This article examines the significance of some recent architecture and urban demolitions in Berlin. As an example of present-day iconoclasm in the heart of Europe, the relevance of these cases lies not only in the destruction of politically-charged artefacts, but also in their replacement with replicas of eighteenth-century architecture, thus materializing a Prussian revival and a nostalgia for the country’s royal past. In 2006, Berlin initiated the demolition of the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik). The Palast der Republik occupied the site of the original Berlin Palace, or Berliner Schloss, the residence of the Hohenzollern dynasty between 1701 and 1918. The demolition of the Palast has been followed by the construction of a replica of the eighteenth-century Schloss, but now intended to house the new Humboldt Forum, a museum dedicated to non-Western art. In recent years, both Berlin and neighbouring Potsdam have witnessed several integral reconstructions of historical buildings. This series of architecture demolitions and replicas therefore appears as a calculated and well-orchestrated operation to redefine the presence of the past through built artefacts, deserving to be examined from the broader perspective of iconoclastic precedents in art and architecture.

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Inspired by the well-established trope of Eastern Europe’s in-betweenness, this article uses the notion of liminality to explore the images of Eastern Europe during the Cold War in the works of three American authors: John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth. Not only do these works map Eastern Europe as liminal in the imagological sense of the term, that is, as oscillating between competing narratives of otherness and familiarity; empathy and hostility; the East and the West, but also the very experience of venturing behind the Iron Curtain is charged with potentiality: the Eastern-European cityscape becomes the contact zone between cultures and the locus of self-discovery for the American characters. The resultant imaginative geography is at once contemporary and allochronic; political and personal, as it reiterates the Cold War balance of power while at the same time recycling existing representations of the area and reflecting the authors’ sensibilities.

Science has undergone remarkable changes both in scale, organization and influence over the last half century. It has changed the way we live and is more essential than ever before. Although the scientific effort today is more international than it was 50 years ago, only a small part of the world is fully engaged in this process. It is of course impossible in a single article to provide an overall balanced account of these developments and this is not an attempt to do so. Instead, certain trends are illustrated here, based solely on the personal experiences of an individual who – during a long career in the Life Sciences, and through work in many international science organizations – has been a witness and played a role in some of the changes that have occurred, often influenced by major political events.

Scientific fraud still lacks a precise, universally accepted definition: the borders between unambiguously established fraud, errors, misconduct are uncertain: this frequently complicates decisions on whether or not cases of questionable behaviour can be classified as true fraud. In this article we have listed the behaviours which establish that true fraud has occurred. The most important is undoubtedly the intentionality of the behaviour, aimed at creating fictitious support of a theory or of a hypothesis. The fraudulent behaviour must have violated the standards of the time in which it occurred: this is an important point, as these standards may have been different in different times. Also important is the fact that the assessment of the seriousness of suspected cases is incremental: it goes from simple misconduct cases that would border on negligence, to cases of evident fraud, e.g. the fabrication or falsification of data or results, and/or the appropriation (plagiarism) of another person’s ideas or data without giving appropriate credit. In recent times, scientific fraud has become widespread, but it was known in the distant past as well: it has involved scientists who are real icons in the history of science. This article analyses the most important cases, dissecting with great attention the particular aspects of the accusations that had been levelled at them. With one exception, it clears them all of the accusations.

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Attempts to apply the apparatus of quantum mechanics to cognition and language have met, understandably, with a degree of scepticism within the disciplines concerned, but they nevertheless have the potential for opening exciting new perspectives. In this article, I address the question as to what it is exactly about these attempts that has drawn such attention – both positive and negative – in recent years. I shall argue for distinguishing those aspects of quantum cognition that do warrant serious consideration by cognitive psychologists and linguists irrespective of the exact nature of its relationship to classical quantum mechanics. The key lies in the important role played by analogy in both disciplines.

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The identity of young people, and the state of a school’s fulfilment of its tasks, as presented in the article, are based on the results of the author’s own field explorations carried out in the school year 2003/2004 and repeated in the same territory of the Silesian Voivodeship in the zone of intensive social and economic development in 2016/2017. The results of the research conducted have shown that schools brought young people with different personal and social resources, and living in different historical and socio-cultural contexts, to a similar value of identity capital. The study, conducted in two stages with an interval of 13 years, has revealed the greatest shifts in the following areas: extension of the range of interactions (change 13.2%); ambivalence (change 8.1%); revitalization (change 7.7%); and ethos (change 6.8%). The least change occurred in the provision of offers of identification (1.7% change). A slight decline was noted in the extension of the developmental moratorium (1.5% change). The identified, described and empirically verified tasks of a school form a specific map of educational activities, which can be successfully used as a matrix to describe and interpret a school’s participation in the shaping of young people’s identities.

The European Union has faced many crises, such as populism, xenophobia, economic and political challenges, to name a few. This has resulted in some questioning whether the EU will survive. Herein, the neo-institutionalist perspective on crises in EU integration frames an original and timely inquiry into the role of a new EU initiative – the European Education Area – in supporting EU integration in these challenging times. This inquiry relies on a thematic analysis of relevant key policy materials. The findings highlight that while it is not surprising that the EEA is an example of an education convergence project in the EU, the novelty of other findings is striking. It appears that the crises in the EU inspired the authors of the EEA to utilize its education as a tool for EU deepening, which is an aspect of EU integration related to the strengthening of the relationships amongst its Member States. Specifically, the EEA has been a driver in the development of a common European identity and European economy, the EU as a socially-just society and the continent of progress. These findings address important gaps of our knowledge about the role of education in driving EU integration.