The interpreter as a citizen diplomat

Abstract The article presents a case of interpretation as a political activity during the Cold War. In the 1980s and 1990s, a grassroots citizen diplomacy movement was initiated by the Californian Esalen Institute, the center of the American Human Potential Movement. In and around its Soviet-American exchange program, numerous individuals, NGOs and organizations established personal relationships and professional exchange with citizens of the two super powers and travelled in both directions. Interpreters had a complex and crucial role in this exchange which was different from both the professional experience of conference and of communal interpreting.

The Occult Underground of Late Soviet Russia

Der Aufsatz bietet einen Überblick über verschiedene Strömungen des okkulten Untergrunds im spätsowjetischen Russland, insbes. im Milieu der literarischen Bohème, in und außerhalb von wissenschaftlichen Institutionen und in der volkstümlichen bzw. alternativen Gesundheit. Einflüsse östlicher Philosophie und Religion werden diskutiert, Probleme der Terminologie, Einflüsse und Wechselbeziehungen zum westlichen New Age.

Russian Cosmism