Manca G. Renko
Manca G. Renko is a Slovenian historian, cultural critic, editor and essayist, whose work bridges academic research and public cultural engagement. For the book The Oracle: On Fantasy and Freedom, published by Sternberg Press to accompany the exhibition, Manca G. Renko wrote an essay reflecting on the disillusionment of a generation raised with the promise of an open, liberal and united Europe. The narrator, a historian and an academic, traces her personal and professional journey alongside broader geopolitical and cultural shifts, especially the decline of liberal democracy, the erosion of rights for marginalised groups, and the growing precarity faced by intellectuals in today's Europe.
Using vivid anecdotes – from academic conferences in Rome to bus rides across borders – she contrasts the symbolic prestige of institutions like Sapienza or Humboldt with the material realities of academic and economic instability, symbolised by Flixbus. The author discusses how dreams of global academic collaboration are being stifled by sanctions, nationalism and shrinking freedoms. She highlights how liberal democracy in particular, once viewed as the ultimate political ideal, is losing its coherence and credibility, especially as rights for women and LGBTQ+ communities face a renewed backlash. The author revisits early 20th-century feminist writing, which critiques democracy as inadequate for women's liberation and draws parallels to today’s world, where symbolic victories (like voting rights or female political leaders) often mask deeper systemic inequalities. She argues against nostalgic and reductive narratives of empowerment, like those in the popular Italian film C'è ancora domani, arguing that without structural change, such stories serve more as illusions rather than markers of progress. Her essay questions whether liberal democracy, as we know it, can endure – and if not, what could or should come next.
She is currently affiliated with the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies at ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana and, since autumn 2023, she has been contributing to the HERESSEE project, which investigates feminist thought and political discourse in Central and Eastern Europe between 1929 and 2001. She is the editor-in-chief of Cukr, a magazine published by the Museum and Galleries of the City of Ljubljana. She served as Artistic Director of the international literary festival Fabula (2016–2020) and currently holds the position of President of the Council of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia.
