Jacques Derrida's remark, ‘What is proper to a culture is to not be identical to itself,’ serves as a point of departure for a discussion of artistic and ethnic identities in late-19th and late 20th century literatures. The first part of this paper studies the images of the European and the colonized ‘Other’ in Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness and J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. The second part examines notions of artistic and ethnic identity in the culture of fin de siècle Vienna. The ‘crisis of liberalism’, which plays a pivotal role in Carl Schorske's study of that culture, gains new and urgent meaning through the ethnic conflicts that arose in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Studying artistic identity today, we must distinguish between notions of diffuse identity in post-modern culture and the ethnic identity that writers not infrequently assume in Middle-and Eastern Europe.

The recognition of the heliocentric motion of planets led to the geometrical determination, by Copernicus and Kepler, of the relative planetary distances. Completed by the determination of the true distance from the Earth to the Sun, by geometrical methods, this gave the total scale of distances in the planetary realm. In the years 1830–1840, the same geometrical methods could be applied to stars, the angular resolving power of telescopes having then greatly improved. This established the stellar world up to some hundreds of light-years, with well-determined distances. To go beyond, to the distant stars and to the galaxies, indirect methods were used, allowing a rather accurate gauge of the depths of the universe, up to some billions of light years. The penetration in depth leads naturally to the penetration back in time. The problem of timescales in the universe is one which is still debated, as the cosmologies presently available still contain many assumptions about the very notion of time. Neither the horizons nor the origins are yet within reach; we are merely extrapolating what is known; it is no longer pure astrophysics, but close to metaphysics.

In antiquity, Roman law was a case-law system built up gradually through the creation and elaboration of specific remedies for particular fact-situations. The 6th century Byzantine emperor Justinian converted it into a collection of authoritative texts. They were rediscovered in the 12th century at Bologna and, since they provided arguments relevant to most problems of law and government, were studied in all European universities. Adapted by commentators, Roman law became a ius commune, which was ‘received’ to a greater or lesser degree into the national laws of modern European states.

The Salome legend developed as John the Baptist became the object of increased veneration. It was profoundly modified in the medieval and Renaissance periods. Well suited to Schopenhauerian misogyny and to the burgeoning interest in Freudian psychoanalysis, it became central to the fin de siècle in Western Europe. An instrument of self-reflection as well as of parody, the Salome legend has shown itself, in both the 19th and the 20th centuries, to be capable of ironic criticism and fertile pastiche, as well as of enigmatic mystery and deep psychological exploration.

The discovery of complex structures in the universe is summarized and commented upon. The strong linkage between improved observing techniques, taxonomy and early studies of evolution is illustrated. Comments are also made on the growing modern interest in morphology and the origin of structures in astronomy.

This article argues that, just as science and technology policies played a key role in the early 1980s in dispelling Euro-pessimism and establishing a new momentum towards European integration, so, in the early 1990s, science and technology policies offer a viable way to confront Europe's present crisis of confidence. The agenda has shifted. Today the issues of unemployment, the environment and how best to assimilate the countries of Eastern and Central Europe jostle for priority alongside the older issues of competitiveness and globalization. In spite of the pessimism, none of these challenges is insuperable. On the contrary, it is argued, a co-ordinated supply-side response which gives priority, East and West, to encouraging investment in new equipment, new skills and energy-saving clean technologies, provides a route both out of recession and to increased competitiveness in the global market place.

The attitudes of the ancient Greeks towards their material culture—so far as we can discover from their writings—was rather different from that of most modern students of the remains of classical antiquity. The Greeks esteemed gold and silver vessels, while many archaeologists still believe that they preferred painted pottery. This reversal of classical values came about through the entry of Utopian ideals into the mainstream of classical scholarship in the 18th century. Laudable in themselves, these ideals have led to a serious misunderstanding of the role of ceramic in antiquity. Prices for painted pottery were extremely low and it can hardly have been the vehicle for what the Ancients would have considered to be ‘Art’. It is ironic that the classical tradition has been subverted by many of those charged with the scholarly interpretation of the classical past.

During the last 25 years, evidence has accumulated that our universe has evolved, over a period of 10–15 billion years, from a hot dense fireball to its present state. Telescopes can detect objects so far away that the universe had only a tenth its present age when the light we now receive set out towards us. The cosmic background radiation, and the abundances of elements such as helium and lithium, permit quantitative inferences about what the universe was like when it had been expanding for only a few seconds. The laws of physics established in the laboratory apparently suffice for interpreting all astronomical phenomena back to that time. In the initial instants of cosmic expansion, however, the particle energies and densities were so extreme that terrestrial experiments offer no firm guidance. We will not understand why the universe contains the observed ‘mix’ of matter and radiation, nor why it is expanding in the observed fashion, without further progress in fundamental physics.

The paper deals with the role of Latin and the whole Latin tradition (Latinitas) in East and Central Europe. The main thesis is that, when viewed from various perspectives, this tradition proves to be an integrating as well as a disintegrating factor in the cultural community of the region. Concluding remarks concern the relevance of the Latin heritage for preservation of the cultural identity in East-Central Europe.

This paper examines the nationality problem in the Habsburg monarchy at the end of the 19th century and looks at the ways in which it has been treated by historians. It analyses present-day Europe and concludes, perhaps ominously, that European Union is in danger of becoming a second Habsburg Empire.

In this paper, the role of co-operative agreements in R&D, as a strategic option for firms confronted with the globalization of markets and the multiplication of sources of new technology is examined within the European context. It is argued that a plausible case can be made for co-operative R&D ventures, especially where positive and large technological spillovers exist, when the fixed component of technology-development cost is high and the hedging of risk is an important incentive, and when participating firms produce complementary products. The empirical evidence of a significant multiplication of R&D partnerships in Europe illustrates, from this perspective, the strategic option that firms were confronted with as competition ‘Europeanized’ and ‘globalized’ and technology changed rapidly and unpredictably. Co-operative agreements in R&D also create problems. One such problem is that the agreements could be a vehicle for reducing competition in the downstream product market and for creating barriers to entry. From that point of view, existing EC regulations seems well adapted, but this leaves open the question of conflicts between differing competition policies at the world level. The growing web of international coalitions makes it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to implement a European technology policy whose results are not accessible to companies and countries competing with Europe.

The main difference between unemployment in the US and Europe is due to the way productivity is incorporated into real wages and the extent to which output and employment are demand determined.

The Big Bang theory requires all matter and galaxies to have been created simultaneously 15 billion years ago. But many young galaxies have been observed which must have been created more recently. Moreover, these younger objects, although demonstrably nearby, have large redshifts which cannot be due to recession velocity in an expanding universe. The fundamental assumption in the Big Bang is that extragalactic redshifts are caused only by the velocity of recession. It is shown here how every observational test which can be made on galaxies, and even stars, contradicts the assumption. It is described how a more general and more correct solution of the Einstein general relativity equations yields a non-expanding, continuous creation universe of unlimited age and size.

Scientific literacy should not be taken to mean the knowledge of a lot of science, but rather the understanding of how science really works.