Humanities & Social Sciences

Intellettuali e uomini di regime nell’Italia fascista. This volume collects nine essays on political, economic and legal culture in Italy during fascism. The reconstruction of prominent personalities of the regime, such as Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata and Alberto Beneduce, are accompanied by studies analysing the at times critical, at times organic relationship between the regime and a series of reputed intellectuals, such as Vilfredo Pareto, Giuseppe Maranini, Jacopo Mazzei and Francesco A. Répaci. A chapter is dedicated to Edoardo Moroni, Minister of Agriculture during the Italian Social Republic, who after the war emigrated to Argentina, where he made a significant contribution to the agrarian reform of the country. This volume also includes two essays outside of the biographical trend: the first focuses on the theme of unemployment during Fascism, while the second presents the main aspects of the Urban Planning Act of 1942.

Palestinian writing imagines the nation not as a nation-in-waiting but as a living, changing structure that joins people, place, and time into distinct formations. Novel Palestine examines these imaginative structures so that we might move beyond the idea of an incomplete or fragmented reality and speak frankly about the nation that exists and the freedom it seeks. Engaging the writings of Ibrahim Nasrallah, Nora E. H. Parr traces a vocabulary through which Palestine can be discussed as a changing and flexible national network linking people across and within space, time, and community. Through an exploration of the Palestinian literary scene subsequent to its canonical writers, Parr makes the life and work of Nasrallah available to an English-language audience for the first time, offering an intervention in geography while bringing literary theory into conversation with politics and history. “A welcome demonstration of the power of writing to redefine the political domain.” — LYNDSEY STONEBRIDGE, author of We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience “An opportunity to reconsider and reinterpret the dominant discourses and motifs of Palestinian culture.” — JOSEPH R. FARAG, author of Politics and Palestinian Literature in Exile “A must-read for everyone interested in Palestine, identity, and literature.” — WEN-CHIN OUYANG, author of Politics of Nostalgia in the Arabic Novel “Novel Palestine stakes a claim about the relation between Palestinian literary writing and how it figures the experience of being Palestinian in excess of the terms of the settler state, its linear narrative and critical forms.” — JEFFREY SACKS, author of Iterations of Loss: Mutilation and Aesthetic Form, al-Shidyaq to Darwish “Within a tradition of literary criticism charted by authors like Mary Layoun and Barbara Harlow.” — NAJAT RAHMAN, author of In the Wake of the Poetic: Palestinian Artists after Darwish

Welcomed as liberation and dismissed as exploitation, egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) has rapidly become one of the most widely-discussed and influential new reproductive technologies of this century. In Freezing Fertility, Lucy van de Wiel takes us inside the world of fertility preservation—with its egg freezing parties, contested age limits, proactive anticipations and equity investments—and shows how the popularization of egg freezing has profound consequences for the way in which female fertility and reproductive aging are understood, commercialized and politicized. Beyond an individual reproductive choice for people who may want to have children later in life, Freezing Fertility explores how the rise of egg freezing also reveals broader cultural, political and economic negotiations about reproductive politics, gender inequities, age normativities and the financialization of healthcare. Van de Wiel investigates these issues by analyzing a wide range of sources—varying from sparkly online platforms to heart-breaking court cases and intimate autobiographical accounts—that are emblematic of each stage of the egg freezing procedure. By following the egg’s journey, Freezing Fertility examines how contemporary egg freezing practices both reflect broader social, regulatory and economic power asymmetries and repoliticize fertility and aging in ways that affect the public at large. In doing so, the book explores how the possibility of egg freezing shifts our relation to the beginning and end of life.

An increasing share of intermittent renewable generation and reduced profitability of conventional power generation has led to a growing concern for capacity adequacy in the Nordic electricity market (Nord Pool market area). It does not make sense to assess capacity adequacy for each country separately in the Nord Pool market area as it is highly integrated in terms of both interconnector capacity and market integration. Capacity challenges are rarely isolated to one country or bidding zone. This report analyses what market solutions may be used to manage capacity adequacy in the Nord Pool market area, and how an efficient transition to adequate market solutions could be achieved. The main analysis reveals several measures that would strengthen price formation and cost recovery in the Nord Pool market area, although in general, the market is already highly liquid and well-functioning.

This second volume in the NWU Community‑based Educational Research Series presents scholars’ drawings on their intellectual resources, research expertise and extensive craft wisdom to vivify early childhood education in marginalised, disadvantaged African communities. Across 10 chapters, the book examines principles of sustainable development in early childhood contexts, structured around three themes: first, strengthening early childhood care and education management and quality; second, play, motor development and sustainability; and third, language development in the early years. By employing participatory action learning research approaches, the authors illustrate how communities of practice and action learning groups enable teachers, practitioners, parents, guardians and researchers to collaboratively develop mechanisms to address and overcome barriers to provide children quality education. Through empirical data, the authors highlight how direct engagement with community members in these communities fosters innovative, contextually grounded strategies aligned with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , particularly Sustainable Development Goal 4 on inclusive, equitable and quality education. The chapters illustrate how research driven by indigenous knowledge, collaboration and sustainability principles can develop and reinforce practitioners’ skills in historically‑marginalised African communities to inspire young children to grow as confident, active learners and socially responsible citizens. This novel collection is not only authored by scholars for scholars but also for policymakers, inviting peers to critically reflect on how dynamic and productive relationships between higher education institutions and early childhood centres can foster sustainable development and transformation.

Cet ouvrage propose une synthèse sur l’impact socio-juridique de la Constitutio Antoniniana, avec pour question fondamentale de savoir ce que cela signifie d’être un citoyen romain, à la fois pour les individus et pour l’administration provinciale au lendemain de cet événement. L’étude du changement onomastique survenu dans les provinces permet d’en affiner la datation. L’analyse de précédents octrois de la citoyenneté permet de catégoriser ce changement universel sur le plan juridique et d’en extrapoler certaines caractéristiques. L’examen des institutions qui suivent un régime personnel, tels que les mariages et les successions, donne une idée des interactions entre les provinciaux et le droit romain, ainsi qu’un aperçu de l’attitude des autorités romaines.

Torrential hydraulics occupies an intermediate position between classical fluvial hydraulics and soil and rock mechanics (ground movements); it uses concepts common to fluvial hydraulics, sometimes departing from them. Published in 1992, this book sets out the problems specific to torrent hydraulics, describing the particular phenomenon of debris flow through a qualitative description of a famous debris-flowing torrent and its workings. Shifts in meaning also affect certain concepts when moving from river hydraulics to torrential hydraulics: viscosity and concentration are more complex to use in torrential hydraulics. New theories are then presented: fluid mechanics-type research work that tackles the problem of which model to apply to which torrential flow, starting with knowledge of the behavior law (rheology) and ending with knowledge of the flow law. Many of the tools developed by researchers are still far from being directly applicable to engineering problems, apart from physical scale models. This study then focuses on methods that can be used by people in the field: we will no longer talk about behavior laws and velocity profiles, but only about average velocities. This change in the level of our approach will enable us to use the few existing field measurements, which until now have only concerned the global parameters of torrential flows. A book for students and teachers with a scientific background in classical hydraulics.

This book addresses the challenging and exciting issues of the implementation of the European Union’s grand strategies, with a particular interest in the implementation of the current Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals. It provides insight into the impact of this strategic process on some of the current global issues relevant to the European Union, such as the European and global energy market, food supplies, industrial components etc. Some of the challenges have such a strong short-term impact, that already accepted strategic priorities and decisions are being questioned and re-examined. This is a particularly exciting subject, both as a research topic and as a policy issue.

This open access book discusses several didactic traditions in mathematics education in countries across Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the Czech and Slovakian Republics, and the Scandinavian states. It shows that while they all share common features both in the practice of learning and teaching at school and in research and development, they each have special features due to specific historical and cultural developments. The book also presents interesting historical facts about these didactic traditions, the theories and examples developed in these countries.

This essay looks at the specific iconography of saint Jerome in the artistic commissions of the Jesuati during the 15th century. This specific iconography meant to show the Doctor of the Church as the illustrious founder of the congregation in place of Colombini who never was canonized and meant to presents their form of religious life and the rejection of the Holy Orders through the extremely rare illustration of the episode in the life of Saint Jerome: The anticiceroniano dream. The dissemination of this theme was previously attributed to Hieronymites of Fiesole

An Anthropology of Crosslocations introduces a radical new approach to understanding location. The co-authors show that the question of where something is depends on how places are mutually connected and disconnected. The location of a place can be established by different logics, such as national borders, ecosystems, or economic zones. These different ways of classifying the relative value and significance of a place coexist and overlap: for example, national borders are regularly crosscut by ecosystems. By thinking of 'location' as a process defined by several different coexisting locating regimes, the book showcases a fresh way to think about the multiple and overlapping connections and disconnections between here and elsewhere. This approach can fundamentally revise ethnographic and anthropological views on the importance, value and significance of where people, things and animals are located and, as such, redefines the idea of ‘the field.’ The volume brings together seven anthropologists who have worked together for six years. The chapters take the reader through a series of journeys around the Mediterranean region—to North Africa, the East Mediterranean, and Southern Europe. Each chapter unfolds an ethnographic or historical account of the coexistence of different values and meanings of location in different places.

Bridge Maintenance, Safety, Management, Digitalization and Sustainability collects the lectures and technical papers presented at the 12th International Conference on Bridge Maintenance, Safety and Management (IABMAS 2024, Copenhagen, Denmark, 24-28 June 2024). This Open Access book contains 480 contributions, including the T.Y. Lin Lecture, 9 Keynote Lectures, and 470 technical papers from 44 countries. The contributions are presented bring together academic and technological developments in Bridge Maintenance, Safety, Management, Digitalization and Sustainability, to solve new and old problems with innovative solutions. Major topics include: advanced bridge design, construction and maintenance approaches, safety, reliability and risk evaluation, life-cycle management, life-cycle resilience, sustainability, standardization, analytical models, bridge management systems, service life prediction, structural health monitoring, non-destructive testing and field testing, robustness and redundancy, durability enhancement, repair and rehabilitation, fatigue and corrosion, extreme loads, needs of bridge owners, whole life costing and investment for the future, financial planning and application of information and computer technology, extensive data analysis and artificial intelligence for bridges, among others. Bridge Maintenance, Safety, Management, Digitalization and Sustainability provides an up-to-date overview of the field of bridge engineering and significant contributions to making more rational decisions on bridge safety, maintenance, management, life-cycle, resilience, sustainability, and bridge innovations to enhance society’s welfare. The Editors hope that this book will serve as a valuable reference to all concerned with bridge structure and infrastructure systems, including engineers, researchers, academics, and students from all areas of bridge engineering.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is intended to radically increase investment and integration along a series of land and maritime routes. As the initiative involves more than 100 countries or international organizations and huge amounts of infrastructure construction, cooperation between many different markets is essential to its success. Cheung and Hong have edited a collection of essays that, between them, examine a range of practical issues facing the BRI and how those issues are being addressed in a range of countries. Such challenges include managing financing and investment, ensuring infrastructure connectivity, and handling the necessary e-commerce and physical logistics. Emphasizing the role of Hong Kong as an intermediary and enabler in the process, this book attempts to tackle the key practical challenges facing the BRI and anticipate how these challenges will affect the initiative’s further development. The book provides a holistic and international approach to understanding the implementation of the BRI and its implications for the future economic integration of this huge region.

What does everyday life look like for young men who flee to Europe, survive, and are then assigned temporary housing? Hypersurveillance or parallel normality, irrelevance, or even nothingness? Based on four years of ethnographic research, Undoing Nothing recounts the untold story of Italian asylum seekers’ struggles to produce relevance—that is, to carve out meaning, control, and direction from their legal and existential liminality. Their ways of inhabiting space and time rest on a deeply ambivalent position: together and alone, inside and outside, absent and present. Their racialized bodies dwell in their assigned residence while their selves inhabit a suspended translocal space of moral economies, nightmares, and furtive dreams. This book illuminates a distinctly modern form of purgatory, offering both a perceptive critique of state responses to the so-called refugee crisis and nuanced psychological portraits of a demographic rarely afforded narrative depth and grace. “Undoing Nothing is an exceptional book. It moves us away from dramatic and sensational descriptions of refugee predicaments and toward a detailed and perceptive analysis of the ways people navigate and manage their lives in the interstices between being stuck and in motion, surviving and aspiring.” —HENRIK VIGH, Professor of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen “Paolo Boccagni’s ethnography of the absurd confronts the existential question of what it means to live in limbo while waiting for asylum. This is a serious work from a leading thinker on how migration shapes experiences of being ‘home.’” —DAVID FITZGERALD, Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego “A must-read book in the age of legal and existential liminality for asylum seekers.” —ILSE VAN LIEMPT, Associate Professor of Human Geography, Utrecht University

Transnational Flows and Permissive Polities examines how legality and other sources of authority intersect in the regulation of human mobility. The book focuses on the ethnographic exploration of the experiences and views of mobile subjects in the vast and rapidly changing continent of Asia. The contributors analyze tensions between the letter of the law and social legitimation, territorial boundaries and commodity flows, state practices and migrant subjectivities, and labour brokerage and national and international organizations. This volume offers key insights for students of globalization and transnationality and policy relevance for development practitioners, governments, and NGOs.