Search results for ""ibidem""

Gregory Maertz has written extensively on Romantic and Modern literature, art, and ideas. In these nine related essays, he investigates the expression of Romanticism in literature, philosophy, and cultural politics from the Renaissance to Modernism. The comparative essays in Part One examine the affinity between the religious logic of Sir Thomas Browne and Søren Kierkegaard; Tolstoys enduring attraction to Schopenhauers thought; Rilkes debts to the sculptor Rodin; the identification of an early novel by William Godwin as the chief precursor text to Mary Shelleys Frankenstein; and the corresponding literary projects of Osip Mandelstam, Rilke, and David Jones. In Part Two the essays are clustered around the literary activity of writers and philosophers associated with radicalism in Britain and transcendentalism in America: a reconsideration of the life of William Godwin; the central role played by English radicals in the transmission of German literature; Godwins innovations in travel fiction; and the crystallization of authorial identity around the influence of Goethe in the work of women writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret Fuller, and George Eliot.

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ENTANGLEMENTS: ENVISIONING WORLD LITERATURE FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH scrutinises current debates to bring historical and contemporary South-South entanglements to the fore and to develop a new understanding of world literature in a multipolar world of globalized modernity. The volume challenges established ideas of world literature by rethinking the concept along the notion of entanglements: as a field of variously criss-crossing relations of literary activity beyond the confines of literary canons, cultural containers, or national borders. The collection presents individual case studies from a variety of language traditions that focus on particular literary relationships and practices across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe as well as new fictional, poetical, and theoretical conceptions of world literature in order to broaden our understanding of the multilateral entanglements within a widening communicative network that shape our globalised world.

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This is the first monograph to analyse Beckett's use of the visual arts, music, and broadcasting media through a transdisciplinary approach. It considers how Beckett's complex and varied use of art, music, and media in a selection of his novels, radio plays, teleplays, and later short prose informs his creative process. Investigating specific instances where Beckett's writing adopts musical or visual structures, Lucy Jeffery identifies instances of Beckett's transdisciplinarity and considers how this approach to writing facilitates ways of expressing familiar Beckettian themes of abstraction, ambiguity, longing, and endlessness. With case studies spanning forty years, she evaluates Beckett's stylistic shifts in relation to the cultural context, particularly the technological advancements and artistic movements, during which they were written. With new examples from Beckett's notebooks, critical essays, and letters, Transdisciplinary Beckett evidences how the drastic changes that took place in the visual arts and in musical composition influenced Beckett and, in turn, were influenced by him. Transdisciplinary Beckett situates Beckett as a key figure not just in the literary marketplace but also in the fields of music, art, and broadcasting.

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The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) faced various iterations of modernization throughout its history. This conflicted encounter continues in the ROC's current resistance against-what it perceives as-Western modernity including liberal and secular values. This study examines the historical development of the ROC's arguments against-and sometimes preferences for-modernization and analyses which positions ended up influencing the official doctrine. The book's systematic analysis of dogmatic treatises shows the ROC's considerable ability of constructive engagement with various aspects of the modern world. Balancing between theological traditions of unity and plurality, the ROC's today context of operating within an authoritarian state appears to tip the scale in favour of unity.

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By sensing the fundamental ideas of earth and the earth-thought, this collection seeks to negotiate with and react to the underlying semasiological or psycho-geographical principle of geopoetics that cuts across varied and at times conflicting schools. From reading some geopoetical texts to understanding the idea of earth in Humboldt and Marx-Engels, topolitics in Tintin, reef-thinking, geopoet(h)ics and Asiabodh, the volume tries to perceive how we poetically exist with the earth. Isn't literature, taking a cue from Hölderlin, a symptom of the way "man lives poetically on the earth"? How is our body and psyche integral parts of the earth-thought? How does literature deal with the concepts of space and place? How literature enables us to comprehend the underlying principle of geopoetics -- the principle of finding art in earth? These are some of the critical questions which this volume seeks to explore. Literature exemplifies a geographical consciousness - an "intimate and subjective" experience of the earth. This book is an attempt to conceive this eclectic infusion of art and earth, so that we are able to ensure that the world of the art always remains in touch with the earth of the world. Let us, through this book, un-earth this deep-rooted spatiality and geographicality in literature. Let us imitate earth through art, as this is the only place where we can live.

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In Statu Nascendi is a peer-reviewed journal that aspires to be a world-class scholarly platform encompassing original academic research dedicated to the circle of Political Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Theory of International Relations, Foreign Policy, and the political Decision-making process. The journal investigates specific issues through a socio-cultural, philosophical, and anthropological approach to raise a new type of civic awareness about the complexity of contemporary crisis, instability, and warfare situations, where the stage-of-becoming plays a vital role. Issue 2021:1 comprises, amongst others, the following interviews & articles: Constructivism in the Study of Sustainable Development; Interview with Krzysztof Żęgota on the Kaliningrad Oblast Role in the Contemporary Russian Federations Geostrategic Outlook; Democracy to come: Derridas undecidability and Laclaus Ethical as Investment Everydayness; John Searle and Posthuman Speech Acts; New Digital Aesthetics and Eventual New Global Tribes: A Brief Overview of Manovichs Instagrammism.

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In September 2017, Dr Nasser Kurdy was stabbed in the neck while entering the grounds of his local mosque. This book tells the story of that attack and how Dr Kurdy came to forgive his attacker. It lays out the international historical events that brought Dr Kurdy to be in that place at that time and it follows events after the attack, combining his surgical knowledge with his experience of the UK criminal justice system as well as a series of reflective enquiries into the nature of forgiveness. The book is the timely and inspiring story of the optimism that can emerge from violence. It also includes contributions from a number of friends, family, and colleagues of Dr Kurdy, which illustrate the impact such an attack can have beyond that on a single individual.

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At 11 o'clock in the evening of 20th August 1968, the armies of four Warsaw Pact countries, the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, and Hungary, crossed the borders of Czechoslovakia, starting the Operation Danube. Literally overnight the Czechoslovak experiment with Alexander Dubček's liberalization reforms was transformed from living reality into history. Although the Soviet Unions action successfully halted the pace of reform in Czechoslovakia, it had unintended consequences for both the unity of the communist bloc and the establishment of the new Soviet foreign doctrine. This book brings the international context of the 1968 crisis in Czechoslovakia to the center of attention. It brought together experts from within as well as from without Central Europe with the hope of igniting, or, perhaps better, re-igniting an international discussion on the Prague spring, its origins, its unfolding, its aftermath, and, most importantly, the international context. The volumes contributors are: Ljubodarg Dimić, Jakub Drábik, Mihail Gruev, Slavomír Michálek, Miklós Mitrovits, Jackques Rupnik, Alexander Stykalin, Mirosław Szumiło, Michal tefanský, and Virgiliu Tarau.

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The future of our world over the next decade is being shaped by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that seek to uphold childrens wellbeing and, by their call to leave no one behind and to reach the furthest behind first, shine a spotlight on the worlds most vulnerable populations including children and adolescents living in poverty and exclusion. The transformative steps promised in the SDGs to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path assumes greater significance in the post-COVID-19 world where structural exclusions are starkly exposed and deep societal inequalities thickly underlined. This volume seeks to address the main drivers of poverty, exclusion, urbanization, and violence against children and adolescents and investigates how knowledge, information, data collection, measurement, and monitoring can support strategies and innovations to effectively implement the SDGs by drawing on data and experience from several countries across the world including Bangladesh, Colombia, Côte dIvoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Malawi, MENA countries, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Suriname, and Thailand. As a result, it contributes to revealing the politics of social inclusion, offering policy proposals towards overcoming inequality and exclusion among children and adolescents.

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In his timely study, Andrii Demartino investigates the multitude of techniques how social media can be used to advance an aggressive foreign policy, as exemplified by the Russian Federation's operation to annex Crimea in 2014. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Demartino traces the implementation of a series of Russian measures to create channels and organisations manipulating public opinion in the Ukrainian segment of the internet and on platforms such as Facebook, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, LiveJournal, and Twitter. Addressing the pertinent question of how much the operation to annex Crimea was either improvised or planned, he draws attention to Russia's ad-hoc actions in the sphere of social media in 2014. Based on an in-depth analysis of the methods of Russia's influence operations, the book proposes a number of counterstrategies to prevent such "active measures." These propositions can serve to improve Ukraine's national information policy as well as help to develop adequate security concepts of other states.

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In 2012, soon after his election to a third presidential term as president, following a four-year stint as prime minister (to avoid modifying the constitution), and in the wake of an unprecedented wave of popular protests, Vladimir Putin issued his May Decrees. Notable among them was the governments commitment to increase the salaries of doctors, scientific researchers and university teachers to double the average in their respective regions by 2018. But then on December 30 of that year, the government issued a road map for education, revealing that the salary increases in higher education would be paid for, not by significant new government funding, but by optimization, which would eliminate 44% of the current teaching positions in higher education. This was justified in part by a forecasted drop in student enrollment. Thus opened a new, accelerated period of reform of higher education. David Mandel examines the impact of these reforms on the condition of Russias university teachers and the collective efforts of some teachers, a small minority, to organize themselves in an independent trade union to defend their professional interests and their vision of higher education. Apart from the subjects intrinsic interest, an in-depth examination of this specific aspect of social policy provides valuable insight into the nature of the Russian state as well as into the condition of civil society, in particular the popular classes, to which Russian university teachers belong according to their socio-economic situation, if not necessarily their self-image.

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This book draws on the authors experience from 26 years of Ukrainian diplomatic service in, among others, Bonn, Berlin, Washington, and Vienna, and his work as a speechwriter to most Ukrainian foreign ministers for the last two decades. Scherbas captivating essays reflect his views of international affairs from a Ukrainian perspective. His deliberations are presented in uncomplicated, plain language. The articles assembled here have repeatedly caused discussion in Ukraine and abroad. By his opponents, Scherba is often described as being surprisingly undiplomatic and even provocative. For instance, his article Why nationalism cant be the national idea of a European Ukraine, published on a Ukrainian nationalist website, stirred considerable controversy in Ukraine. Aside from explaining Kyivs take on some key issues of international relations, these essays provide insights into Ukrainian political thinking since the start of Russias military aggression in 2014, and into the painful political intramural fights in Ukrainian society ever since.

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This book is part of an initiative in cooperation with renowned Chinese publishers to make fundamental, formative, and influential Chinese thinkers available to a western readership, providing absorbing insights into Chinese reflections of late, and offering a chance to grasp todays China. In their influential book Handbook of the History of Religions in China, Zhongjian Mou and Jian Zhang present a panorama of the religions existing in China through time. In their fascinating History, they delineate the emergence and development of Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity and explore the roles they played in Chinese society and the interrelations between them. In China, also due to the encompassing Confucian idea of living together harmoniously while maintaining differences, religions -- including newly arrived ones -- came closer together than anywhere else in the world and reached a unique level of peaceful societal coexistence. Despite many frictions and conflicts, communication and reconciliation were indisputably predominant in China throughout history. Buddhism was peacefully introduced into China and, later on, a harmonious, symbiotic syncretism of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism developed -- an exemplary process of how a diverse set of different religions can complement each other and contribute to a better life.

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The book series European Studies in the Caucasus offers innovative perspectives on regional studies of the Caucasus. By embracing the South Caucasus as well as Turkey and Russia, it moves away from a traditional viewpoint of European Studies that considers the countries of the region as objects of Europeanisation. This second volume demonstrates this by looking into forms of inter-regionalism in the Black Sea-South Caucasus area in fields of economic cooperation, Europeanisation of energy and environmental policies, discussing how the region is addressed in the elaboration of a new German Eastern Policy. In the section on norm diffusion, the contributors assess the normative power strategy of the EU and its paradoxes in the region, its impact on civil society development in Armenia, and democracy promotion in Georgia. In the section on legal approximation, issues of a global climate change regime and competition law in Georgia as well as penitentiary governance reform in the South Caucasus according to EU standards and policies are analysed. All contributions also review regional or local contestations for the topics discussed here.

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This book is part of an initiative in cooperation with renowned Chinese publishers to make fundamental, formative, and influential Chinese thinkers available to a western readership, providing absorbing insights into Chinese reflections of late. Haipeng Zhang and Jinyi Zhai provide us with a history of China's struggle for national independence and prosperity, reflecting the humiliation in the sinking period and the struggle during the rising period. After the Japanese aggressions against China had caused more damage to China than all previous invasions, Chinese society not only avoided the continued "sinking", but also laid the foundation for China's modernization and the recent success story to the present day.

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What would you do if one day, without any warning, your child disappeared as if the earth had swallowed it? Theres one moment, and then, in the next momentgone. This book tells the story that Ronnies mother, Anna, had to go through. Was Ronnie kidnapped? Did she run away?Did the worst thing possible happen?Or did 21-year-old Ronnie get tired of Anna? Tired of her meddling and pressing, always wanting to be there and help, sometimes a little too much. From Tel Avivs underworld of nightclubs, drug dealers, and prostitutes to the beauty and mysteries of India, Anna goes on a fascinating journey, following clues and threads of information, alongside an adventurous rescuer, all while getting help from friends and a variety of characters she had never met before. Anna is desperate to discover the fate of her younger daughter. While she realizes that maybe she didnt know her daughter as well as she thought, what awaits her is the greatest natural disaster of our time:a tsunami.

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In Statu Nascendi is a peer-reviewed journal that aspires to be a world-class scholarly platform encompassing original academic research dedicated to the circle of Political Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Theory of International Relations, Foreign Policy, and the political Decision-making process. The journal investigates specific issues through a socio-cultural, philosophical, and anthropological approach to raise a new type of civic awareness about the complexity of contemporary crisis, instability, and warfare situations, where the stage-of-becoming plays a vital role. Issue 2020:1 comprises, amongst others, the following interviews & articles: Zoran Kojcic & Piotr Pietrzak: Interview with Dr. Zoran Kojcic on his unique form of philosophical counselling. Dimitris M. Moschos: Paul Tillich's Critical and Political Theology and his Critique of Modernity. Venera Russo: The Phenomenology of Women. On Female Discourse in Julia Kristeva's and Simone de Beauvoir's work. Venera Russo: Cross-language Relation. The Implications of Relativity in Translation and vice versa. Anastasia Pranindita & Anak Agung Banyu Perwita: The Republic of Korea United States of Americas Strategic Patience: A counter measurement of the Alliance in Responding to Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Nuclear Development Program (2013 2017). Eliza Campbell: Dueling with Disinformation: Disinformation and Information and Communication Technologies in the Middle East. Piotr Pietrzak: How would Realists Interpret People Republic of China's wish to cultivate the image of a responsible great power?

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To say that we are embodied subjects is to affirm that we are both extended and conscious: both a part of the material world and a place where that world comes to presence. The ambiguity inherent in our being both can be put in terms of a double being in. Thus, while it is true that the world is in consciousness taken as a place of appearing, it is equally true that, taken as embodied, consciousness is in the world. How can our selfhood support both descriptions? Starting with Husserls late manuscripts on birth and death, James Mensch traces out the effects of this paradox on phenomenology. What does it mean to consider the self as determined by its embodiment? How does this affect our social and political relations, including those marked by violence? How does our embodiment affect our sense of transcendence, including that of the divine? In the course of these inquiries, such questions are shown to transform the very sense of phenomenology.

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The politico-economic reforms launched during the late twentieth century in post-Soviet Russia have led to contradictory and ambiguous results. The new economic environment and mode of governance that emerged have been subjected to serious criticism. What were the causes of these developments? Were they unavoidable for Russia due to specific factors grounded in the countrys previous experiences? Or were they an intended result of actions taken by the leaders of the country during the last few decades? The authors of this book share neither a deterministic approach, which implies that Russia is bound to fail because of the nature of its economic and political evolution, nor a voluntarist approach, which implies that these failures were caused only by the incompetence and/or malicious intentions of its leaders. Instead, this study offers a different framework for the analysis of political and economic developments in present-day Russia. It is based on four isideas, interests, institutions, and illusions.

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Globalization is not a new phenomenon. Ideas have been circulating all over Europe (and the world) since ancient times, and intercultural dialog is a wide field offering a great variety of approaches. In such times as ours, when the world is swift to change and cultures are destined to meet (sometimes, alas, to clash), the place of literature, or broadly speaking: human and social sciences, within society is often questioned and needs redefining: From the reception studies of the 1970s and 1980s to the stress laid on intermedial and intercultural relations, not forgetting the work done on cultural transfers, this question opens up a wide field of theoretic, methodological, and aesthetic research, which is explored through this volume.

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Freedom of religious expression and assembly has never been under greater threat in post-Soviet Russia. The infamous Yarovaya Law of 2016 has made good on previous legislative endeavours to curtail the activities of undesirable religious entities. Behind the curtain, the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church looms large over state policy and the decline in religious liberties and pluralism. Lincoln E. Flake explains the churchs hostility to non-traditional groups as a consequence of historical-structural factors arising from its Soviet experience and immediate-strategic factors arising from its experience in the post-Soviet religious free market. It was not until the 2014 annexation of Crimea that church-state interests coincided to produce unprecedented collusion. The Church, which had previously only served symbolic purposes for domestic political advantage, was now required for more meaningful active measures in Russias all-of-government approach to advancing its national security strategy. Reciprocation produced the Yarovaya Law and further quid pro quos account for the relapse into religious intolerance. This study contextualizes the churchs present-day posture on religious pluralism by appealing both to historical experience and insights that Rational Choice Theory offers to the study of religious actors and religious behaviour.

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David Tomasi presents new, ground-breaking research on the science and application of Mind-Body Medicine strategies to improve clinical outcomes in inpatient psychiatry settings. Much more than a list of therapeutic recommendations, this book is a thorough description of how Mind-Body Medicine can be successfully applied, from a therapeutic as well as from an organisational, cost-effective analysis viewpoint, to the full spectrum of psychiatric treatments. Furthermore, this study examines the role of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary treatment teams, with a special focus on the profession and the role of psychotherapists and group therapists, thereby providing solid scientific evidence of the benefits of patient-provider therapeutic alliances. In this sense, this book serves as a guide for professionals and institutions both in the private and the public sphere, to learn effective treatment and management strategies.

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In the US as well as in Europe, migration and migration policy is one of the top issues. This timely volume gathers distinguished authors from academic institutions throughout Europe addressing the growing importance of migration policy making and the refugee crisis that European Union member states and other countries are currently facing. By focusing on the most important effects that the migration from Third World countries has brought to the European Union, they provide a critical overview of the politicization, securitization, and social discourse of migration. The authors analyze the impacts on public administration and governance and also discuss the rise of the radical right in EU member states, the rise of populism, and the alienation of citizens from formal politics which is also caused by the growing interest in security and public safety. The pan-European character of the publications scope is vested in its narration; the contributors cover the situation in Western Europe, the critical positions of the Visegrad countries as well as foreign policy making in Slovenia and the Western Balkans. Moreover, the authors address case studies from states such as Armenia and Moldova, including their labor migrants in the Western world. The collection is completed by contrasting and discussing the immigration policies of countries that are well-known for their open and liberal immigration activities such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

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Theories about the nature and function of philosophical imagination depend on our understanding of what kind of universe we inhabit. Some theories are compelling if the universe is meaningful as a whole, but they make no sense if it is not. Raymond C. Barfield discusses conditions that would be necessary if the universe is meaningful as a whole, and then develops a theory of philosophical imagination in light of that starting place. The theory moves toward the conclusion that if the universe is meaningful as a whole, the concept of the analogia entis, the analogy of being, illuminates philosophical imagination in a way that changes our understanding of its function and potential, along with the value of its discoveries through the things it creates.

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This captivating volume brings together case studies drawn from four post-Soviet statesRussia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. The collected papers illustrate how the events that started in 1985 and brought down the USSR six years later led to the rise of fifteen successor states, with their own historicized collective memories. The volumes analyses juxtapose history textbooks for secondary schools and universities, and how they aim to create understandings as well as identities that are politically usable, within their different contexts. From this emerges a picture of multiple perestroika(s) and diverging development paths. Only in Ukrainea country that recently experienced two popular uprisings, the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignitythe people themselves are ascribed agency and the power to change their country. In the other three states, elites are, instead, presented as prime movers of society, as is historical determinism. The volumes contributors are Diana Bencheci, Andrei Dudchik, Liliya Erushkina, Marharyta Fabrykant, Alexandr Gorylev, Andrey Kashin, Alla Marchenko, Valerii Mosneagu, Alexey Rusakov, Natalia Tregubova, and Yuliya Yurchuk.

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The book series "European Studies in the Caucasus" offers innovative perspectives on regional studies of the Caucasus. By embracing the South Caucasus as well as Turkey and Russia as the major regional powers, it moves away from a traditional viewpoint of European Studies that considers the countries of the region as objects of Europeanization. This first volume emphasises the movements of ideas in both directions -- from Europe to the Caucasus and from the Caucasus to Europe. This double-track frame illuminates new aspects of a variety of issues requiring reciprocity and intersubjectivity, including rivalries between different integration systems in the southern and eastern fringes of Europe, various dimensions of interaction between countries of the South Caucasus and the European Union in a situation of the ongoing conflict with Russia, and different ways of using European experiences for the sake of domestic reforms in the South Caucasus. Topics range from identities to foreign policies, and from memory politics to religion.

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Ever since I left the land that was my home, wherever I have traveled and lived, I have been asked the same question: How could a Hitler happen, in the land of poets and scientists and thinkers, the land of music and arts, the land of plenty, the land of orderliness and efficiency, of cleanliness and dependability, the very land of humaneness? Born in Hannover in 1905 as a German Jew, Fred Harry Meyer (1905-1969) and his new Christian bride fled to the USA in the nick of time in 1937. His autobiography provides a vivid and detailed yet flowing picture of the life left behind in Germany up till 1932 and the events that led to Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Holocaust.

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This book deals with the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) that was launched on 29 August 1944 in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. In the West, the uprising is an under-researched topic in the history of WWII. The Slovak state was an ally of Nazi Germany, but the uprising proved that the population did not share the regimes ideology.

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In this daring experiment in ethnographic place-writing, cultural geographer James Riding aims to get at the heart of post-conflict Bosnia showing the past alongside the present it created via a series of journeys, and through the retelling of memories. The juxtaposition between the siege of Sarajevo and supersonic metal, the refugee journey and the aid-worker travelling in the other direction, the desperation and fury to change the present yet being stuck with many of the ethno-nationalist politicians and politics of the past -- it is a journey to Bosnia as it is understood today in popular discourse, a war-torn place defined by ethnic conflict, yet also a journey to deconstruct and reveal more than ancient ethnic hatreds portrayed on television screens across the globe from 1992 to 1995. Heavy with the weight of history on the one hand, and an inspirational place with radical emancipatory politics on the other, it is only through innovative storytelling that one can attempt to give a sense of what Bosnia itself is like in words for those who have never been, and -- most importantly -- for those who are from there.

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This book takes stock of the diverse and divergent welfare trajectories of post-socialist countries across Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. It traces the impacts, in terms of poverty, well-being, and inequality, of over two decades of transformation, addressing both the legacy effects of socialist welfare systems and the installation of new social, political, and economic structures and, in many cases, new independent nation-states. Authors from different disciplines address key aspects of social protection including health care, poverty reduction measures, active labour market policies, pension systems, and child welfare systems.

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Czechoslovakia played an important role within the Soviet bloc, yet its history remains under-researched. This monograph blends historical analysis of the superpowers foreign policies with an assessment of their impact on Czechoslovakia and its position within the Soviet bloc. The book thereby places Czechoslovakia on the map of Cold War history, i.e. the era of mutually assured destruction that lasted almost half a century. It provides a lucid introduction to some milestones in international Cold War history in their relation to Czecho-Slovak history. The books novel contribution is to explain Czechoslovakias domestic situation during the Cold War from the outside. Drawing on extensive source materials of Slovak, Czech, American, and Russian provenance, it provides a more comprehensive understanding of post-war Czecho-Slovak history while also contributing to general knowledge about the nature and impact of the Cold War.

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This timely book analyses soft power in the light of neoclassical realist premises as part of the foreign policy toolkit of great powers to expand their sphere of influence. Vasif Huseynov argues that if nuclear armed great powers compete against the same type of powers to expand or sustain their sphere of influence over a populated region, they use soft power as a major expansive instrument while military power remains a tool to defend themselves and back up their foreign policies. Presenting his model of soft power, the author explores the role of soft power projection by great powers in the formation of the external alignment of regional states. He focuses on the rivalries between Russia and the West (i.e. the EU and the USA) over the states located between the EU and Russia (the region known as the common [or shared] neighborhood) and on two of these regional states (Ukraine and Belarus) to test his hypotheses.

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This study investigates how Janet Frame weaves together literary sources from her extensive reading to create a web of intertextual relationships. Patricia Neville traces Frames passion for books beginning with her childhood and earliest published work in the Otago Daily Times. Drawing on new research and through close readings of Frames novels, she discusses the effects of Frames borrowings from the Bible and Shakespeare and from writing from New Zealand, Britain, France, and the USA. A fascinating read not only for scholars, but for all admirers of Janet Frames fiction.

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árka Sladovníková analyzes the depiction of the Holocaust in Czechoslovak and Czech Feature Films and the relevant literary pretexts. While she charts the social and cultural framework in which the films were made and how this framework changed, she also focuses on the cinematic language, the composition of and narration in each film (eg: the depiction of the war and the Shoah as a narratively closed versus a narratively open event), genre aspects of the films (e.g., the use of comedy and humor), convention and innovation in presenting motifs and characters (the division of gender roles, the character of the good German). Particular attention is paid to the portrayal of stereotypes and countertypes in the films, where already well-known images, situations, and backdrops are repeated and which meet viewers expectations or, in contrast, which form countertypes and countersituations that go against the grain. Many of the films analyzed are adaptations of literary works. Therefore, this book is also a contribution to the rapidly developing field of adaptation studies.

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Rolando Dromundo presents a political and historical analysis of the state-building processes in Ukraine, Moldova, and the unrecognized Republic of Pridnestrovia from the Soviet fall until 2015, starting with a sketch of the main geopolitical trend that surrounds these polities and its influences on them, and paying special attention to the vicissitudes of the Ukrainian political crisis of 201314 and its immediate consequences in Crimea and the Donbass. This book is a must for scholars with an interest in the Post-Soviet Space and to anyone curious about an international conflict from a realist perspective. It offers an original insight on the understanding of the oligarchs role in the Ukrainian political life and presents a different perspective of the unrecognized Republic of Pridnestrovia. Dromundo writes neither pro-Russian nor pro-Western. He sheds light on the problems from different angles and illustrates how the local inhabitants turned out to become the biggest losers in the game because they have fallen prey to local elites allied with different foreign powers disregarding local identities and needs. Altogether, the book helps to better understand the complexity of local state-building processes in a multiethnic society. Rolando Dromundo presents a political and historical analysis of the state-building processes in Ukraine, Moldova, and the unrecognized Republic of Pridnestrovia from the Soviet fall until 2015, starting with a sketch of the main geopolitical trend that surrounds these polities and its influences on them, and paying special attention to the vicissitudes of the Ukrainian political crisis of 201314 and its immediate consequences in Crimea and the Donbass. This book is a must for scholars with an interest in the Post-Soviet Space and to anyone curious about an international conflict from a realist perspective. It offers an original insight on the understanding of the oligarchs role in the Ukrainian political life and presents a different perspective of the unrecognized Republic of Pridnestrovia. Dromundo writes neither pro-Russian nor pro-Western. He sheds light on the problems from different angles and illustrates how the local inhabitants turned out to become the biggest losers in the game because they have fallen prey to local elites allied with different foreign powers disregarding local identities and needs. Altogether, the book helps to better understand the complexity of local state-building processes in a multiethnic society.

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In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Livingstone declaration, and the UN Social Protection Floor, this book deals jointly with multi-dimensional child poverty and social protection in Western and Central Africa. It focuses both on extent and types of social protection coverage and assesses various child poverty trends in the region. More importantly, it looks at social protection to prevent and address the consequences of child poverty. Child poverty is distinct, conceptually, and different, quantitatively, from adult poverty. It requires its own independent measurementotherwise half of the population in developing countries may be unaccounted for when assessing poverty reduction. This book posits that child poverty should be measured based on constitutive rights of poverty, using a multi-dimensional approach. The argument is supported by chapters actually applying and expanding this approach. In addition, the case is made that the underlying drivers of child poverty are inequality, lack of access to basic social services, and the presence of families without any type of social protection. As a result, the case for social protection in contributing to reduce and eliminate child protection and its consequences is made. Poverty reduction has been high on the international agenda since the start of the millennium. First as part of the MDGs and now included in the SDGs. However, in spite of a decline in the incidence of child poverty, the number of poor children is harder to reduce due to population dynamics. As a result, concomitant problems such as the increasing number of child brides, unregulated/dangerous migration, unabated child trafficking, etc. remain intractable. Understanding the root causes of child poverty and its characteristics in Western and Central Africa is fundamental to designing innovative ways to address it. It is also important to map the interventions, describe the practices, appreciate the challenges, recognize the limitations, and highlight the contributions of social protection and its role in dealing with child poverty. No practical policy recommendations can be devised without this knowledge.

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The concept of concurrences is a blanket term for challenging dominating statements of the past and present. Concurrent stories have varying claims to reality and fiction, as well as different, diverging, and at times competing claims to society, culture, identity, and historical past. Dominant Western narrations about colonial power relationships are challenged by alternative sources such as heritage objects and oral traditions, enabling the voice of minorities or subaltern groups to be heard. Concurrences is about capturing multiple voices and multiple temporalities. As such, it is both a relational and dynamic methodology and a theoretical perspective that undergirds the multiple workings of power, uncovering asymmetrical power relations. Interdisciplinary in nature, this anthology is the outcome of scholarship from the humanities and social sciences with an interest in the multiple temporality of postcolonial issues and engagements in various places across the world.

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The ground-breaking essays gathered in this volume argue that global paradigms of World Literature, often referencing the major metropolitan centres of cultural and literary production, do not always accommodate voices from the margins and writing within minority genres such as the short story. Katherine Mansfield is a supreme example of a writer who is positioned between a number of different borders and boundaries: between modernism and postcolonialism; between the short story and other genres (like the novella or poetry, or non-fiction, such as letters, diaries, reviews, and translations); between Europe and New Zealand. In pointing to the global production and dissemination of short stories, and in particular the growing reception of Mansfields work worldwide since her death in 1923, the volume shows how literary modernism can be read in a myriad of ways in terms of the contemporary category of new World Literature.

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The 20th century began with a deep identity crisis of European parliamentarianism, pluralism, rationalism, individualism, and liberalism―and a following political revolt against the Wests emerging open societies and their ideational foundation. In its radicalism, this upheaval against Western values had far-reaching consequences across the world, the repercussions of which can still be felt today. Germany and Russia formed the center of this insurrection against those ideas and approaches usually associated with the West. Leonid Luks essays deal with the various causes and results of these Russian and German anti-Western revolts for 20th-century Europe. The book also touches upon the development of the peculiar post-Soviet Russian regime that, after the collapse of the USSR, emerged on the ruins of the Bolshevik state that had been established in 1917. What were the determinants of the erosion of the second Russian democracy that was briefly established, after the disempowerment of the CPSU in August 1991, until the rise of Vladimir Putin? Further foci of this wide-ranging study include the specific geopolitical trap in which Polandconstrained by its two powerful neighborswas caught for centuries. Finally, Luks explores the special relationship that all three countries of Central and Eastern Europes fateful triangle had with Judaism and the Jews.

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Alexander Dubček is well-known, so one might think; nothing new can be written about him. Is this true? Dubček is the symbol of the Czechoslovak attempt to reform communism that gained worldwide admiration in 1968. The invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in the night of August 21, 1968 set a brutal end to the Prague Spring. Josette Baers new biography focuses on Dubčeks early years, his childhood in Soviet Kirghizia, his participation in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 against Nazi Germany and the Slovak clerical-fascist government, and his career in the Slovak Communist Party in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It offers new insights into the political thought of the father of Socialism with a Human Face, based on archive material available to the Western reader for the first time. Who was Alexander Dubček -- a naïve apparatchik, an independent thinker, a courageous liberator, or a political dreamer?

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Jeziornys gripping book explores British diplomatic relations in the years of 19331935, illuminating Londons attitude towards the Eastern Pact and highlighting the way of thinking and acting of British diplomacy towards the European and even global situation. Was His Majestys Government interested in the success of the initiative promoted by Moscow and Paris? Did they understand the motives of the promoteurs? How did they react to the resistance of countries unwilling to accept such an issue? Who were Londons main partners to negotiate with? Could the Foreign Office be regarded competent in dealing with European problems, especially Eastern European ones? Were the former conclusions of the academic literature correct in assessing the particular powers role in the failure of the concept of the Eastern Pact? Jeziorny provides answers to these questions through detailed analysis of governmental materials available in The National Archives in London, particularly the general correspondence of the British Foreign Office at this time. A fascinating look behind the scenes of British diplomacy and its attitudes toward the French initiative.

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According to general Realist premises, after the end of the Cold War, the United States took an interest in remaining the only super power. Accordingly, it was attempting to maintain and manage unipolarity. The pursuit of this Grand Strategy, however, required the U.S. to adapt its various strategies to the various receiving states. Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus played very unalike roles in that configuration: Whilst Poland was labeled Americas best friend by President George W. Bush, Belarus was not seeking alignment with the U.S., whereas Ukraine-U.S. relations were subject to many ups and downs. The three countries diverging attitudes towards Washington led to very different policy approaches from a U.S. vantage point. As this study shows, the U.S. did not have an overall strategy for the region. Rather, Washington managed its relations with European states through a set of mainly bilateral relations. Madeleine Albright once described the tools of foreign policy as including everything from kind words to cruise missiles. This book is a comparative case study of the United States use of these tools in its approaches towards Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus after the end of the Cold War. As the only remaining superpower, Washington played a key role in the formation of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Yet, its actions and policies have received comparatively little attention. This book contributes to filling that gap by providing three in-depth case studies.

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A great wave of fundraising patriotic associations followed in the wake of Great Britains declaration of war on Germany on 4 August 1914, at home but also right across the empire. The most successful public campaign of all was launched in London at the beginning of 1915. Known as the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla, the scheme aimed to attract contributions towards aircraft production costs from throughout the British Empire. Any country, locality, or community that provided sufficient funds for an entire aeroplane could have it named after them. It was promised that when the machine crashed or was shot down, the name would be transferred to a new one of the same type.Margaret Hall examines the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla as a facet of imperial history. She analyzes the fundraising efforts in Canada and Newfoundland; the Zanzibar Protectorate; Fiji, Mauritius, and the Caribbean; Hong Kong; the Malay states and Straits Settlements; West Africa, especially Gold Coast; Southern Rhodesia; Basutoland; Swaziland and the Union of South Africa; the Indian empire and Burma; (British subjects in) independent Abyssinia and Siam; in the Shanghai International Settlement, and the British community of Argentina; Australia; and New Zealand. This remarkable and detailed book discusses the propaganda and counter-subversion usages of the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla -- and what the support for the imperial war effort reveals about contemporary national and regional identities and aspirations.

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David Weinberg argues that American experimental theatre practice was one key factor in the development of an important phase in the history of the alternative theatre movement in Britain during the period 19561980. His analysis draws on key concepts and theories in the work of Elizabeth Burns (1972) and Baz Kershaw (1992, 1999). The main historical developments he covers are the activities of the experimental theatre groups associated with Jim Haynes, Charles Marowitz, Nancy Meckler, and Ed Berman, four expatriate American theatre practitioners living in Britain during the time period 19561980. In addition, he also examines important American-based groups -- Living Theatre (1947), Open Theatre (1964), La MaMa (1960), and Bread and Puppet (1965) which performed in Britain and which made an impact during the same period, as well as a wide range of indigenous British groups -- Pip Simmons (1968), Foco Novo (19721989), Joint Stock (19741989), institutions -- RSC (1961), Royal Court (1956) and individuals such as Max Stafford-Clark, Thelma Holt, John Arden, Ann Jellicoe, and the Portable playwrights (19681972) which in one way or another were influenced by American exemplars. Weinbergs study is essential reading for everyone seeking a more comprehensive and dynamic understanding of the forces which shaped the alternative theatre movement in Britain.

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What are the reasons behind, and trajectories of, the rapid cultural changes in Ukraine since 2013? This volume highlights: the role of the Revolution of Dignity and the Russian-Ukrainian war in the formation of Ukrainian civil society; the forms of warfare waged by Moscow against Kyiv, including information and religious wars; Ukrainian and Russian identities and cultural realignment; sources of destabilisation in Ukraine and beyond; memory politics and Russian foreign policies; the Kremlins geopolitical goals in its 'near abroad'; and factors determining Ukraines future and survival in a state of war. The studies included in this collection illuminate the growing gap between the political and social systems of Ukraine and Russia. The anthology illustrates how the Ukrainian revolution of 20132014, Russias annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and its invasion of eastern Ukraine have altered the post-Cold War political landscape and, with it, the regional and global power and security dynamics.

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Natalya Ryabinska calls into question the commonly held opinion that the problems with media reform and press freedom in former Soviet states merely stem from the cultural heritage of their communist (and pre-communist) past. Focusing on Ukraine, she argues that, in the period after the fall of communism, peculiar new obstacles to media independence have arisen. They include the telltale structure of media ownership, with news reporting being concentrated in the hands of politically engaged business tycoons, the fuzzy and contradictory legislation of the media realm, and the informal institutions of political interference in mass media. The book analyzes interrelationships between politics, the economy, and media in Ukraine, especially their shadowy sides guided by private interests and informal institutions. Being embedded in comparative politics and post-communist media studies, it helps to understand the nature and workings of the Ukrainian media system situated in-between democracy and authoritarianism. It offers insights into the inner logic of Ukraines political system and institutional arrangement in the post-Soviet period. Based on empirical data of 19942013, this study also highlights many of the barriers to democratic reforms that have been persisting in Ukraine since the Revolution of Dignity of 20132014.

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Despite having an underdeveloped supporting infrastructure and limited resources, Kazakhstan was the first CIS country to require IFRS in 2004 for banks, and in 2005 for all public companies. What were the economic consequences of this important reform? In the 1990s, Kazakhstans capital market reforms mirrored those of Russia due to the two countries cooperating mode driven by a high level of resource interdependence and environmental uncertainty, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet, by 2003, dependence on external donors (IMF, World Bank) took precedence over interdependence with Russia. As a result, Kazakhstan unilaterally proceeded with adoption of IFRS, while Russia backed up from this initiative. This study reports that Kazakhstans inflow of Foreign Direct Investments was the greatest among the CIS nations following the adoption of IFRS. In addition, in 200511, Kazakhstani public firms reporting quality was higher than that of the Russian public firms operating in a similar environment but exempt from the IFRS reporting requirement. Kazakhstan was the first CIS nation to repay its external debt ahead of schedule and to receive an investment grade from Moodys rating agency. The book concludes that Western-style capital market reformsin this emerging market with a not-so-distant communist pasthad significantly positive outcomes.

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It is a hard psychological fact that the desire for pleasure is the ultimate factor in most of human decision-making. But as dominant as the pleasure principle has been in the cultural development of mankind, its impact has so far never been fully acknowledged. In the hands of a powerful minority that controls global capital flows, pleasure has been turned into the most profitable item for sale, preying on the consumerist desires it helped to create. Re-evaluating the very notion of 'pleasure' and assessing its often sinister influence on the course of our civilisation, this book unveils how the determinants of human behaviour are now in the hands of global marketers whose sole aim is the maximisation of profit, not the personal development of their customers. This powerful book shows how the overcoming of the pleasure principle through the management of pleasure can be the foundation of a new humanist culture in which people are conscious and aware of their choices.

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