Humanities & Social Sciences

This book examines contemporary artistic practices since 1990 that engage with, depict, and conceptualize history. Examining artworks by Kader Attia, Yael Bartana, Zarina Bhimji, Michael Blum, Matthew Buckingham, Tacita Dean, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, Omer Fast, Andrea Geyer, Liam Gillick and Philippe Parreno, Hiwa K, Amar Kanwar, Bouchra Khalili, Deimantas Narkevičius, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Walid Raad, Dierk Schmidt, Erika Tan, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Art, History, and Anachronic Interventions since 1990 undertakes a thorough methodological reexamination of the contribution of art to history writing and to its theoretical foundations. The analytical instrument of anachrony comes to the fore as an experimental method, as will (para)fiction, counterfactual history, testimonies, ghosts and spectres of the past, utopia, and the "juridification" of history. Eva Kernbauer argues that contemporary art—developing its own conceptual approaches to temporality and to historical research—offers fruitful strategies for creating historical consciousness and perspectives for political agency. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, historiography, and contemporary art.

Die wohltätige Verteilung von Lebensmitteln steht für eine neue Polarisierung in den Überflussgesellschaften. Während Überangebot und individuelle Konsumentscheidungen systematisch Überschüsse hinterlassen, sind zugleich Menschen von Arbeit und Konsum so weit ausgeschlossen, dass sie nehmen, was die Tafeln und ähnliche Initiativen gerade verteilen können. Der transdisziplinäre Diskussionsband versammelt empirisch fundierte Analysen, theoretische Einsichten und politische Stellungnahmen zu dieser noch jungen Entwicklung. Ein breites Spektrum an Perspektiven auf ein aktuelles sozialpolitisches Phänomen, mit Beiträgen u.a. von Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Regina Görner, Gabriele Goettle, Marianne Gronemeyer, Fabian Kessl und Matthias Möhring-Hesse.

The 43rd UID conference, held in Genova, takes up the theme of ‘Dialogues’ as practice and debate on many fundamental topics in our social life, especially in these complex and not yet resolved times. The city of Genova offers the opportunity to ponder on the value of comparison and on the possibilities for the community, naturally focused on the aspects that concern us, as professors, researchers, disseminators of knowledge, or on all the possibile meanings of the discipline of representation and its dialogue with ‘others’, which we have broadly catalogued in three macro areas: History, Semiotics, Science / Technology. Therefore, “dialogue” as a profitable exchange based on a common language, without which it is impossible to comprehend and understand one another; and the graphic sign that connotes the conference is the precise transcription of this concept: the title ‘translated’ into signs, derived from the visual alphabet designed for the visual identity of the UID since 2017. There are many topics which refer to three macro sessions: - Witnessing (signs and history) - Communicating (signs and semiotics) - Experimenting (signs and sciences) Thanks to the different points of view, an exceptional resource of our disciplinary area, we want to try to outline the prevailing theoretical-operational synergies, the collaborative lines of an instrumental nature, the recent updates of the repertoires of images that attest and nourish the relations among representation, history, semiotics, sciences.

This major new study of the textual parallels that permeate James Joyce’s three most widely read works––'Dubliners', 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', and 'Ulysses'––documents and discusses some eight hundred instances, just over seven hundred of them in 'Ulysses' alone, of previously unrecognized, unidentified, or misidentified echoes, most of them verbatim, of antecedent texts ranging from major and minor works of English, Irish, Italian, French and other literatures to the poems, plays, popular songs, hymns, comic operas, triple-deckers, dime novels, penny dreadfuls, and print advertisements of his own day. By meticulously identifying hundreds of previously unknown instances of such intertextual echoes, such conscious or unconscious literary borrowings, Winnick’s study complements prior works on Joyce’s allusive practices by, among others, Weldon Thornton, Don Gifford, and, most recently and comprehensively, Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, and John Turner, shedding important new light on Joyce’s reading, thematic intentions, and creative technique.

This book is free to download in PDF and EPub formats. Is certification the solution? Can it deliver urgently needed improvements to complex problems like deforestation and the exploitation of people? In this controversial new book, Scott Poynton, founder of The Forest Trust, makes a compelling case for a new approach to social and environmental problems that goes "beyond certification".Certification emerged from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit amidst great hope. Since then, despite a proliferation of certification schemes in twenty-five industry sectors, the destructive and irresponsible exploitation of natural and human resources has grown still worse. Beyond Certification reviews the positive aspects of certification, of which there are many, but argues that we can no longer afford to gloss over its failures. The book offers an alternative model, VT-TV, based on Values, Transparency, Transformation and Verification, which the author has been exploring and implementing with over 70 companies and industries around the world. These companies are transforming the story of the raw materials they use – wood, palm oil, pulp and paper, stone, charcoal, soy, beef, sugar, dairy, rubber, coffee, cocoa and coconut. Mining companies are also exploring this approach, making decisions aligned with fundamental values and what they know to be right.The results? Trust is emerging as former combatants awake to the importance of working together. Guns have been removed from forests, land set aside for protection, worker rights and conditions improved and long-standing conflicts have been resolved as people confront their legacies. Beyond Certification does not claim that this VT-TV model is the only solution. Rather, it shows how new and seemingly radical thinking can catalyze positive change. Included: the limits of roundtable certification illustrated with real, practical examples; the intricacies of the change process – how companies move from destructive to more responsible practices; how to implement more holistic, economically effective, durable systems to better protect people and the environment.

Fragen der Versorgungsqualität gewinnen zunehmend an Bedeutung. Das gilt auch für die pflegerische Versorgung. Der Pflege-Report, der jährlich in Buchform und als Open-Access-Publikation erscheint, beleuchtet im Schwerpunkt 2023 die Versorgungsqualität von Langzeitgepflegten. Bereits im Jahr 2018 stand das Thema „Qualität in der Langzeitpflege“ im Fokus des Pflege-Reports. Viel ist seither geschehen: Die gesetzliche Qualitätssicherung in der Pflege wurde grundlegend reformiert, die Pandemie hat als „Brennglas“ insbesondere im Pflegeheim erhebliche Defizite aufgezeigt. Die Wirkungen unzureichender Personalausstattung, Qualifikation und interprofessioneller Zusammenarbeit treten immer deutlicher zutage. Diese Entwicklungen sind Anlass genug, die Themen Versorgungsqualität und Qualitätssicherung bei Langzeitgepflegten im Pflege-Report aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven zu beleuchten und aktuelle Entwicklungen einer kritischen Würdigung zu unterziehen. Zudem präsentiert der Pflege-Report empirische Analysen zur Pflegebedürftigkeit in Deutschland sowie zur Inanspruchnahme verschiedener Pflegeformen. Ein besonderer Fokus gilt der gesundheitlichen Versorgung in der ambulanten Pflege und im Pflegeheim.

Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009 several hundred different ‘cryptocurrencies’ have been developed and become accepted for a wide variety of transactions in leading online commercial marketplaces and the ‘sharing economy’, as well as by more traditional retailers, manufacturers, and even by charities and political parties. Bitcoin and its competitors have also garnered attention for their wildly fluctuating values as well as implication in international money laundering, Ponzi schemes and online trade in illicit goods and services across borders. These and other controversies surrounding cryptocurrencies have induced varying governance responses by central banks, government ministries, international organizations, and industry regulators worldwide. Besides formal attempts to ban Bitcoin, there have been multifaceted efforts to incorporate elements of blockchains, the peer-to-peer technology underlying cryptocurrencies, in the wider exchange, recording, and broadcasting of digital transactions. Blockchains are being mobilized to support and extend an array of governance activities. The novelty and breadth of growing blockchain-based activities have fuelled both utopian promises and dystopian fears regarding applications of the emergent technology to Bitcoin and beyond. This volume brings scholars of anthropology, economics, Science and Technology Studies, and sociology together with GPE scholars in assessing the actual implications posed by Bitcoin and blockchains for contemporary global governance. Its interdisciplinary contributions provide academics, policymakers, industry practitioners and the general public with more nuanced understandings of technological change in the changing character of governance within and across the borders of nation-states.

The essay explores the legal status of human remains that arouse cultural interest. Through the analysis of several cases—such as that of the ‘Cesare Lombroso’ Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin—the category of ‘human cultural property’ is examined from three main perspectives. Firstly, the essay investigates the reasons why, upon death, human bodies are legally transformed into ‘things.’ Secondly, it analyses the limits imposed by the ‘human’ nature of these things on the potential reinterpretations they may undergo, as exemplified by the challenge of reconciling the sentiment of piety towards the deceased with a museum display of remains used in the past to theorise the alleged biological roots of criminal behaviour. Finally, the essay delves into the issue of the restitution of human remains, focusing on cases where such actions aim to achieve a ‘reparative’ function.

Jorge Insunza Becker (April 21, 1936-March 17, 2019) was one of the main leaders of the Chilean Communist Party since the 1960s. He joined the Communist Youth in 1954. In 1962 he was promoted to the Central Committee of the PC and from 1965 he was part of his Political Commission, the one that led the triumph of Salvador Allende in 1970. After the 1973 coup d'état, he was part of the first clandestine communist leadership that assumed the resistance to the dictatorship, together with Víctor Díaz, Américo Zorrilla, Mario Zamorano and Uldarico Donaire. With the return to democracy, he was one of the main figures who addressed the crisis in the socialist countries and the reconstruction of a project of the revolutionary left. Likewise, he had an active role in the agreements that allowed the return of the PC to Congress in 2010 and promoted the pact that allowed the communists to return to government with President Michelle Bachelet in 2014. The 4 volumes that we present cover a large part of the extensive journalistic and political work of this outstanding leader of the Chilean left. Arranged in chronological sequence, the texts collect the main part of his intellectual elaboration from the 1960s to the beginning of the 21st century (Volumes I, II, III). Volume IV is a selection of the most relevant of his career, facilitating the documentary relationship contained in the previous volumes. Undoubtedly, due to the breadth of the compilation made, the whole of this work will be extremely useful both for specialists in history, and for the consultation of interested parties in general. Finally, the contributions of Isabel Torres and Rolando Álvarez, both historians, help to enhance the meaning of the performance that Jorge Insunza took on.

Das „Jahrbuch für Politik Steiermark“ startet 2025 neu als wissenschaftliches Projekt der Universität Graz. Das Werk bietet eine wissenschaftlich fundierte, aber gut lesbare Analyse aktueller politischer Entwicklungen in der Steiermark und darüber hinaus. Es verbindet Beiträge aus unterschiedlichen wissenschaftlichen Fachrichtungen und trägt auf diesem Weg zu einem Austausch zwischen den Disziplinen bei.

What is the relationship between “image” and human thinking? What is the role of the concept of “form” in human knowledge? Scholars from the fields of philosophy, cultural studies, the history of science, aesthetics, literature, anthropology, mathematics, and biology take historical and theoretical approaches to investigate the connection between the activity of thinking and concepts of image and form.

In this challenging and erudite philosophical essay, the author argues that in art, belief in progress is still relevant, if not essential. The radical freedoms of postmodernism have had a crippling effect on art - more than ever before, art is in danger of becoming meaningless. Art can only acquire meaning through context, and the concept of progress is ideal as the primary criterion for establishing that context. History of art can be seen as a process of constant accumulation. Works of art comment on each other, enriching each other's meanings. These complex interrelationships lead to progress in both the sensibility of the observer and the significance of the works of art.

"How are languages and cultures affected not only by the landscapes we live in, but also by the ways in which we make our way through them? Can railway fiction contribute to illuminating questions related to a nation’s history and identity? And what makes the stories about Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet trains different from railway literature with origins in other railway nations? Outside the country’s borders Russian and Soviet trains are likely to be associated with exotic journeys, particularly by the Trans-Siberian railway. This book explores other aspects of this vast empire’s railways. Through philological and cultural analyses, primarily of literary fiction, but also of popular cultural and documentary texts, the author demonstrates how and why the railway gradually became part of the Russian and Soviet peoples’ culture and national consciousness. She describes how metaphors and aphorisms related to trains were applied in propaganda, and subsequently became subject to linguistic play and literary deconstruction. And last, but not least this monograph shows how the railway forms a dark backdrop for literary representations of deportations, forced labour and prison camps. The book addresses specialists and students of Russian, as well as readers with a general interest in Russia, languages, literature and cultural theory."

Die Open-Access-Publikation präsentiert umfangreiche empirische Analysen zu Halte- und Bleibeorientierung Geflüchteter und richtet den Blick dabei besonders auf die Situation der ländlichen Regionen Deutschlands. Migrations- und Integrationsforschung in Deutschland war bislang überwiegend auf Großstädte ausgerichtet. Durch den vermehrten Zuzug geflüchteter Menschen seit 2014 sehen sich jedoch auch Kleinstädte und Dörfer in ländlichen Regionen verstärkt mit Aufgaben der Aufnahme und Integration von Geflüchteten konfrontiert. Ziel dieses Buches ist es, empirisch fundiert zu beantworten, unter welchen Voraussetzungen und wie humanitäres Engagement und ländliche Entwicklung erfolgreich verbunden werden können und wie dies von Politik und Zivilgesellschaft positiv beeinflusst werden kann.

Liberal Socialism was written by Carlo Rosselli during his confinement on the island Lipari, from where he escaped in 1929. In Paris he continued his struggle against fascism until his assassination in 1937 with his brother Nello. Carlo's death impeded the postwar reception of liberal socialism in the affirmation of the communist and catholic parties. Rosselli’s idea of liberty – which referred to the tradition of the Labour Party - was meant as a basic principle for socialism against a centralized conception of the party. For that he was strongly criticized. The paper is aimed at stressing that Rosselli did not undermine the importance of labour towards workers’ struggles. Liberty and labour are not antagonistic principles. They interact in form of moral revolution and social justice. We need to be free to work unexploited.