Humanities & Social Sciences

"This textbook is an introduction to the descriptive grammar of German on the levels of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and graphemics. It is a recommended read for anyone interested in the grammar of German and especially for students of German philology. The book focuses on how grammatical generalizations are derived from concrete linguistic material while covering a huge number of the important phenomena of German grammar. No specific theoretical framework is adopted in the book but it constitutes an ideal starting point for reading more theory-specific textbooks and accessible research papers. Despite its length, the book is suitable for inclusion in all sorts of curricula, mostly because the five parts of the book can be read separately. Almost all chapters contain a large number of exercises, many of which come with solutions in the appendix. The second edition was prepared based to a large extent on reader feedback. It introduces numerous corrections and improvements. Most prominently, the chapter on phonology was completely rewritten so as to provide a better description of the relevant generalizations of German syllable structure."

Africa, Cape of Good Hope, maritime security, naval history, piracy, Suez Canal

The author offers a candid reflection on the interface between politics and religion in Swaziland by reflecting on the works of Joshua Mzizi. The strength of the book lies in the fact that the author, a public theologian, gives insight into the bigger story – the interface between politics and religion in Africa.

Recognizing the novel ways in which queer and feminist struggles for change unfold today, Spaces, Bodies, Revolts: Emerging Digital Cultures, Feminist Struggles, and Global Change explores contemporary protest movements and the ambivalent nature of digital cultures carrying them forward. While feminist and LGBTI+ struggles for rights, livability, dignity and safety have always existed, what is new today, this book argues, is the ways in which these struggles emerge, spread and connect, and how they are co-shaped by digital cultures. The chapters of the book offer insightful analyses on key topics in contemporary queer and feminist debate, such as the fluidity of visibility/invisibility in queer lives and protests, the creation of emancipatory digital safe spaces, the role of the body in feminist digital cultures, and the memebodiment of present-day social movements. Contributions highlights the potential for resistance and digital innovation in the face of repression, and delves into the digital paradox, reflecting on the ways in which digital technology enables as well as regulate and control emergent social collectives. From the vantage point of how bodies become something more than flesh, this book offers innovative approaches to capture the changing conditions for queer feminist struggles and transformative change, by examining how exchanges between physical and digital space creates an entangled world. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a standard CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Lund University.

From 1880 to 1920, the rubber industry opened up the Amazon basin – and particularly the Bolivian jungle – to international trade; therefore, for the first time, the inhospitable and hitherto marginal lands of regions such as Beni, Acre and Pando gained both a strategic position on the republican chessboard and a more direct link to the global market. The productive boom prompted a systematic policy of exploration of the jungle territory, the opening of new communication routes and the consolidation of national borders. But, above all, the extractive vertigo also translated into a notorious demographic expansion: the Amazon jungle thus began to receive increasing waves of immigrants from other parts of Bolivia, as well as a growing mass of international workers dazzled by the almost instant fortune promised by the ‘gold’ that flowed from the rubber trees. However, documentary sources often present us with the canonical image of a hyper-masculinised jungle landscape and rubber industry: indeed, we know little or nothing of the Creole, European or Indigenous women involved in one way or another in the extractive endeavour. Women are usually represented as minor social actors: transparent, anonymous, almost invisible, forgotten, relegated or in any case mentioned laterally, obliquely or indirectly by historical sources. This rule, however, is challenged by some notable exceptions. One of these is undoubtedly the testimony of the British Elisabeth ‘Lizzie’ Hessel, whose letters to her family in Europe provide the only first-person account that allows us to piece together the female experience in a Bolivian rubber plantation. Her observations, therefore, constitute an exceptional period document of the lights and shadows of the extractive boom.

The threat of ecological collapse is increasingly becoming a reality for the world's populations, both human and nonhuman; addressing this global challenge requires enormous cultural creativity and demands a diversity of perspectives, especially from the humanities. Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines draws from a variety of academic disciplines and positions in order to explore the role and nature of environmental responsibility, especially where such themes intersect with religious or theological viewpoints. Covering disciplines such as history, philosophy, literature, politics, peace studies, economics, women's studies, and the ecological sciences as well as systematic and moral theology, the contributors emphasize how these positions have begun to develop distinct perspectives on urgent ecological issues, as well as pointing toward specific practices at the local and international level. This volume provides a multidisciplinary point of departure for urgent conversations on environmental responsibility that resist simplistic solutions. Rather, the contributors highlight the complex nature of modern ecology, and suggest creative ways forward in the situation of an apparently intractable global problem.

Der idealtypische Regent der Aufklärung im kleinen Schaumburg-Lippe, dargestellt aus einer Vielzahl von Perspektiven. Schaumburg-Lippe war mit seiner Residenzstadt Bückeburg und (um 1760) insgesamt knapp 17.000 Einwohnern eine sehr kleine Grafschaft. Durch seine Herkunft, seine Verwandtschaft und seine militärischen Aktivitäten war der wohl populärste Regent Schaumburg-Lippes, Graf Wilhelm (1724-1777), dennoch mehrfach mit der »großen« deutschen und europäischen Geschichte verbunden. Vielgereist und mit weitgespannten philosophischen, literarischen und musikalischen Interessen verkörperte er den idealtypischen Regenten der Aufklärung, dessen Aufmerksamkeit vor allem militärischen, wirtschaftlichen und bildungspolitischen Reformen galt. Bekannt ist Graf Wilhelm vor allem durch seine Leistungen im Siebenjährigen Krieg, in der Schlacht von Minden (1759) und bei der Verteidigung Portugals (1762), den Bau der Festung Wilhelmstein im Steinhuder Meer und sein außergewöhnliches militärwissenschaftliches Werk. Die hier gedruckten Beiträge einer ihm gewidmeten Tagung der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen bieten viele neue Perspektiven auf Persönlichkeit und Familie, Wissenschaft, Kunst, Krieg und Politik im Leben des Grafen Wilhelm.

'Broken Voices' is the first English-language book on Korea’s rich folksong heritage, and the first major study of the effects of Japanese colonialism on the intangible heritage of its former colony. In 2009, many Koreans reacted with dismay when China officially recognized the folksong 'Arirang', commonly regarded as the national folksong in North and South Korea, as part of its national intangible cultural heritage. They were vindicated when versions from both sides of the DMZ were included in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity a few years later. At least on a national level, folksongs thus carry significant political importance. Maliangkay describes how an elaborate system of heritage management was first established in modern Korea and raises an important issue of cultural preservation—traditions that fail to attract practitioners and audiences are unsustainable, so compromises may be unwelcome but imperative.

Crossroads of Cuisine provides a history of foods, and foodways in terms of exchanges taking place in Central Asia and in surrounding areas such as China, Korea or Iran during the last 5000 years, stressing the manner in which East and West, West and East grew together through food. It provides a discussion of geographical foundations, and an interlocking historical and cultural overview going down to the present day, with a comparative country by country survey of foods and recipes. An ethnographic photo essay embracing all parts of the book binds it all together, and helps make topics discussed vivid and approachable. The book is important for explaining key relationships that have not always been made clear in past scholarship.

The conflict between Duke Henry the Younger of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Elector John Frederick of Saxony and Landgrave Philip of Hesse demonstrates how closely political power and its communicative framework were intertwined. Between 1538 and 1542, over 100 deeply insulting pamphlets accompanied this dispute, some of which were published by the opponents themselves. Stefan Beckert uses this media event as a key to understanding the political events of the 1530s and 1540s and to provide a communication- and cultural-historical insight into the 'imperial public sphere'. As a result of the media transformation of the Reformation period, the rules of political debate also changed: Printed matter was not only used to publicly question the honor of opponents, but also to attack facades of consensus, ambiguous political styles, and social ties.

China’s news sector is a place where newsmakers, advertising executives, company bosses, and Party officials engage one another in contingent and evolving arrangements that run from cooperation and collaboration to manipulation and betrayal. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with journalists, editors, and executives at a newspaper in Guangzhou, The Currency of Truth brings its readers into the lives of the people who write, publish, and profit from news in this milieu. The book shows that far from working as mere cogs in a Party propaganda machine, these individuals are immersed in fluidly shifting networks of formal and informal relationships, which they carefully navigate to pursue diverse goals. In The Currency of Truth, Emily H. C. Chua argues that news in China works less as a medium of mass communication than as a kind of currency as industry players make and use news articles to create agreements, build connections, and protect and advance their positions against one another. Looking at the ethical and professional principles that well-intentioned and civically minded journalists strive to uphold, and the challenges and doubts that they grapple with in the process, Chua brings her findings into conversation around “post-truth” news and the “crisis” of professional journalism in the West. The book encourages readers to rethink contemporary news, arguing that rather than setting out from the assumption that news works either to inform or deceive its publics, we should explore the “post-public” social and political imaginaries emerging among today’s newsmakers and remaking the terms of their practice.

This collection brings together an exciting group of established and emerging scholars to consider the history of feminist film theory and new developments in the field and in film culture itself. Opening the field up to urgent questions and covering such topics as new experimental film, the digital image, consumerism, activism, and pornography, Feminisms will be essential reading for scholars of both film and feminism.

Health Anxiety and the Quest for Safety critically examines how psychological and sociocultural processes influence anxiety and safety-seeking behaviour concerning perceived health risks in globalised information societies. It provides insights into how people respond to uncertainty and perceived threats to their body and health in the 'age of anxiety'. In examining the history of health anxiety, the author explores fluctuations in concepts, highlighting the power dynamics, uncertainties, and biased social and scientific attitudes in the background. The chapters offer a critical analysis of contemporary safety-seeking strategies, including online health information searches, fad diets, self-tracking, body image interventions, and the pursuit of personal meaning and well-being. Additionally, the book investigates how sociocultural influences can induce guilt about one’s body and health, promote self-blame, or foster stigmatising attitudes, while emphasising how the emergence of 'psy-culture', pop psychology, and digital tools may enhance health empowerment but also generate health-related anxieties and deepen inequalities. As a critical reflection on prevailing individualistic paradigms, the work also considers concepts that emphasise resonance and connectedness. This book is valuable reading for clinical and health psychologists, critical social scientists, researchers, and students in the health sciences, as well as practitioners in all healthcare settings, psychotherapists, and communication specialists.

Imaging and Imagining Palestine is the first comprehensive study of photography during the British Mandate period (1918–1948). It addresses well-known archives, photos from private collections never available before and archives that have until recently remained closed. This interdisciplinary volume argues that photography is central to a different understanding of the social and political complexities of Palestine in this period. While Biblical and Orientalist images abound, the chapters in this book go further by questioning the impact of photography on the social histories of British Mandate Palestine. This book considers the specific archives, the work of individual photographers, methods for reading historical photography from the present and how we might begin the process of decolonising photography. "Imaging and Imagining Palestine presents a timely and much-needed critical evaluation of the role of photography in Palestine. Drawing together leading interdisciplinary specialists and engaging a range of innovative methodologies, the volume makes clear the ways in which photography reflects the shifting political, cultural and economic landscape of the British Mandate period, and experiences of modernity in Palestine. Actively problematising conventional understandings of production, circulation and the in/stability of the photographic document, Imaging and Imagining Palestine provides essential reading for decolonial studies of photography and visual culture studies of Palestine." - Chrisoula Lionis, author of Laughter in Occupied Palestine: Comedy and Identity in Art and Film. "Imaging and Imagining Palestine is the first and much needed overview of photography during the British Mandate period. From well-known and accessible photographic archives to private family albums, it deals with the cultural and political relations of the period thinking about both the Western perceptions of Palestine as well as its modern social life. This book brings together an impressive array of material and analyses to form an interdisciplinary perspective that considers just how photography shapes our understanding of the past as well as the ways in which the past might be reclaimed." - Jack Persekian, Founding Director of Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem. "Imaging and Imagining Palestine draws together a plethora of fresh approaches to the field of photography in Palestine. It considers Palestine as a central node in global photographic production and the ways in which photography shaped the modern imaging and imagining from within a fresh regional theoretical perspective." - Salwa Mikdadi, Director al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, New York University Abu Dhabi. Readership: Anyone interested in the Middle East, Palestinian history, history of photography, Middle Eastern visual culture, religious and Orientalist imaging, decolonising photography, cultural studies, and cultural histories.

This collation presents the evidence for the earliest Latin versions of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians, enabling scholars to examine the development of the biblical text at an important early stage in its history. Readership: Scholars of the New Testament text, the development of Christian theology, the history of the Latin language, translation studies. An important reference work for research institutes and academic libraries.