Public Republic

By Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: Leo Ponti
Many people see collecting art as an investment. And it is true that its value over time will probably grow. However, building a relationship with art is really a way of self-expression. It is an affirmation of our own worldview and creativity, even as viewers. Collecting art that reflects our [...]

By Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: Geoff604
No, this is not related to Julia Child, whose culinary mystique I seem to have missed, being a transplant from a different culture on American soil. It’s about books on cooking in general, the writing of/on cooking and on the pleasure of food. Well, the concept of food is having a [...]

By Ellie Ivanova Ponti
Stanley Fish’s column in the New York Times is probably the most prominent place where the world meets academia. After all, the world hardly reads The Chronicle of Higher Education and it’s sad these issues are otherwise largely ignored, beyond the annual college admission campaign. Getting into college seems to be extremely [...]

By Ellie Ivanova Ponti
I love browsing through fashion advice books, but it’s always out of curiosity. I like to see a different interpretation of what women should look like – and how that changes through time. I never follow the advice contained in those books because I forget the specifics. And they are so different [...]

By Ellie Ivanova Ponti

As I stopped by Leo’s workplace the other day, I noticed that almost 30% of the cars in the parking lot bore vanity license plates. That struck me as unusual – I think that among the general car population, vanity plates don’t exceed 5%. Are those car owners identity-challenged or, on the [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: quartermane
Speaking of fashion, I didn’t delve into the question whether style is really a personal expression of self identity or just a convention, a formula offered by society and used by an individual in one combination of elements or another. Is an individual ever free, after all, to use any piece of [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: woodleywonderworks
The best time to learn a new language is around teenagerhood and beyond. Yes, learning at a younger age is always an advantage and young children absorb a new language faster if they are immersed in the respective culture. But they also forget it easier if they are removed from it. Their [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti
A friend of mine recommended the 1960 classic Never on Sunday (directed by Jules Dassin, starring Melina Mercouri) as the film that introduced foreign cinema to the larger American audience.
In fact, it won several Academy Awards nominations and was a huge success. It also caused uproar in Hollywood with the fact that [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti
Molas, a traditional female shirt of the Kuna people of coastal Panama, are an interesting case of a traditional art with a special role in today’s globalized culture. Kuna people have an unique culture that has survived centuries and although their lands are a popular tourist destination now, they have kept their traditions [...]

Photo: hamedmasoumi
It’s a beautiful day today in Chronotopia. That’s the day when She will put on a gorgeous white dress and meet her Beloved, and they will get married, as they have dreamed for so long. But they won’t be alone in their celebration of love. They will be joined by ten thousand other couples [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: alicepopkorn
The case of Herman and Roma Rosenblatt’s love story and what critics called their “fake memoir” definitely makes us reevaluate the narrative role of truth in a story.
Why is it important that a memoir be a true accounts of its author’s life? Obviously, it reflects the way its author remembers it. [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

The word “necrologue” is not part of the official English vocabulary today, but it used to be a couple a centuries ago, with the meaning of “obituary” or “necrology.” Still, I prefer to use “necrologue” instead of “necrology” in this case because this is how it is used in Bulgaria.
Necrologues in Bulgarian culture [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Yesterday, I got a surprise amazon.com package in the mail. It wasn’t a mistaken order sent by amazon.com, it was a recycled box in which a dear friend was sending me some old books from a local antiquarian she thought I would find “fun.”
They were three fiction books published in the early [...]

Photo: frischmilch
The tradition to celebrate a New Year is perhaps universal, although the precise date of its occurrence is so varied from culture to culture. It can be the winter solstice, the end of harvest time in the fall, the beginning of spring. The customs and rituals of celebration are varied as well. People send [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: hermanturnip
Today we associate holiday gift-giving with Christmas, but just as many other Christmas customs and symbols, blending holiday traditions coming from other religions, gift-giving has its sources in multiple cultures practices.

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: vassil_tzvetanov
Christmas celebration in Bulgaria is an amalgam of customs and symbols, coming from different traditions and beliefs just as it is in any other country.
On one hand, there are the ancient Roman elements dating from the beginning of Christianity itself. The Bulgarian name for Chistmas, Koleda, comes from the Latin holiday [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Petja Heinrich is a journalist, linguist and writer. Her first book of poetry in Bulgarian is to be presented in Sofia on December 6, 2008.
She is an editor for the German-language edition of Public Republic.

An interview with the young designer Gradinko Aladinkov by Natalia Nikolaeva
Hamburg is the city where I have lived in the past eight years. I am still in the process of discovering its interesting faces, surprising metamorphoses, hidden features and unique charm.

It is not a chance that Hamburg’s haunting northern beauty and its original architecture [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: r e n a t a
In July, I had the chance to visit an interesting store in New Orleans, Oh Susannah Doll Shop – all things doll, but, alas, with little time to peruse thoroughly and decide which of the precious items I was most in love with so that I would [...]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti

Photo: Felix Francis
I recently had the chance to see a 1973 film which I had been long looking for, The Spirit of the Beehive by Victor Erice. I recommend it to every fan of Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006).
Maybe the Labyrinth was not meant to be a tribute to the Beehive, but [...]