internet users are aware of the dangers of the digital manosphere, but awareness alone may not be enough, writes Alexander Rich Henningsen.

“Training is non-negotiable,” explains a man in his 50s with bulging pecs on Henningsen’s feed. “Weightlifting is something every person on the planet should do,” says American physician Peter Attia. And aerobic exercise is essential to avoid cognitive decline in middle age.

The advice itself isn’t bad. In fact, these health influencers often provide recommendations based on sound research. But such useful advice can be harmful when combined.

Henningsen tells how, as he fell deep into the rabbit hole of men’s health influencers, relentless reminders of his supposed failures began to shape his mindset. He knew that it was impossible to achieve the image of perfect masculinity offered on social media. And yet I found myself believing these strange standards. “Indeed, perhaps a hard and long-lasting erection is actually a sign of a man’s status and worth.”

Surprised by how easily his ideas were being invaded, Henningsen soon realized that he was not immune to the subtle persuasive powers of the manosphere. In this cautionary tale, he shows that the path to far-right misogyny doesn’t have to start with extremism, but with seemingly modest discussions about exercise, health, and discipline.

copyright and creativity

What can and should be copyrighted? Sure, it’s a creative work, but what about stories, characters, and even character arcs? This is the question at the heart of an essay written in the aftermath of a court case involving a Copenhagen theater directed by Liv Helm.

In spring 2025, Husets Teter and playwright Nanna Cecily Bang were sued by rights agency Nordiska on behalf of the American rights holders. A streetcar named desire. A settlement was eventually reached, but the theater will never be able to perform the play again. More lasting than the legal consequences, however, was the effect on Helm’s relationship to the artwork itself.

“If I start to fear my own shadow in the art and theatrical creation that I love, I’m done.” This essay is less a score-scoring effort than an effort to overcome that fear and regain a sense of artistic freedom that “my fire must never be completely extinguished.”

As Helm explains, Notes on Blanche is not an adaptation of A streetcar named desirebut a play about “a woman who sees herself reflected in a fictional character she meets in a movie.” But the rights holders argued that this was not the story Bang was supposed to tell, and that “we own the dramatic development of the character.”

This surprising claim prompts a broader consideration of artistic inheritance and intellectual property. From the reworking of Shakespeare’s familiar stories to the sampling of hip-hop, all art develops through dialogue with what has come before.

What began as a debate over copyright gradually expanded into a meditation on authority, power, and cultural ownership. Beneath the legal conflict lies an even more troubling asymmetry. Small theaters face a powerful rights regime that can determine not only what can be performed, but also who has the right to create and tell the stories. “Who will carry on the stories we have shared for thousands of years to come?”

The myth of gentrification

In his essay on Copenhagen’s changing Nordwest district, Mikkel Boris asks who is responsible for gentrification: the real estate developers, politicians, investors, or the people who deplore it most loudly.

While celebrating the grit and character of “authentic” neighborhoods, gentrifiers also demand climate adaptation measures, waste separation, and noise nuisance mitigation. Just as Midas turns everything he touches into gold, gentrifiers strip away their original charm when they buy up “real” real estate.

But what exactly are the residents of Nordvest holding on to? As some of the rough spots in the district are smoothed out, Boris is finding it hard to muster real anger. The backlash against a proposed bike path linking the area’s rich and poor highlights the limits of urban romanticism. Diversity is cherished as an aesthetic ideal, but when it is threatened with reality, it becomes less important.

“People love the idea of ​​socially diverse, ethnically mixed working-class neighborhoods…but in reality, they don’t particularly enjoy spending time with the ‘marginals’. ”

Despite the freedom

Christian Husted’s poignant essay asks what freedom means when it is no longer taken for granted. This question was provoked by the death of his friend Ivan, who died in battle in Ukraine. Before going to war, Ivan said to him, “We are fighting for your freedom and for the freedom of all Europeans.”

Husted examines the relationship between freedom, power, and security against a backdrop of rearmament, geopolitical uncertainty, and growing doubts about the American security that Europe has relied on for decades. According to him, freedom is more than “freedom” from constraints or the “freedom” to pursue goals. It may also be a question of “despite freedom,” the ability to act freely in the face of danger, uncertainty, and oppression.

But Husted is wary of turning freedom into heroic individual achievements. The lesson he ultimately learned from Ivan’s death was not about solitary courage, but about interdependence. Freedom is not a gift or a given. It is a fragile thing that must be consciously maintained and protected. Husted concludes: “Freedom exists and unfolds not in solitary majesty, but in human communities.”

Review by Cadenza Academic Translations