Humanities & Social Sciences

Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise 2024 Karl Barths Theologie wird gemeinhin – und zurecht – als Widerspruch gegen die Säkularisierung der Kirche in der Neuzeit gelesen. Inwiefern sie zugleich den Versuch darstellt, theologisch adäquat auf die Säkularisierung der die Kirche umgebenden Gesellschaft zu reagieren, hat die bisherige Forschung erst in Ansätzen ausgeleuchtet. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht, wie Barth ganz konkret auf das sich vollziehende Ende der ‚christlichen Welt‘ im europäischen Kontext reagiert hat. Sie fragt: Welche ekklesiologischen und sozialethischen Umstellungen ermöglichten es Barth, die partikulare Existenz der Kirche in einem nichtchristlichen Umfeld theologisch zu affirmieren? Und welche Denkmuster prägten seine „Theologie der Welt", d.h. die von ihm vorgeschlagene theologische Bestimmung nichtchristlicher Menschen, des säkularen Staates und der profanen Kultur insgesamt? Dabei wird die These plausibilisiert, dass Barth angesichts der gesellschaftlichen Säkularisierungsprozesse seiner Zeit eine umfassende christologisch-inklusive Theologie der Welt entwickelte, die von Christi Wirken auch in einer säkularen Gesellschaft ausging – und dass diese Welttheologie in Barths Denken zur Ausbildung charakteristischer Stärken und Schwächen geführt hat. ; Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise 2024 Karl Barths Theologie wird gemeinhin – und zurecht – als Widerspruch gegen die Säkularisierung der Kirche in der Neuzeit gelesen. Inwiefern sie zugleich den Versuch darstellt, theologisch adäquat auf die Säkularisierung der die Kirche umgebenden Gesellschaft zu reagieren, hat die bisherige Forschung erst in Ansätzen ausgeleuchtet. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht, wie Barth ganz konkret auf das sich vollziehende Ende der ‚christlichen Welt‘ im europäischen Kontext reagiert hat. Sie fragt: Welche ekklesiologischen und sozialethischen Umstellungen ermöglichten es Barth, die partikulare Existenz der Kirche in einem nichtchristlichen Umfeld theologisch zu affirmieren? Und welche Denkmuster prägten seine „Theologie der Welt", d.h. die von ihm vorgeschlagene theologische Bestimmung nichtchristlicher Menschen, des säkularen Staates und der profanen Kultur insgesamt? Dabei wird die These plausibilisiert, dass Barth angesichts der gesellschaftlichen Säkularisierungsprozesse seiner Zeit eine umfassende christologisch-inklusive Theologie der Welt entwickelte, die von Christi Wirken auch in einer säkularen Gesellschaft ausging – und dass diese Welttheologie in Barths Denken zur Ausbildung charakteristischer Stärken und Schwächen geführt hat.

After thirty years of political cooperation in the field of education and training, the framework of competences required of the "European teacher" has not yet been defined at European Union level, i.e. of a teacher who, while working in a national education system, has a transnational professional profile and is competent to translate the European dimension of teaching into his or her teaching practice. The aim of our research project is to define the profile of common competences qualifying the distinctly European dimension of the teaching profession, whatever the level of education and the subject area, and in which the whole "European teaching and learning community" within the Common European Educational Area can potentially be recognised.

Scattered like dots rising from the deep across vast expanses of the world’s tropical and subtropical oceans, atolls with their turquoise lagoons and reefs teeming with colorful marine life have captured the public imagination. They have also been the homeland of millions of people for millennia as various groups of migrants spread across the far reaches if the Pacific, Indian and Western Atlantic regions. Developed from recently available satellite data, A Global Atlas of Atolls presents high-quality details of 476 atolls across the globe, characterizing aspects of the atoll rim, the lagoon, and their coral reef communities in unprecedented detail. In synthesizing and enhancing understanding of these unique seascapes, this volume provides a distinct compendium of descriptions and images, as well as documentation of the environmental conditions of winds, waves, and tides and a summary of the background literature for each atoll area. There is no comparable work. After an introduction that includes a glossary of terms, each atoll is documented in the form of an atlas written for scientists, but accessible to any diver or reader interested in these spectacular reef-island habitats. This book also describes some current challenges and perspectives on their future. It will be useful as a reference work for marine scientists, while providing a minimum of technical jargon for those who are not scientists, but who enjoy reading about exotic places with unusual attributes. Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

It is well known that, in classification problems, the predictive capacity of any decision-making model decreases rapidly with increasing asymmetry of the target variable (Sonquist et al., 1973; Fielding 1977). In particular, in segmentation analysis with a categorical target variable, very poor improvements of purity are obtained when the least represented modality counts less than 1/4 of the cases of the most represented modality. The same problem arises with other (theoretically more exhaustive) techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks. Actually, the optimal situation for classification analyses is the maximum uncertainty, that is, equidistribution of the target variable. Some classification techniques are more robust, by using, for example, the less sensitive logit transformation of the target variable (Fabbris & Martini 2002); however, also the logit transformation is strongly affected by the distributive asymmetry of the target variable. In this paper, starting from the results of a direct survey in which the target (binary) variable was extremely asymmetrical (10% vs. 90%, or greater asymmetry), we noted that also the logit model with the most significant parameters had very reduced fitting measures and almost zero predictive power. To solve this predictive issue, we tested post-stratification techniques, artificially symmetrizing a training sample. In this way, a substantially increase of fitting and predictive capacity was achieved, both in the symmetrized sample and, above all, in the original sample. In conclusion of the paper, an application of the same technique to a dataset of very different nature and size is described, demonstrating that the method is stable even in the case of analysis executed with all data of a population.

This edited book examines the relationship between journalism, democracy, and disinformation in contemporary Europe. Drawing on original empirical research with journalists and media regulators, it provides a timely analysis of the European Union’s evolving regulatory response to disinformation and media pluralism, while foregrounding the perspectives of those directly involved in interpreting and implementing these changes. Through a comparative study of seven countries — Spain, Italy, Norway, Iceland, Croatia, Poland, and Bulgaria — the book explores how media actors across diverse political, institutional, and regulatory contexts understand and respond to post-truth politics. In doing so, it investigates whether a shared European normative space around journalism, media freedom, and democracy is beginning to take shape. This book will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners in European studies, media studies, journalism, political communication, and cultural sociology.

The rediscovery and promotion of fourteen islands in the Aegean Sea – renamed the Dodecanese Islands – annexed to Italy as a military possession while formally under the dominion of the Ottomans, might be considered another phase in the search for an Italian identity. From 1912 to 1943 these islands experienced Italy’s ambiguous presence as invaders and colonizers. This paper aims to highlight the concept of Italianità through the works of Hermes Balducci, one of the protagonists of Italian colonial architecture in the Dodecanese Islands. To this end and using lesser-known material, this case study intends to recreate and redefine the past of the Italian presence on these islands and provide an interesting point of view in the search for a lost and rediscovered Italian spirit.

Richard Rorty (1931–2007), once dubbed ‘the man who killed truth’, is best known for challenging the idea that philosophy provides foundational knowledge. Yet beyond the controversy lies a vital, underexplored side of Rorty’s work: his constructive vision for fostering democratic solidarity in a world shaped by contingency and uncertainty. This volume shifts focus from defending Rorty to applying his insights for today’s fractured, post-truth culture. Centered on Rorty’s "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989), the collection explores how his pragmatism helps us reimagine philosophy as a cultural practice—one grounded not in timeless truths, but in shared hopes, vocabularies, and democratic cooperation. The volume brings together seven original essays that revisit Rortyan concepts like liberal ironism, poetic redescription, eirenism, and democratic solidarity, and explore their implications for social justice, feminist theory, public discourse, and the humanities. Rather than lament relativism or retreat into essentialism, these contributions demonstrate how Rorty’s philosophy offers practical, imaginative tools for navigating difference and building inclusive societies. Emphasizing creativity over certainty and solidarity over skepticism, this timely volume reclaims Rorty’s legacy as a philosopher of hope—and a resource for democratic renewal in our era of radical uncertainty.

Ökosoziale Transformation ist in aller Munde, aber wie können Praktiker*innen im sozialen Bereich auf eine gerechte und inklusive Weise dazu beitragen? Die in diesem Sammelband vorgestellten Beiträge legen nahe, dass Räume, Praktiken und Didaktiken der Transformation dekolonisiert werden müssen, um den gegenwärtigen Status quo in Richtung einer gerechten und regenerativen planetarischen Zukunft zu verändern. Die hier versammelten Stimmen aus der Praxis zeigen, zeigen, dass dies möglich ist und leisten bereits jetzt in der Praxis dekolonisierende Transformationsarbeit. Wir bringen Praktiker*innen zusammen, die das vielfältige Spektrum sozialer Positionierungen widerspiegeln: – Schwarze, People of Color, Migrant*innen und weiß, queer und cisgender, älter und jünger, bildungsprivilegiert und von Klassismus betroffen. Gemeinsam präsentieren sie eine Vielzahl globaler Stimmen und Ansichten darüber, wie dekolonisierende Ansätze zur ökosozialen Transformation in einem vielfältigen Europa heute aussehen. Die Autor*innen dieses Buches laden deshalb auf eine Reise ein zu Zugängen und Praktiken, die die Grundlagen schaffen, um innere und äußere Transformation für eine gerechte Welt zu ermöglichen. Der Sammelband richtet sich an Praktiker*innen, Fachkräfte und Studierende im sozialen und pädagogischen Bereich und an Menschen in Deutschland, die sich selbst als migrantisch, BIPoC, FLINTA* oder queer positionieren und ihre Verbündeten sind, um gemeinsam antirassistische, diversitätskritische und post-humanistische Zugänge in den Praktiken der ökosozialen Transformation Realität werden zu lassen.

Can individuals believe that they are acting with integrity, yet in disobedience to the dictates of their conscience? Can they retain fidelity to their conscience while ignoring a sense of what integrity requires? Integrity and conscience are often thought to be closely related, perhaps even different aspects of a single impulse. This timely book supports a different and more complicated view. Acting with integrity and obeying one's conscience might be mutually reinforcing in some settings, but in others they can live in varying degrees of mutual tension. Bringing together prominent scholars of legal theory and political philosophy, the volume addresses both classic ruminations on integrity and conscience by Plato, Hume, and Kant as well as more contemporary examinations of professional ethics and the complex relations among politics, law and personal morality.

This book explores a range of pathways in the evolution and variation of the Spanish language across different communicative domains related to football. From press conferences to the language used by analysts and fans, from journalistic reports to media broadcasts and social networks, and from the very name of the sport to regional variants within Spanish football vocabulary, Partido a partido. La lengua del fútbol addresses a variety of linguistic research topics. These include lexical, discursive, and pragmatic phenomena, as well as diachronic, variational, sociopragmatic, comparative, and intralingual translation-based approaches. The book brings together nine papers, each with distinct aims, scopes, and analytical techniques. Despite this diversity, all the papers focus on the linguistic peculiarities of historical changes and contemporary variations in the Spanish language (across more than one country), which can be observed – though not exclusively – in the language of football. Although exploratory in nature, this volume encourages readers to view the communicative dynamics inspired by football as more than merely ‘mundane’ or ‘ephemeral’. While some phenomena arise solely within the football community under specific circumstances, certain linguistic innovations shaped by football references may eventually extend to other thematic domains. In sum, this book offers readers an overview of the features and complexities that characterise the Spanish language. Like football itself, these features spark interest and foster discussion among specialists.

The Routledge Handbook of Precarious Housing offers the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of one of today’s most urgent global challenges: the growing normalization of insecure, unaffordable, and uninhabitable housing. Bringing together leading scholars from across the world, this volume exposes precarious housing not as an exceptional crisis, but as a patterned outcome of financialized, racialized, and post‑settler‑colonial societies. Through wide‑ranging theoretical reflections and case studies—from social housing and rental markets to informal settlements, climate‑exposed neighborhoods, migrant housing, and student accommodation—this book illuminates how precariousness is produced both structurally and experientially, shaping dwelling through uncertainty, waiting, instability, and everyday improvisation. Organized around key themes including tenure security, infrastructure, homelessness and health, climate change, predatory actors, social movements, and examples of policies and programs that address precarious housing, the Handbook develops a shared conceptual grammar rooted in temporality, uncertainty, urgency, and collective action. It reveals precarious housing as a terrain of struggle where residents, activists, planners, and policymakers contest dispossession, experiment with alternative forms of dwelling, and reimagine more just futures. Essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and advocates, this Handbook reframes precarious housing as a central site through which the politics of habitability, governance, and radical justice are negotiated today. Chapters 5 and 19 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 International license (Chapter 5), and a Creative Commons [Attribution] (CC BY)] 4.0 International license (Chapter 19).

The Routledge Handbook of International Cybersecurity examines the development and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) from the perspective of international peace and security. Acknowledging that the very notion of peace and security has become more complex, the volume seeks to determine which questions of cybersecurity are indeed of relevance for international peace and security and which, while requiring international attention, are simply issues of contemporary governance or development. The Handbook offers a variety of thematic, regional and disciplinary perspectives on the question of international cybersecurity, and the chapters contextualize cybersecurity in the broader contestation over the world order, international law, conflict, human rights, governance and development. This book will be of much interest to students of cybersecurity, computer science, sociology, international law, defence studies and International Relations in general.

This book is about the experiences of students in institutions of higher education from 'non-traditional' backgrounds with contributions from the UK, the USA and Australia which reveal that the issues surrounding the inclusion of 'non-traditional' students are broadly similar in different countries.

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.

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