Search results for ""ibidem-Verlag""

Worldwide child and youth poverty and deprivation remain the biggest barrier to achieving a better life in adulthood. Progress in lifting children out of poverty in the last decades has been slow and limited in the developing world, while the recent global economic crisis has exacerbated child poverty, youth unemployment, and social exclusion in many developed countries. By critically unravelling the long-term consequences of growing up poor, the close linkages between multiple deprivations and violation of human rights in childhood and adolescence, and their effects on labour market entry and future career in a number of developing and developed countries, this book significantly enriches the existing literature. Drawing on multiple disciplinary perspectives, it makes a forceful case for the eradication of child poverty to take centre stage in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Read more less

This book addresses the ways in which a range of representational forms have influenced and helped implement the project of human rights across the world, and seeks to show how public discourses on law and politics grow out of and are influenced by the imaginative representations of human rights. It draws on a multi-disciplinary approach, using historical, literary, anthropological, visual arts, and media studies methods and readings, and covers a wider range of geographic areas than has previously been attempted. A series of specifically-commissioned essays by leading scholars in the field and by emerging young academics show how a multidisciplinary approach can illuminate this central concern.

Read more less

This volume explores the relationship between new media and religion, focusing on the WWW's impact on the Russian Orthodox Church. Eastern Christianity has travelled a long way through the centuries, amassing the intellectual riches of many generations of theologians and shaping the cultures as well as histories of many countries, Russia included, before the arrival of the digital era. New media pose questions that, when answered, fundamentally change various aspects of religious practice and thinking as well as challenge numerous traditional dogmata of Orthodox theology. For example, an Orthodox believer may now enter a virtual chapel, light a candle by drag-and-drop operations, send an online prayer request, or worship virtual icons and relics. In recent years, however, Church leaders and public figures have become increasingly sceptical about new media. The internet, some of them argue, breaches Russia's "spiritual sovereignty" and implants values and ideas alien to the Russian culture. This collection addresses such questions as: How is the Orthodox ecclesiology influenced by its new digital environment? What is the role of clerics in the Russian WWW? How is the specifically Orthodox notion of sobornost' (catholicity) being transformed here? Can Orthodox activity in the internet be counted as authentic religious practice? How does the virtual religious life intersect with religious experience in the "real" church?

Read more less

Within the past 40 years, shopping centres have increasingly formed the European cityscape and gained in importance, not only from an architectural and urban planning perspective, but also from an economic and social point of view. Owing to its rising significance, the European shopping centre necessitates an analytic statement on the part of architectural research. By comparing the shopping centre sector of a selection of countries, this pilot project offers a holistic approach to a better understanding of the shopping centre's role in the architecture of our cities and the urban structure of our countries. The project is organised in a top-down structure and subdivided in three research levels. Beginning with the survey of two European countries and their 1,616 shopping centres on the first level, the focus shifts towards a selection of 40 sector-relevant cities with 645 shopping centres on a second level, before focusing on eight cities with 124 shopping centres on the third and final level. The deductive analysis of a rising number of basic key features on every research level aims to evidence the constants and variables of the building type. The constants outline the essential basic properties that are considered indispensable for the efficiency of a shopping centre. Again, the variables show the adaptation of these basic key features to the various local conditions and particularities, allowing conclusions in terms of their adaptation, improvement, difficulties, and opportunities. Together, the outcomes of the three research levels assemble a detailed overall picture of the shopping centre sector from the perspective of architecture and urban development, leading to a general characterisation of the building type in the selected countries. From a scientific perspective, the study offers a methodology and basis of comparison for the evaluation of other European countries while, from a practical perspective, the findings can be used as recommendations for future shopping centre projects.

Read more less

This book illustrates why and how informality in governance is not necessarily transitory or temporary, but a constant in most systems of the world. The difference between various administrative structures is not whether informality is present or not, but where, in which areas, it is located. The essays gathered in this volume demonstrate that, in some cases, informal mechanisms are self-protective, while, in others, they are perceived as normal responses and a set of tactics for individuals, classes, and communities to respond to unusual demands. Where expectations of the state, a company, or some commission are too far from citizens' existing models of normative behaviour, informal behaviour continues to thrive. Indeed, new tactics are adopted in order to cope with disjunctions between theory and reality as well as to serve as contrasts to values imposed by a centre of power, such as a central state, a city administration, or the management board of a large company. The focus of the papers contained in this book is two-fold and rests on an analysis of phenomena manifesting themselves "beyond" and "in spite of" the state. The first part deals with areas where the state is not always, or only marginally, active whilst the second analyses activities performed in conflict with state regulations (ie: behaviour often studied from a criminal and legal standpoint).

Read more less

The voice traverses Beckett's work in its entirety, defining its space and its structure. Emanating from an indeterminate source situated outside the narrators and characters, while permeating the very words they utter, it proves to be incessant. It can alternatively be violently intrusive, or embody a calming presence. Literary creation will be charged with transforming the mortification it inflicts into a vivifying relationship to language. In the exploration undertaken here, Lacanian psychoanalysis offers the means to approach the voice's multiple and fundamentally paradoxical facets with regards to language that founds the subject's vital relation to existence. Far from seeking to impose a rigid and purely abstract framework, this study aims to highlight the singularity and complexity of Beckett's work, and to outline a potentially vast field of investigation.

Read more less

Surrogate motherhood is expanding all over the world. Debates rage over how public policy should consider the signing away of the parental rights of birth mothers in favor of a 'commissioning' couple or an individual. In this book, Daniela Danna describes the situation in English-speaking countries and worldwide, from California to Greece, presenting the legal alternatives regulating (or not) these peculiar exchanges. Should surrogacy remain a private agreement? Should it be treated as an enforceable contract? Are surrogate mothers workers? What happens inside the countries that have chosen different ways of handling this new and controversial matter? And, the most important question of all: How can we live in this era of new techno-medical possibilities and try to stay human? Can we resist commodification in the field of human relations concerning procreation? Contract Children discusses the different ways available to obtain a child through surrogate motherhood. It is fundamental reading for anyone wanting to be involved in the surrogacy process. It gives prospective surrogate mothers and infertile couples the background information necessary for their own informed decision. It is also an essential instrument for policy makers and activists in the field of women's rights, social justice, and children's rights. The question of how to publicly deal with surrogate motherhood touches upon our social vision of motherhood, ultimately marking the position of women in contemporary society.

Read more less

This double special issue investigates the experiences of Soviet Afghan veterans and the ongoing impact of the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89); and the new and reconstituted narratives of martyrdom that have been emerging in connection with 20th-century history and memory in the post-socialist world. The JOURNAL OF SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET POLITICS AND SOCIETY (JSPPS) is a new bi-annual companion journal to the Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (SPPS) book series (founded 2004 and edited by Andreas Umland, Dr. phil., PhD). Guest editors: Felix Ackermann (European Humanities University); Michael Galbas (Konstanz University); Uilleam Blacker (UCL)

Read more less

What did the citizens of the Soviet Union identify with? Where did the societal faultlines lie? Did mass demonstrations effectively de-stabilize Soviet order? How did informal groups come into being within a society based on uniformity? What impact did new media and new forms of interconnectivity have on the development of a multinational Soviet society? What remained after the end of the Soviet Union? Using Soviet soccer teams from Moscow (Spartak, Dynamo, ZSKA) and Kiev (Dynamo) as examples, Manfred Zeller tells a story of community and enmity in the post-Stalinist multinational empire. This brilliant monograph exposes the complex loyalties that governed group identities and explains phenomena like the love-hate relationship between Kiev and Moscow. 'Moscow against Kiev' in Soviet times wasn't a question of war and peace, but in soccer it was already a feeling of 'us against them' and a question of victory or defeat in the complex multinational setting of the region. Zeller's book is an important contribution to the research of Soviet pop culture after Stalin as well as to contemporary debates on antagonism in the post-Soviet world.

Read more less

Across Europe, radical right-wing parties are winning increasing electoral support. The Dark Side of European Integration argues that this rising nationalism and the mobilization of the radical right are the consequences of European economic integration. The European economic project has produced a cultural backlash in the form of nationalist radical right ideologies. This assessment relies on a detailed analysis of the electoral rise of radical right parties in Western and Eastern Europe. Contrary to popular belief, economic performance and immigration rates are not the only factors that determine the far right's success. There are other political and social factors that explain why in post-socialist Eastern European countries such parties had historically been weaker than their potential, which they have now started to fulfill increasingly. Using in-depth interviews with radical right activists in Ukraine, Alina Polyakova also explores how radical right mobilization works on the ground through social networks, allowing new insights into how social movements and political parties interact.

Read more less

This book examines the integration of major trade unions from the six biggest countries of EU's Eastern enlargement into EU governance structures. Based on extensive empirical research, including more than 150 in-depth interviews, statistical data collection, document research, and eight detailed case studies, the contributions describe the activities and perceptions of the trade unions under investigation and the different levels of engagement, including European umbrella organizations, interregional cooperation, and European Works Councils. The book thus contributes to political science research on interest representation and Europeanization as well as sociological research on labor relations.

Read more less

Organizations are the central entities of the business world, comprising multiple people pursuing a collective goal while being linked to an external environment. Both academics and practitioners have kept up a continuing interest in advancing their understanding of organizations. This is the first of two volumes dedicated to the state of the art of theories and practices of organizations. It is the outcome of contributions by alumni and alumnae of the ESB Business School at Reutlingen University. This first volume provides a discussion of contemporary organizational forms and properties, as well as on team aspects.

Read more less

This is a powerful biographical memoir based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc, who was born in Warsaw before the end of World War I, grew up during the interwar period and who, after escaping the atrocities of World War II, was able to survive in the vast territories of Soviet Russia and Uzbekistan. Translated by her own daughter, interweaving her own recollections as her family made a new life in the shadows of the Holocaust in Communist Poland after the war and into the late 1960s, this book is a rich, living document, a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance. A forty-year recollection of love and loss, of hopes and dreams for a better world, it provides richly-textured accounts of the physical and emotional lives of Jews in Warsaw and of survival during World War II throughout Russia. This book, narrated in a compelling, unique voice through two generations, is the proverbial candle needed to keep memory alive.

Read more less

Lex Fullarton's book "Heat, Dust and Taxes: A story of tax schemes in Australia's outback" set in the picturesque but treacherous landscape in the Outback of North-western Australia, tells the story of one of the greatest series of tax avoidance schemes in history. This book is not only an interesting read, it makes a significant contribution to our understanding of taxpayer compliance behaviour development in the highly problematic area of mass marketed tax schemes. Dr Paul Kenny, Associate Professor in Taxation Law, Flinders University, Flinders Business School

Read more less

There are certain parallels between the operations Vladimir Putin initiated in the wake of the Ukraine crisis of 2014 and the approach Stalin took in the region during the Second World War. Stalin's ruthless use of scorched earth tactics, the deliberate provocation of reprisals of the occupiers against the civilian population, the destruction of their own villages, the chaotic collection of taxes in kind from the population, accompanied by everyday looting, benders, fornication and violence, fratricidal internal conflicts, the use of doping, the operational use of bacteriological weapons, and even cannibalismall this was not a random price for the massive bloodshed and no spontaneous response of the population to the brutality of the German occupation in the 1940s. These were, as Alexander Gogun shows in his historiographical investigation, planned or consciously accepted phenomena and peculiarities of Stalin's warfare tactics. A book that makes an important contribution to the historical context of the current crisis in Ukraine. Alexander Gogun has published numerous scientific works on partisan warfare, on Ukrainian nationalism, the communist secret services, as well as the foreign policy of the USSR during the Second World War. He is currently working at the Free University of Berlin. Gogun also lectured at the University of Potsdam on the history of Stalinism, the Soviet Union in World War II, and the post-Stalinist USSR. This volume was previously published by two leading publishing houses in Russia (2008, 2012) as well as in Polish (2011) and Ukrainian (2014).

Read more less

"Memory is Our Home" is a powerful biographical memoir based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc, who was born in Warsaw before the end of World War I, grew up during the interwar period and who, after escaping the atrocities of World War II, was able to survive in the vast territories of Soviet Russia and Uzbekistan. Translated by her own daughter, interweaving her own recollections as her family made a new life in the shadows of the Holocaust in Communist Poland after the war and into the late 1960s, this book is a rich, living document, a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance. A forty-year recollection of love and loss, of hopes and dreams for a better world, it provides richly-textured accounts of the physical and emotional lives of Jews in Warsaw and of survival during World War II throughout Russia. This book, narrated in a compelling, unique voice through two generations, is the proverbial candle needed to keep memory alive.

Read more less

More than 20 years have passed since the introduction of the Universal Character Set. However, legacy applications still cannot even render German umlauts correctly. Part of this problem is a hidden political agenda: Consciously or unconsciously, patterns of the Cold War are continued in the interaction between Western and Eastern European languages. This book examines the current use of diacritical marks in Western Europe, such as the use of names from Slavic languages in electronic data processing systems. The role of the media as multiplier receives particular attention, with most error examples taken from actual media coverage. Considering international, EU, and national law and referring to landmark court decisions, Kappenberg answers the question: 'Is there a right to diacritical marks in people's names?' This is followed by a description of current practice in several European countries. Finally, Setting Signs for Europe answers the question how in the framework of the EU's multilingualism policy, effective approaches can be created to raise awareness among software vendors, the media, government agencies, and individuals regarding the correct handling of diacritics. Kappenberg also assesses the use of diacritics as a style element and offers an improved input method for diacritics.

Read more less

Serbia is still widely thought of as an unfinished state, whose people struggle to establish a compelling identity narrative in answer to the question 'who are we?'. While existing literature has over-analyzed Serbian nationalism, the Serbian public sphere remains largely ignored. This engaging and timely book fills this gap by giving context to the persistent and overwhelming dialogue between opposing factions on the identity spectrum in Serbia. Russell-Omaljev's focus on elite discourses provides a fresh perspective on this contentious subject. It offers an original understanding of the competing arguments surrounding 'First' and 'Other' Serbia and of the contested visions of Serbian national identity and broader European identity. By closely examining the identity vocabulary of Serbian elites and the opposing ways in which these elites view the use of labels such as 'anti-Serbian', 'patriot', and 'traitor', this book provides a vital lesson in post-conflict nation-building and raises important questions about the symbolic representations of political and cultural identities. A much-needed and compelling intervention in the Serbian identity discourse, Russell-Omaljev's work is a must-read for any researcher on the Western Balkans.

Read more less

"This collection of essays, most of which return to or renew something of an empirical or archival approach to the issues, represents the most comprehensive analysis of Beckett's relationship to philosophy in print, how philosophical issues, conundrums, and themes play out amid narrative intricacies. The volume is thus both an astonishingly comprehensive overview and a series of detailed readings of the intersection between philosophical texts and Samuel Beckett's oeuvre, offered by a plurality of voices and bookended by an historical introduction and a thematic conclusion." - S.E.Gontarski, Journal of Beckett Studies. "This is an important contribution to ongoing attempts to understand the relationship of Beckett's work to philosophy. It breaks some new ground, and helps us to consider not only how Beckett made use of philosophy but how his own thought might be understood philosophical." - Anthony Uhlmann, University of Western Sydney.

Read more less

The dozen essays brought together here, alongside a newly-written introduction, contextualise and exemplify the recent "empirical turn" in Beckett studies. Characterised, above all, by recourse to manuscript materials in constructing revisionist interpretations, this approach has helped to transform the study of Samuel Beckett over the past generation. In addition to focusing upon Beckett's early immersion in philosophy and psychology, other chapters similarly analyse his later collaboration with the BBC through the lens of literary history. The book thus offers new readings of Beckett by returning to his archive of notebooks, letters, and drafts. In reassessing key aspects of his development as one of the 20th century's leading artists, this collection is of interest to all students of Beckett's writing as well as "historicist" scholars and critics of modernism more generally.

Read more less

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was one of the Cold War's most iconic writers. This book offers an in-depth analysis of his reception in the US, UK, and Germany before and after 1991. Elisa Kriza skilfully explores how Solzhenitsyn's work can be understood with the paradigm of witness literature and uncovers the dynamics behind the politicised reception of his writing. From the mid-1980s onwards, Solzhenitsyn's popularity dwindled -- was this for ideological reasons? What about the rumours linking him with Russian nationalism? This study does not shy away from stretching beyond anti-communism and touching more contentious subjects -- such as anti-feminism, anti-Semitism, and revisionism -- in Solzhenitsyn's work and reception. Bringing Solzhenitsyn back from his 'critical exile' and redefining his work as memory culture, Kriza's book is a crucial scholarly intervention, unveiling the mechanism that can transform a controversial figure into a moral icon.

Read more less

This book offers a long overdue account of the wide range of corruption and cheating practices in Russian higher education, including bribery, financial fraud, clientelism, plagiarism, exam cheating, and much more. Serghei Golunov ruthlessly uncovers the recent social trends that have created a favourable ground for such malpractices and evaluates the efficiency of measures taken against corruption and fraud by various actors. Although corruption and cheating are so wide-spread in most Russian universities that the real value of their diplomas is very questionable, these problems are prioritised neither by higher education managers nor by foreign actors such as partner universities, participants of the Bologna process, or the authors of global university rankings.

Read more less

The European Union has developed a range of instruments to promote democracy and human rights worldwide. However, the success of its democratisation efforts remains questionable in countries that lack an EU membership perspective. The case of post-soviet Central Asia, where the EU declares democracy promotion among its key priorities yet is confronted with unfavourable domestic conditions for democratisation and often fails to follow through, is an eye-opening example. Vera Axyonova's study offers the first comprehensive evaluation of the micro-level effects of the EU engagement in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and examines the factors that have made the EU efforts more or less successful in Central Asia.

Read more less

To the public's eye, lobbying is still a highly obscure trade. Lobbyists are generally perceived to work behind closed doors in order to influence legislation -- what really happens is unknown to the public. To make interest representatives more visible, both the European Union and the United States have developed mechanisms to register lobbyists. However, while US legislation now forces lobbyists to register and report their influential work by fixed deadlines, the EU's registration remains voluntary due to the lack of a legal basis. This book takes the reader closer to today's concept of lobbying, especially in regard to the EU's registration mechanism. Lisa Moessing compares both the US and the EU registration systems by their technical composition, accessibility, and handling and contrasts their efficiency and effectiveness. Providing a forum for 17 lobbyists, watch dog members, and political representatives to discuss lobbying registration, this book defines starting points for improvement and emphasises the importance of listening to those who deal with the registers in everyday practice.

Read more less

This book offers an interdisciplinary and multicultural approach to fiction, reality, and narrativity applied to television series from all over the world. Dissecting the almost invisible barrier between fiction and reality in TV series from various perspectives, the chapters cover a wide range of contemporary classics from the post-network age. From "The X-Files" and "Desperate Housewives" to "The Wire" and "Breaking Bad", the chapters sketch TV series' development from the lowest form of mass entertainment to the sophisticated vehicle of highbrow intertextuality on a global scale. Also covering many international cases from Brazil, Serbia, Romania, and Turkey and locating them in the global web of puzzle narratives, the unique contributions draw connections between the most diverse audiences and the way they receive modern storytelling in a culturally globalised world. This timely volume is a great resource for anyone interested in contemporary mass culture.

Read more less

This innovative book provides new perspectives on the globalization of knowledge and the notion of hegemonic sciences. Tying together contributions of authors from all across the world, it challenges existing theories of hegemonic sciences and sheds new light on how they have been and are being constructed. Examining more closely the notions of 'human rights' and 'individualization', this much-needed volume offers new and alternative ideas on how to transform the universalization of the Western model of science and can serve as an eye-opener for all those interested in non-hegemonic scientific discourse. This book is published within the Series 'Beyond the Social Sciences'.

Read more less

Christina Rossetti's poetry and prose, written in 19th-century England, deals with the human fixation on appearance. Her belief in the Tractarian precepts of the Oxford Movement, primarily expostulated by John Keble and John Newman, transformed Rossetti's outlook on perception. Her association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also influenced her obsession with sight and insight. The focus of Melanie Hanson's study is the re-envisionment of Christina Rossetti's poetry and prose from three theoretical perspectives: deconstructionist theory, feminist literary theory, and Marxist literary criticism. The first part of her book explores Christina Rossetti's fascination with Plato's eye of the mind in The Allegory of the Cave. Rossetti believed that the physical eyes must be shut so that the eye of the mind could be wide open, creating in-sight. She connected the eye of the mind to her Tractarian religious beliefs. In her writings, the 'eye of the mind also relates to Eastern religious philosophy. The 'eye of the mind sees an alternate perception of reality. Rossetti was not only obsessed with the gaze and the object of the gaze in her writing, but she also re-fashioned John Milton's Eve from Paradise Lost into her own vision of Eve and the creation cycle in Rossetti's poetry and prose. Part 2 asserts that the author, Melanie Hanson, believes Rossetti's re-envisionment of the figure of Eve in Rossetti's writing contributes to the emergence of feminist literary criticism in the 20th century. Although Christina Rossetti was not a feminist, her poetry and prose have been examined by post-modern feminists concerning psychoanalytic and historic issues. Rossetti's envisionment of the consumed consumer is the subject of part 3, in which Marxist literary theory is used to examine Rossetti's epic poem Goblin Market. Previous literary criticism discussions concerning Rossetti's poetic and prose observations on the eye lack a concentrated examination of Rossetti's interest in Plato, especially Plato's eye of the mind, and Plato's influence on Rossetti. Hanson's book addresses this ground-breaking area of study. Her book is aimed at Christina Rossetti scholars and English Victorian literature aficionados who wish to explore Rossetti's contribution to the literary canon from new angles in literary criticism.

Read more less

The collection at hand is a subjective, but representative selection of articles in German and English on the representation of bellicose acts in modern times. The wide range of wars treated in these essays begins with the Canudos Civil War in the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1896-97. The various articles include new perceptions and interpretations of the First World War, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, the Holocaust, the Second World War, the Korean War, the wars in the former Portuguese colonies of Africa, and the Balkan Wars of the last decade of the 20th century, and close with the current war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001. The wars discussed, although having different origins, such as national pride, territorial expansion, fanatic religiousness, ethnic and racial conflicts, great social differences, the process of decolonization, and terrorism, have one thing in common: their significant and constant repercussion in the print and broadcast media over a long period of time. These modern wars have therefore often been the object of new readings and reinterpretations until today. The history of these wars could not have been written without the development of journalism, the mass media, and new technologies of war reporting in the 20th century.

Read more less

Emily Hobhouse, 1860-1926, was one of the first great women of the twentieth century. She was a feminist, a pacifist and an internationalist, and above all a humanitarian. She worked tirelessly for the disadvantaged and, in the case of the South African women and children who were herded into concentration camps by Lord Kitchener, was relentless in expounding their cause. This took great courage. She was deported from Cape Town, and was unable to get legal redress. Emily Hobhouse's young life was spent in a tiny village in east Cornwall where her father was Rector and it was only when he died that she was able to expand her horizons. She was 35 and untrained. She went to Minnesota, U.S.A., to do welfare work for Cornish miners and formed an unfortunate relationship with a man who became Mayor of the town. They planned to marry and live in Mexico. Emily spent a trying time until the engagement was broken off just before the Boer War started. After the war she travelled through the ravaged areas of South Africa and devised a successful scheme of home industries for young girls on isolated farms. Illness forced her to seek refuge in Italy where she remained almost to the beginning of World War I, and began her famous correspondence first with J C Smuts and then with Isabel Steyn. Her comments on the events of the day show unusual foresight. She was loved by the people of South Africa and admired by those like Mahatma Gandhi who asked for her help. She was a bit of a painter, a writer and an entertainer, and in spite of ill-health travelled easily between countries, even in the midst of the first World War when she went to Germany, and hoped to obtain peace. Returning to Europe after that war Emily Hobhouse put into a place a number of schemes to help the impoverished, but the cry of the children of Leipzig won her particular sympathy, and with the help of the Save the Children Fund and later the South Africans she devised a feeding scheme for them. The South Africans so admired her that they clubbed together to buy her a little house in Cornwall, at St. Ives. Later Emily moved to London where she died, 8th June 1926. Her remains were cremated and the ashes buried at the foot of the memorial for the women and children who died in the Anglo Boer War for whom she had worked so hard. This book contains an outline of Emily Hobhouse's life and work including much new material; official and unofficial records of the Concentration Camps set up by Lord Kitchener in the Anglo Boer War; many letters, and correspondence with J C Smuts and Isabel Steyn, wife of the ex-President of the Orange Free State.

Read more less

Inci Bilgin Tekin's study offers a comparative perspective on two very challenging contemporary female playwrights, Liz Lochhead and Cherrie Moraga, and their Scottish and Chicanese adaptations of myths -- such as the Greek Medea and Oedipus or the Mayan Popul Vuh -- which address ethnic, racial, gender, and hierarchical oppression. Her book incorporates postcolonial and feminist readings of Lochhead's and Moraga's plays while it also explores different mythologies on the background. Bilgin Tekin not only introduces an original point of view on Liz Lochhead's and Cherrie Moraga's plays as adaptations or rewrites, but also calls attention to the non-canonized Scottish, Aztec, and Mayan mythologies. Following an innovative approach, she discusses the question in which ways Lochhead's and Moraga's adaptations of myths are challenges to the canon and further suggests a feminist version of Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed". The study appeals to readers of mythology, drama, and comparative literature. Those interested in postcolonial and feminist theories will also gain valuable new insights.

Read more less

Landscape is the impression given by a place. The five senses construct five landscapes: there is not only the visual landscape but also non-visual landscapes such as smell, touch, sound ("sound-scape"), and taste landscapes. The visual landscape is experienced by most people, while the remaining four non-visual landscapes mainly construct the non-visual world of the blind. In their innovative study, Angeliki Koskina and Nikolas Hasanagas explore this non-visual world on an empirical basis. What land-scapes do blind people prefer? Is the natural or built environment most attractive for them? How differently do blind people perceive the landscape" compared to sighted people? Which feelings does the landscape evoke in blind people, and which values do they attach to these feelings? How satisfied do they feel with the urban or natural landscapes where they live? Spatial Planning and Land-scape Design for handicapped people constitute a much-discussed academic and social issue. Koskina's and Hasanagas' study in the Anthropology of Senses and in Landscape Sociology can be used as an aid tool for planners and designers as well as researchers in various areas such as Architecture, Medicine, Social Sciences, or Psychology.

Read more less

How are youth cultural identities rooted in gender, ethnicity and place? What resources do young people from ethnic minorities use in creating their cultural identities? Drawing upon interdisciplinary research, Ulrike Ziemer's case study demonstrates the different ways in which young people from ethnic minorities respond to the social, political, and cultural transformations of post-Soviet Russia and provides a detailed analysis of how local vs. global relations are experienced outside the West. Relying on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Ziemer explores the complex processes of identity formation and cultural experiences among young Armenians in Krasnodar krai and young Adyghs in the Republic of Adyghea. Both ethnic groups, Armenians and Adyghs, have a minority status in Russia, yet Adyghs are indigenous to the region while Armenians constitute a diaspora people. Ulrike Ziemer is the first to examine specifically Armenian and Adygh youth identities in the context of everyday life experiences in post-Soviet Russia.

Read more less

In this amply illustrated book, Hellman and Rogachevskii tell the fascinating story behind the screen adaptation of one of the most impactful novels of all times. Despite its huge global success, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn refused all offers to have his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich turned into a movie for many years for artistic reasons. It took the full resolve and commitment of the Finnish director Caspar Wrede to bring this challenging project to fruition, eight years after the novel had been published. This second, expanded edition offers an all-encompassing account of the movie's production, reception and impact. Filled with little-known facts, it also gives unique and valuable insights into Solzhenitsyn's complex relationship with the art of film-making.

Read more less

This volume of collected papers takes stock of what has become known about the war in eastern Ukraines Donets Basin (Donbas) between April 2014 and mid-2020. It provides an introduction to the conflict and illustrates the key point of contention in the academic debate surrounding it -- the question whether this war is primarily an internal Ukrainian phenomenon or the result of a covert Russian invasion. The contributions by recognized specialists from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and Japan offer multifaceted views and insights into this long-lasting conflict for both expert readers and those who are new to the topic. The volumes contributors are Tymofii Brik, Jakob Hauter, Sanshiro Hosaka, Yuriy Matsiyevsky, Nikolay Mitrokhin, Maximilian Kranich, and Ulrich Schneckener.

Read more less

How did the Ukrainian oligarchy survive the institutional disruption of the Euromaidan revolt of 2013/2014? How did it manage to continue its extractive political and economic practices, amid deep changes in Ukraine's society and polity? To answer these questions, this book analyzes the evolution of the Ukrainian super-rich in 2006-2017, tracing the process of conversion of wealth into political influence through vote-buying in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) and of the transformation of political influence back into wealth via elite rent-extraction schemes within the Ukrainian gas sector. A key argument is that continuity in informal practices between the Yanukovych and Poroshenko presidencies, and of the networks that conduct them, meant a prolongation of the dominant political economy regime. The study conceptualizes the processes of the recreation of Ukrainian oligarchy as a "currency flow," or circuit, of wealth and power. It adds to the literature on the dynamics of informally dominated post-communist political economy regimes a detailed, integrated, and internally comparative case study of Ukraine.

Read more less

Joey Torino is a man who has tired of the busy, and dangerous, life he has led, and has simply decided to opt out. He is done with all that-the pressures of doing something that someone else wants him to do, the risks of doing things he questions, resents, or even disagrees with. And he has managed to escape that life, quietly, without fanfare or animosity, and with just enough income to be able to live, in the northern forests of Maine, in the secluded, modest style he prefers. And he is happy in his simple life here.But then a message from his past arrives. Pen Highsmith has another difficult mission for him, and although those dangerous episodes in Russia are long past now, Joey's "special skills" are needed again.Joey faces a difficult situation, involving the Russians, a complicated low-key civil conflict, ancient suspicions and animosities, and a ruthless, relentless enemy, hidden in the mountains-in Afghanistan. And the monumental investments of the Wilde Oil company might be put at risk, under certain circumstances and in some situations.There are clear risks, and potential dangers, which have to be dealt with and surmounted, in a country, in a region, which is complicated and potentially dangerous. So Highsmith reaches out to Joey Torino.

Read more less

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many new techniques for remaining healthy have been introduced, but there has been little to no public discussion about how to live well. "Social distancing" is good medicine for the body, but the health of the spirit depends on wisdom. When we find ourselves in new and dangerous conditions, we can only look to the past for counsel.In this book, originally published as Plague Literature and now in its second edition, the philosopher Dustin Peone offers reflections on ten literary classics set during plague times. From each work, he draws one central insight that is applicable to our situation today and all future pandemics. These insights are lessons in prudence, taught by the sages of the past. This is a book about how to pursue the good life during a pandemic and what it means to flourish in dark times, not just to survive.

Read more less

This collected volume investigates the ways in which historical training supports current activism and advocacy in global times by highlighting models of social activism and political representation in different parts of the world, with diverse social actions, strategies, and protest spaces.Morocco is a fascinating society to examine protest movements in an authoritarian regime. For the first time ever, the contributors reply in detail to questions, challenges and findings regarding the implications of historically informed activism in Morocco. The cooperative perspective is the key to a better understanding as it reinvigorates a conversation between social scientists-sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists-and historians about how to analyse social and political activism.The main findings relate to the great structural transformations that have shaped the current power regimes in a longue durée perspective. How are social movements born, how do they mature, and how do they die? Through the dynamics of social mobilisation, we discover the structure of the power regime, the responses (strategies), and its forms of survival (resources and capacities).How does history inform and empower current activism? The book covers 22 scenarios of popular revolts -urban, rural, and peripheral. Casablanca (1907, 1965, 2000), Fez (1907, 1990), the Eastern Rif (1909, 1921, 1958, 1984, 2004), Meknes (1937, 2011), Tangiers (1952, 2011, 2015), Salé, (1930, 2008), Taza (1915), and Imider (2011).

Read more less

Dead phones, chaos in hospitals, looming nuclear meltdowns: For years, experts all over the world have been warning of a widespread power blackout-and the devastating consequences for society as a whole. However, just as before the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians and the public are hardly aware of the far-reaching risks: A blackout would catch us almost completely unprepared.As for other (supposedly improbable) disruptive events, disaster movies and sci-fi series have long shown what would happen if modern society were to lose its lifeblood. Denis Newiak looks into those filmic fictions for answers to pressing questions: How can we prepare ourselves for the dramatic consequences of such a crisis? And can the collapse of modernity still be stopped?

Read more less

While the COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed all else and would quickly have a lasting impact on our daily lives, other events related to the radical right in 2020 soon surfaced. From terrorist attacks in Germany and India to anti-mask protests across the U.S. and Europe, radical right violence escalated in the midst of circulating conspiracy theories and disinformation. The yearbook draws upon insightful analyses from an international network of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners who explore the dynamics and impact of the radical right. It explores a wide range of topics including reflections on authoritarianism and fascism, the role of ideology and (counter-)intellectuals, and radical-right responses to the pandemic and calls for police reform in the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. It ends with important assessments on best approaches towards countering the radical right, both online and offline. This timely overview provides a broad examination of the global radical right in 2020, which will be useful for scholars, students, policymakers, journalists, and the public.

Read more less

In Statu Nascendi is a new 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 2019:2 comprises, among others, the following interviews & articles:Charity Begins at Home: Resolving the Tensions of Liberalism(s), "White Privilege", and African Corruption via Rawls and Transnational Digital-CommunitarianismLukács, Kojève, and Verene's interpretations of Hegel's recollection in his "Phenomenology of Spirit" Interview with Sami Mehmeti on the political situation in the newly established Republic of Northern Macedonia Madonnas and Whores or Blood and Gore? Roles for Women in the So-Called Islamic StateDonald J. Trump's Policy Toward North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran – a Comparative StudyContrariwise and Inconsistent Positions on Turkey's EU Membership – Do Party Politics Matter in German Foreign Policy?

Read more less

To the older generations in her native Slovakia, Hana Ponická is well-known for her successful children's books and courageous fight against the communist regime. Her psychological ordeal began in February 1977 when the elderly lady refused to sign the so-called anticharta, a condemnation of the human rights group Charter 77, which had published its first manifesto in the West on 1 January 1977. All Slovak and Czech artists had to sign the anticharta; they were forced by the regime to condemn the dissidents, the most prominent among them being Václav Havel (1936–2011), who were standing up against the violation of basic human rights enshrined in the Czechoslovak constitution following the conclusion of the CSCE treaty of Helsinki. Ponická, like most of her fellow artists, had neither read the Charter 77 manifesto nor the text of the anticharta; she thus refused to sign. Her courage prompted the regime to terrorize her psychologically. This political biography is the first ever written about Ponická, despite her being a household name in Slovakia. Josette Baer's analysis is based on Ponická's memoirs of that cruel year of 1977, newspaper articles she published prior to 1971, when the regime effectively banned any critical voice from publication, and newspaper articles she published after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 to promote the establishing of a rule-of-law state and democracy. The documents of the StB, the Slovak and Czech Security Services, are analyzed for the first time; they are evidence of how the StB tried to pressure the resilient and disciplined grandmother of three into obedience. Oral history interviews with Dirk Matthias Dalberg, Vlasta Jaksicsová, and Mary Šamal inform the reader about the situation of the Slovak dissidents of Charter 77, how normal citizens lived in the regime, and how the Czech and Slovak exile communities in the USA saw the dissidents in Communist Czechoslovakia.

Read more less

This study provides an overview of current nation building processes in contested states. With a specific focus on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, and Kosovo, original data is presented, collected in English in a single work for the first time. Viktoria Potapkina presents an analysis and comparison of contested states from an internal perspective, looking at the processes that help legitimize such entities from within and creating support for their ongoing existence.The work strives to fill a gap in the literature on contested states, as well as to contribute to the overall understanding of nation and state building, state formation, and sovereignty. It provides a new way of looking at the puzzle that contested states are, offering insight into why they still exist in their current forms.

Read more less

In a collection of sixteen essays, Gagiano addresses over twenty texts from various African regions and periods. The works discussed here range from transcriptions of ancient (Khoikhoi / San) folktales to some of the classic texts of the African English literary canon and include recent writing about urgent contemporary social and gender issues. As the title indicates, Annie Gagiano's focus is on the way these texts engage with the forces that damage and threaten life and quality of life in various African contexts. She pays tribute -- by means of carefully argued analyses -- to the authors' political courage and social concern and to their subtle delineations of their African character' experiences. Central to her focus is the verbal artistry of these authors' memorable and complex representations. Her collection as a whole insists on the philosophical and aesthetic importance of African texts of the kind discussed here -- to the global reading public as much as to the 'real world' of their original contexts. Along with a new preface, several new essays have been added to the new 2014 edition to bring the collection up to date with the latest developments in the field of study.

Read more less

This book follows the increasing focus on Irish identity in Joyces major works of prose. This study traces the development of the idea of Ireland, the concept of Irishness, the formation of a national identity and the need to deconstruct a nationalistic self-conception of nation in Joyces work. Through close reading of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Hero and Ulysses, Joyce articulates the problems that colonialism poses to a nation-state that cannot create its identity autonomously. Furthermore, this reading uncovers Joyces conception of national identity as increasingly sophisticated and complicated after Irish independence was won. From here, Halloran argues that Joyce presents his readers with ideas and suggestions for the future of Ireland. As Irish studies become increasingly imbricated with postcolonial discourse, the need for re-examination of classic texts becomes necessary. This book provides a new approach for understanding the dramatic development of Joyces oeurve by providing a textual analysis guided by postcolonial theory.

Read more less

The essays in this revised and expanded volume explore a variety of structuring taxonomies, the relationships between the aesthetic forms, styles and methodologies of detective and crime fiction in the late-Victorian and Edwardian period. The influences on the artists in the genre are as varied as the interests of the period in scientific method, forensics, archaeology, aesthetics, medicine, and the paranormal. But the formalising tendencies of investigative process remain, and it is this adherence, in artist and detective alike, to seeing crime and its resolution as a stylistic imposition of structure on disorder that is under examination.

Read more less

This book is a contribution to European comparative history involving Portugal and Slovakia, but also the larger geographic units of Iberia and Slavic Central Europe. While developments in Portugal and Slovakia predominate, Spain, the Czech lands, and other regions are discussed as well. The subjects investigated include the position of women and the activities of messianic thinkers in the seventeenth century as well as semi-fascist Catholic political movements in the twentieth century. The authors look at the subject matter from the viewpoint of politics, social phenomena, and culture. The cultural dimension includes religion and ideology, both of which have clearly been of critical importance in Portuguese and Slovak history. It also includes problems of ethno-linguistic and national identity and the more recent phenomenon of multiculturalism, whose social promotion is controversial and uncertain.

Read more less

The book examines the relation between art created during the so-called Revolution of Dignity–Maidan Events (November 21, 2013 – February 23, 2014, Ukraine) and the mission of the Maidan Museum (Kyiv, Ukraine) born from the ashes of Euromaidan, to preserve the 'Spirit of Maidan'. The Maidan events, defined as the Maidanization process, produced a post-colonial discourse language, a new apolitical ideology based on the concepts of dignity and Ukrainianness; generated symbols, social myths, and collective imaginary; triggered the 'Spirit of Maidan' that changed the consciousness of the participants in the demonstrations; and functioned as a ritual of intensification-aggregation-initiation passage, in which the identity of new Ukraine was shaped. In this transformative process, in which the human being is seen as an 'animal identitarium' struggling, defending, and fighting for his/her own identity, artists played a crucial role in assembling the main elements of the post-Maidan Ukrainian identity (homo Maidan), were able to empower the whole movement with concrete ideas, and finally reworked objects, symbols, and music already present in the Ukrainian DNA through a process of meaningization, symbolization, mythization, canonization, sacralization, and interpellation. This volume is based on interviews with artists who dramatically participated in the Maidan events and fieldwork at the Maidan Museum, and unfolds and identifies the main elements, emotions, expectations, and motivations of the relation of art creation and Ukrainian post-Maidan identity formation based on the 'Spirit of Maidan'.

Read more less