Search results for ""aarhus university press""

Stolac, the town of departure for this book and the site where the author conducted fieldwork, is located in the south-western corner of Bosnia Herzegovina. The war in Bosnia Herzegovina (1992-95) was initially an act of aggression and territorial conquest instigated by Serbian political leaders. However, as the war progressed, it increasingly came to consist of several minor wars, one of them fought in Western Bosnia Herzegovina between Croatian and Muslim forces. This was the one that affected the inhabitants of Stolac the most. Before the war ethnic identity in Bosnia Herzegovina was only one identity among others, and ethnic differences were embedded in everyday practices. Today ethnic difference is all there is. The Muslims of Stolac are fully aware that as Muslims, they constitute a totally separate group -- and that ethnic identity is by far the most important form of identity in present-day Bosnia Herzegovina. In that regard the nationalist project has succeeded. Such a crystal

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This is the final and full publication of an archive with Cretan hieroglyphs found in Petras, Siteia. The archive consists of all kinds of written documents, and it has a unique collection of seals.

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What are the global and cross-cultural phenomena of religion anyway? They are not things-in-the-world, not things "in themselves," and yet we know they are very real because they constitute the means by which we make up our lives. As thought, language, society and culture are not illusions, neither is religion. This book is about the present plight -- and future possibility -- of a general and comparative study of religion as a field of inquiry in the human sciences. Jensen proposes a different look at the phenomenon of religion, and perhaps so much of a re-interpretation that it may appear to be a different phenomenon altogether. In his "new key," Jensen shifts the attention from metaphysical "givens" and psychological experiences to the social, symbolic and linguistic constructions of human habitats. Jensen's fundamental ambition is to illustrate how and on what conditions it is possible to study not just specific religions as ethnographic or historical facts, but also to study relig

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Horror and Harm: Rudolf von Deventer’s Treatise on Gunpowder and Fireworks, c. 1585 offers a transcription and translation from German into modern English of a unique and spectacularly illustrated sixteenth-century manuscript on war and festival culture during the reign of the Danish King Frederik II (r. 1559–88). The manuscript, written in German by the King’s specialist in artillery Rudolf von Deventer, presents instructions to produce firearms for defence against the archenemies of the Christian regime as well as formulae for the production of fireworks for pleasure. The manuscript includes lavishly coloured illustrations of battle scenes, weapons and moving mechanical fireworks such as girandoles and dragons.Horror and Harm constitutes an exceptional insight into Northern European war, artillery, technology, fireworks and festival culture in the Early Modern period. As an early form of manual, von Deventer’s book is put into perspective in a foreword by the historian of science Pamela H. Smith and a series of introductory texts.

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Denmark’s Catalyst: The Life and Letters of N.F.S. Grundtvig is the last book in the 6-volume series ‘N.F.S. Grundtvig. Works in English.’ Translator Edward Broadbridge joins forces with Grundtvig scholar Hans Raun Iversen in this new biography of the most influential Dane in modern Denmark. Grundtvig (1783-1872) was a pastor, pedagogue, poet, politician, and philosopher all rolled into one. Best known internationally for his concepts of a people’s (folk) high school, of ‘learning for life’ and of ‘lifelong learning’, in Denmark he is equally famous as the nation-builder and champion of ‘the common good’ – Denmark’s modern watchword.This comprehensive, illustrated biography is supplemented by 70 letters tracing Grundtvig’s personal experiences first-hand in surprisingly honest terms, including his love life, his depressions, and his four trips to England.

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The history of modern design and architecture has seen many attempts to embrace and merge different art forms, and to bring art into the framing of everyday life and the organisation of modern society, in a process understood as total design or total architecture. These attempts were historically based on the romanticist idea of merging all art forms into a uniting and transgressing work of art, mostly associated with – but certainly not limited to – Richard Wagner’s theoretical writings and musical dramas.This utopian dream of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or Total Work of Art, was intended both to bring unity to the people and to bring art into the everyday life of their homes, as well as into factories, cities and even modern media. As a result, the experiments ranged from music, poetry and drama to architecture, design, visual communication and city-planning. These ideas of merging art forms into more immersive and transgressive installations or design interventions to change everyday life are widespread today, but their complex and often problematic roots are mostly ignored. Design and architecture have delivered some of the broadest and most influential experiments with the Gesamtkunstwerk, from garden cities for workers and corporate identity design to the German AEG corporation.

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Philosophy originates in wonder that generates sensitive thinking, also called ‘aesthetic thinking’—an expanded mode of thought that bridges and dissolves contradictions. This book questions the disregard for such thinking in modern society, including the neglect of it in most educational institutions and contemporary research. It describes what it means to think in an aesthetic way when ‘aesthetic’ is synonymous with ‘sensitive’ (not ‘sensuous’), including how such thinking may foster human well-being and develop our notions of history, hospitality, freedom, and the good life. The formative nature of aesthetic thinking is presented alongside the attestation of its relevance in many disciplines and a broad spectrum of society—in border studies, education policy, and social work, and in life in general.Poetic Inclinations: Ethics, History, Philosophy is related to the simultaneously published monograph Imaginative Moods: Aesthetics, Religion, Philosophy. Together they constitute a comprehensive presentation in English of the author’s philosophy of experience, which includes new ways of conceiving of and applying aesthetics, hermeneutics, and phenomenology, and of integrating these disciplines, as well as theology.

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Homeric Chalkis is situated on the coast of Aetolia at the very ‘gateway’ of the Gulf of Patras. The foundation occurred during an important period in early Greek history when trade and movement of peoples along the Gulf intensified with a resulting strong pull to the coast. Well-preserved stratigraphies date the foundation to the early seventh century BC and testify to a flourishing settlement in the sixth century lasting till the early fifth century BC when the site was temporarily given up. Walls and roads follow a rectilinear layout. A broad spectre of pottery shapes and wares attest to innovative local and regional workshops already from the onset of the settlement. Alongside the pottery, tools for complex textile manufacture were found in all houses, among which were many small, pyramidal loom weights and spools. These findings indicated a high degree of experimental weaving techniques and demonstrated how the courtyard house, as a new house model, was particularly well suited to accommodate this manufacture, probably mantels. The results therefore offer important new evidence on relations between gender behaviour and Greek houses.The catalogue is richly illustrated with profile drawings, plans, black-and- white and colour photos and accompanied by discussions of the material.

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For millenia, urban networks have shaped the development of human societies. Today, new archaeological approaches are unveiling the evolution of these networks in unprecedented detail.Urban Networks Evolutions reviews the new approaches to urban evolution as archaeology endeavours to characterise both the scale and pace of historical events and processes. Issuing from the work of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence, the Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), the book compares the archaeology of urbanism from medieval Northern Europe to the Ancient Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean World.The 40 contributors demonstrate how new techniques for refining archaeological dates, contexts, and the provenance ascribed to material culture, afford a new high-definition approach to the study of global and interregional dynamics. This opens up for far-reaching questions as to how and to what extent urban networks catalysed societal and environmental expansions and crises in the past.

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