Humanities & Social Sciences

Subjects and Aliens confronts the problematic history of belonging in Australia and New Zealand. In both countries, race has often been more important than the law in determining who is considered 'one of us'. Each chapter in the collection highlights the lived experiences of people who negotiated laws and policies relating to nationality and citizenship rights in twentieth-century Australasia, including Chinese Australians enlisting during the First World War, Dalmatian gum-diggers turned farmers in New Zealand, Indians in 1920s Australia arguing for their citizenship rights, and Australian women who lost their nationality after marrying non-British subjects. The book also considers how the legal belonging—and accompanying rights and protections—of First Nations people has been denied, despite the High Court of Australia’s recent assertion (in the landmark Love & Thoms case of 2020) that Aboriginal people have never been considered ‘aliens’ or ‘foreigners’ since 1788. The experiences of world-famous artist Albert Namatjira, and of those made to apply for ‘certificates of citizenship’ under Western Australian law, suggest otherwise. Subjects and Aliens demonstrates how people who legally belonged were denied rights and protections as citizens through the actions of those who created, administered and interpreted the law across the twentieth century, and how the legal ramifications of those actions can still be felt today.

The massification of Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Surfaces has increased the demand for nanomaterials excelling at specific properties required for their target application, but also offering multifunctionality, conformal integration in multiple surfaces and sustainability, in line with the European Green Deal goals. Metal oxides have been key materials for this end, finding applications from flexible electronics to photocatalysis and energy harvesting, with multicomponent materials as zinc tin oxide (ZTO) emerging as some of the most promising possibilities. This chapter is dedicated to the hydrothermal synthesis of ZTO nanostructures, expanding the already wide potential of ZnO. A literature review on the latest progress on the synthesis of a multitude of ZTO nanostructures is provided (e.g., nanowires, nanoparticles, nanosheets), emphasizing the relevance of advanced nanoscale techniques for proper characterization of such materials. The multifunctionality of ZTO will also be covered, with special attention being given to their potential for photocatalysis, electronic devices and energy harvesters.

Der Fach- und Lehrkräftemangel in MINT-Bereichen ist ein Problem, das sich u. ,a. auf ein geringes Interesse an den MINT-Fächern zurückführen lässt. Im Rahmen des Modellprojekts "Teaching MINTD" wurden Lehrkräftefortbildungen entwickelt, um die Diversitäts- und Genderkompetenzen angehender und etablierter Lehrkräfte zu erhöhen. Langfristig sollen durch einen diversitätsorientierten und gendersensiblen MINT-Unterricht das Interesse und die Motivation von Schüler:innen gesteigert werden.Mittels Literaturrecherche und Unterrichtshospitationen wurden beinflussbare Elemente von Unterricht identifiziert und über Inhalte, Methoden und Materialien in Workshops zu Sprache, Methoden, Fachinhalten und Berufsorientierung adressiert. Die Wirkung auf die Physiklehrkräfte (N ,= ,6) wurde über Leitfadeninterviews untersucht und die Meinung der Schüler:innen (N ,= ,472) über Fragebögen erhoben.Im Ergebnis zeigt sich Physikunterricht aus Lernendensicht mit wenig Autonomieerleben und Differenzierung. Physik ist in der Berufswahl der Schülerinnen von geringer Relevanz, obwohl sie eine höhere Lernbereitschaft und Freude am Fach aufzeigen als Schüler. Die Lehrkräfte waren bereit, die Workshopelemente in den Unterricht zu integrieren, sofern die Praxistauglichkeit überzeugte und die Elemente den Bildungsplan sowie Bedürfnisse, Wünsche und konkrete Unterrichtsbeispiele thematisierten. In der Lehrkräftebildung sollten diese wirkungsvollen Elemente eingesetzt werden, um frühzeitig für Gender- und Diversitätsfragen zu sensibilisieren.

Welche Umstellungen und Anregungen ergeben sich aus einer vergleichenden Re-Lektüre der Neuen Politischen Theologie nach Johann Baptist Metz und den Theorien Judith Butlers für eine Praktische Theologie in der Spätmoderne? Ellen Geiser nimmt die sieben »Fährten« Anerkennung, Subjekt, Prekarität, Sprache, Verantwortung, kulturelle Verortung und Veränderung in den Blick und stellt Differenzen und Gemeinsamkeiten der Theorien heraus. Dabei eröffnen sich assoziative, diskursive und performative Räume, die auf der Suche nach einem (Denk-)Stil helfen, der die Frage »Wer zählt?« offenhält.

Das performative und materialisierte Erbe des Initiationsritus Kankurang in Senegal und Gambia ist von der UNESCO als »Immaterielles Kulturerbe« unter Schutz gestellt. Claudia Ba untersucht an diesem visuellen Erbe, wie dichotome Verständnisse von Moderne und Tradition in Afrika aufgehoben werden. Mit ihrem Konzept der ikonischen Kohärenz situiert sie raumzeitlich global fluktuierende Bilder visueller Erbekonstruktionen der afrikanischen Gegenwartsgesellschaften. Damit schafft sie einen neuen Modus der Gedächtnisforschung, dessen breites analytisches Potenzial sich an die Sozial- und Kultur- sowie Geschichtswissenschaft, aber auch an Interessierte richtet, die mit global zirkulierenden Bildern arbeiten.

This atlas maps religious sites and describes social and demographic characteristics of religious believers in contemporary China.; Readership: All people interested in religion in China; academic libraries; research institutes on China.

This book focuses on the fiscal decentralisation processes and the systems of local government financing in Serbia and Montenegro in the period 2000-2015. The retrospective analysis of the decentralisation processes in both countries show that they have been moving back and forth between decentralisation and centralisation, constantly swinging the pendulum of political discourse and the legal framework on intergovernmental fiscal governance. During the observed period, the systems of local government financing in both countries have often undergone drastic changes. Thus, this study focuses on the analysis of the impact of the legal framework related to intergovernmental fiscal relations, fiscal decentralisation and local government financing in Serbia and Montenegro on local government budgets. By applying both normative and economic analyses, as well as both quantitative and qualitative research methods, the study evaluates the legal quality and economic and factual effects of relevant legislation on local government budgets and status in the period 2000-2015. The study is divided into four parts: 1) Introduction; 2) Case Study: Serbia; 3) Case Study: Montenegro (both case studies include normative, economic and empirical analyses of the fiscal decentralisation process and the system of local government financing); 4) Comparative conclusions and recommendations.

Protokolle stehen im Zentrum unterschiedlichster (interaktiver, papierener oder auch elektronischer) Verwaltungsoperationen: Sie halten ebenso fest, was gesagt und beschlossen wurde, wie sie festlegen, was wie zu tun ist. Sie strukturieren, regulieren und dokumentieren Sprech- und Handlungsabläufe von ministeriellen Zusammenkünften, Gerichtsterminen und anderen komplexen Arbeitsprozessen. Seit Jahrhunderten schreiben Protokolle auf und vor, was zu tun und was zu lassen ist, was als notwendig gilt oder als unwichtig und marginal. Sie filtern aus komplexen Interaktionen das heraus, was jene Vergangenheit gewesen sein wird, auf die man sich künftig bezieht. Dabei arbeiten Protokolle letztlich ein und demselben Zweck zu: dass – auf begründete und regelgeleitete Weise – überhaupt etwas entschieden wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund und mit verwaltungshistorischen und soziologischen ebenso wie medien-, kultur- und literaturwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven greift der zweite Open Access-Band der AdminiStudies drei Hauptformen dieses Verwaltungsmediums auf: Gesprächs- bzw. Verlaufsprotokolle, diplomatische und technische Protokolle.

The essay aims to develop a questionnaire for the study of the accounting records of late medieval rural lordships, combining the problems and methods of medievalist historiography and diplomatics. Firstly, the textual types and functions of accounting records are analysed, dividing them into income lists and officers’ accounts and observing their evolution in the light of the general transformations of documentary writing during the late Middle Ages. A detailed analysis of the parallels between seigniorial accounts and the accounts of the central powers is then carried out, with particular attention to north-western Italy.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental injustice are complex, messy, and gravely important issues. In addressing these concerns, traditional ecocriticism understandably has taken itself very seriously. Unserious Ecocriticism, by contrast, highlights alternative responses to the challenges of environmental collapse and catastrophe. By theorizing an unserious ecocriticism, contributors to this volume validate and empower alternatives to mainstream environmentalism, scholarship, and artmaking. The essays, artworks, and non-traditional scholarly formats of this edited collection demonstrate that the creative tools available to artists and those who study them are particularly well positioned to inventively disrupt normative modes of ecocritical presentation and environmentalist thought. Rather than approach environmental crises through tragic and dire warnings, contributors take seriously the unexpected or easily dismissed, play with format and form, embrace the bodily and abject, take pleasure in their subjects of study, have fun, and crack jokes. In Unserious Ecocriticism, humor, playfulness, parody, and irreverence become tools to challenge expectations, cope with complicated problems, and imagine new futures. Edited by Jessica Landau and Maria Lux, with a foreword by Aaron Sachs and contributions from Allie ES Wist, Deke Weaver, Kathleen McDermott, Annie Ronan, Kimiko Matsumura, Ina Linge, Paula Kupfer, Craig Carey, Anna Ialeggio, Topher Lineberry, Stentor Danielson, Patrick Gonder, Matthew Teti, Nicole Seymour, with Emily Eliza Scott, Rob Gioielli, and Jenny Price, Phaan Howng, and Jennifer Schell.

This volume deals with the relationship between constitutionalism and economic growth in Africa and addresses five questions: (1) In the constitutional reforms of the 1990s and thereafter, did constitutions also reflect the shift towards a market economy through the protection of property and freedom of contract? (2) Given that agriculture and extractive industries are the main source of state revenue in many African economies, how are matters of land and other natural resources dealt with constitutionally? (3) Where the market economy is captured in a constitution, what is the state’s relationship to that economy: interventionist or laissez-faire, or somewhere in between? Have constitutions also established a ‘social’ state that provides the basic elements of a dignified life? (4) In the process of constitution-making and implementation with regard to the economy, what impact has globalization had on constitutionalism and economic life in Africa? (5) Overall, the question is how has the relationship between constitutionalism and economic growth played out in practice? Is there a symbiotic relationship and has constitutionalism led (or may do so) to greater economic prosperity?

Can attending to poetic form help us imagine a radical politics and bridge the gap between pressing contemporary political concerns and an ancient literature that often seems steeped in dynamics of oppression? The corpus of the fifth-century Athenian playwright Aristophanes includes some of the funniest yet most disturbing comedies of Western literature. His work’s anarchic experimentation with language invites a radically “oversensitive” hyperformalism, a formalistic overanalysis that disrupts, disables, or even abolishes a range of normativities (government, labor, reproduction, gender). Exceeding not just historicist contextualism, but also conventional notions of laughter and the logic of the joke, Resistant Form: Aristophanes and the Comedy of Crisis uses Aristophanes to fully embrace, in the practice of close or “too-close” reading, the etymological and conceptual nexus of crisis, critique, and literary criticism. These exuberant readings of Birds, Frogs, Lysistrata, and Women at the Thesmophoria, together with the first attempt ever to grapple with the comic style of critical theorists Gilles Deleuze, Achille Mbembe, and Jack Halberstam, connect Aristophanes with contemporary discourses of biopolitics, necrocitizenship, care, labor, and transness, and at the same time disclose a quasi- or para-Aristophanic mode in the written textures of critical theory. Here is a radically new approach to the literary criticism of the pre-modern – one that materializes the circuit of crisis and critique through a restless inhabitation of the becomings and unbecomings of comic form.

The analysis of the dynamics of the international reception of a literary work permits examination of its ability to respond to the needs of a new horizon of expectation. It is particularly significant to observe the influence exerted by an author like Luigi Meneghello, whose ethical-civil aspiration is notoriously pursued through well-considered pedagogical and popular activities. However, although the corpus of works translated and published in France since 1965 consists of three volumes, all published by three well-accredited Parisian houses, Meneghello remains an almost unknown author among French readership and critics. To understand the reasons for such a limited diffusion over half a century, it is necessary to pursue an investigation into some of the participants in the worlds of criticism and academia in France. However, these elements are not enough by themselves to clarify the reasons for such limited diffusion: among important other factors, the question of translation remains to be examined.

In this paper, we will explore the political construction of washoku by analyzing Japan’s recent strategy of gastronationalism and gastrodiplomacy. We will argue that the definition of washoku, as inscribed in the UNESCO’s International Cultural Heritage List in 2013, is the result of a process of invention of tradition whose aim is to homogenize and preserve national identity and project this identity abroad. While emphasizing the role of food as an essential element of national identity, we will also show that the promotion of washoku is also motivated by the need to address several issues of broader domestic politics. Starting from the assumption that Japan’s low food self-sufficiency rate could be improved only by increasing the demand for Japanese food, the government implemented a strategy of promotion of washoku at home (gastronationalism) and abroad (gastrodiplomacy) in order to increase both the domestic consumption of traditional food and the export of agrifood products.

Each one of us in his life has, at least once, smelled the scent of roses, read one canto of Dante’s Commedia or listened to the sound of the sea from a shell. All of this is possible thanks to the astonishing capabilities of an organ, such as the brain, that allows us to collect and organize perceptions coming from sensory organs and to produce behavioural responses accordingly. Studying an operating brain in a non-invasive way is extremely difficult in mammals, and particularly in humans. In the last decade, a small teleost fish, zebrafish (Danio rerio), has been making its way into the field of neurosciences. The brain of a larval zebrafish is made up of 'only' 100000 neurons and it’s completely transparent, making it possible to optically access it. Here, taking advantage of the best of currently available technology, we devised optical solutions to investigate the dynamics of neuronal activity throughout the entire brain of zebrafish larvae.