Humanities & Social Sciences

We live in an age of lists, from magazine features to online clickbait. This book situates the list in a long tradition, asking key questions about the list as a cultural and communicative form. What, Liam Cole Young asks, can this seemingly innocuous form tell us about historical and contemporary media environments and logistical networks? Connecting German theories of cultural techniques to Anglo-American approaches that address similar issues, List Cultures makes a major contribution to debates about New Materialism and the post-human turn.

During the height of Muslim power in South Asia, Muslim nobles of the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) patronized the translation of a large body of Hindu Sanskrit texts into the Persian language, including the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad Gītā, and numerous other works. In Translating Wisdom, Shankar Nair reconstructs the intellectual processes that underlay these translations, traversing an exceptional linguistic scope including Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian materials. Using the 1597 Persian rendition of the Sanskrit Yoga Vāsiṣṭha as a case study, Nair traces the intellectual exchanges by which teams of Muslim and Hindu translators, working collaboratively and drawing upon their respective religio-philosophical traditions, crafted a novel lexicon with which to express Hindu philosophical wisdom in an Islamic Persian idiom. How did these translators find a vocabulary through which to convey Hindu, Sanskrit articulations of God, conceptions of salvation and the afterlife, Hindu ritual notions, etc., in Islamic Persian terms? How did these two communities of scholars devise a shared language with which to communicate and to render one another’s religious and philosophical views mutually comprehensible? Translating Wisdom illustrates how these early modern Muslim and Hindu scholars found the words and the means to put their traditions into conversation with one another, achieving a nuanced inter-religious and cross-philosophical dialogue significant not only to South Asia’s past, but also its present.

Neuere Erkenntnisse zum Umsatzverhalten an Dieseloxidationskatalysatoren (DOCs) zeigen, dass das Umsatzverhalten von Schadstoffen vom Oxidationsgrad der verwendeten Edelmetallkatalysatoren abhängen kann. Dabei wird deutlich, dass sich der Oxidationsgrad bei typischen Abgaszusammensetzungen langsam und reversibel mit der Katalysatortemperatur ändert. Das kann bei periodischen Katalysatortemperaturänderungen zu einem ausgeprägten Hystereseverhalten führen. Bisherige Ergebnisse liegen insbesondere zum Verhalten der NO-Oxidation an Platin-Katalysatoren vor. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es daher, die Untersuchungen auf seriennahe Pd- und PtPd-Mischkatalysatoren sowie auf andere abgastypische Schadstoffe, wie CO und Kohlenwasserstoffe, zu erweitern und dabei auch den Einfluss der Katalysatoralterung zu erfassen. Es wurde ein globalkinetisches Modell entwickelt und an die experimentellen Befunde angepasst. Dabei zeigte sich, dass es in der Regel möglich ist, das Umsatzverhalten bei reinen Pt- und Pd-Katalysatoren mit diesem örtlich eindimensionalen, makrokinetischen Zweiphasenmodell zutreffend zu beschreiben, wohingegen das Verhalten auf Pt/Pd-Mischkatalysatoren weniger gut simuliert werden kann. Dies ist vermutlich auf die heterogene Struktur der Pt/Pd-legierten Partikel zurückzuführen.

Steinberg marked a gamechanger in the understanding of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The arguments with which Steinberg fought the limits of the formalist critics appear to have become unchallengeable from the 1960s on, the moment that Art History began to undergo a colossal transformation. Steinberg opened the doors wide to new critical focus on Modern Art. Among the doors he opened, were the biographical and psychological considerations about Les Demoiselles. This chapter presents a brief summary of the psychobiographic and contextualist interpretations of the work, including one of the most important by William Rubin who saw Les Demoiselles as a reflection of Picasso's psychosexual problems and presented unpublished documentation that would be of vital importance for future criticism and historiography.

In the early modern period, security was perceived much more broadly than it is today. Security was closely linked to social order and stability. The heteronormative gender order played a central role in this and was es-sentially legitimized by the hierarchy and division of labor in the house. The 13 chapters from the fields of history, art history, literary studies, philosophy and theology examine the emergence and formation of this historical constellation. The common interest is focused on texts, images, and practices that, in the age of the Renaissance, shaped a knowledge and visual culture of security which continues to have an impact and is also tangible in the current "gender security gap". With conributions by Matthias Adrian | Anna Katharina Becker | Elisabetta Cau | John Egle | Joseph Freedman | Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat | Margareth Lanzinger | Sigrid Ruby | Raffaella Sarti | Daniel Schläppi | Inken Schmidt-Voges | Tina Terrahe | Christian Uhde

There is an undeniable need for cybersecurity in Switzerland today, particularly when it comes to critical infrastructures — that is, infrastructures essential to the population, society, or the national economy. Regulation is one of the tools available to improve their cybersecurity. This study pursues two main objectives. First, it presents an analysis of the current legal framework for the cybersecurity of critical infrastructures under Swiss law, as well as the activities of cyber incident management service providers. Second, it puts forward legislative proposals aimed at encouraging critical infrastructures to improve their cybersecurity, regulating the practice of cyber incident management, and strengthening the role of the state in this field, which is vital to society.

Energy‐dependent full‐field transmission soft X‐ray microscopy is a powerful technique that provides chemical information with spatial resolution at the nanoscale. Oxygen K‐level transitions can be optimally detected, and we used this technique to study the discharge products of lithium‐oxygen batteries, where this element undergoes a complex chemistry, involving at least three different oxidation states and formation of nanostructured deposits. We unambiguously demonstrated the presence of significant amounts of superoxide forming a composite with peroxide, and secondary products such as carbonates or hydroxide. In this chapter, we describe the technique from the fundamental to the observation of discharged electrodes to illustrate how this tool can help obtaining a more comprehensive view of the phenomena taking place in metal air batteries and any system involving nanomaterials with a complex chemistry.

Auf sie stützte fast jeder europäische Fürst im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert seine Macht: jüdische Finanziers und Logistiker, politische Berater und Diplomaten, sogenannte "Hofjuden". Das jüdische Hoffaktorentum wurde zur Institution im Dreieck von Politik, Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeschichte. Klangvolle Namen sind mit ihm verbunden. Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, genannt "Jud Süß", wurde zum Inbegriff des deutschen Hofjuden und beschäftigt Historiker, Theatermacher und Komponisten bis in die Gegenwart. Wie real aber ist das Bild, das die deutsche Gesellschaft von ihm und anderen Hoffaktoren entwickelte, nicht zuletzt unter dem Einfluß der antisemitischen Propaganda der Nationalsozialisten? Wie einflußreich waren die Hofjuden wirklich? Die deutsch-jüdische Historikerin Selma Stern (1890-1981) ging diesen Fragen nach, untersuchte Mythos und Wirklichkeit. Begonnen im Deutschland der zwanziger Jahre, erschien ihre Untersuchung erst 1950 im amerikanischen Exil unter dem Titel The Court Jew. Erstmals lag damit ein interdisziplinäres Standardwerk vor. Selma Stern beschreibt darin den Aufstieg und Niedergang von Hoffaktorendynastien wie Behrens, Ephraim, Gumperts, Itzig, Kann oder Wertheimer. Sie arbeitet die wechselseitige Abhängigkeit zwischen Herrschern und Hofjuden heraus und richtet zugleich den Blick auf wirtschaftliche, politische, soziale, kulturelle und historische Zusammenhänge und Entwicklungen im absolutistischen Europa. Mehr als 50 Jahre nach seinem Erscheinen liegt der Band nun als deutsche Erstveröffentlichung vor.

The volume, dedicated to the 44th International Conference of the Italian Union for Drawing, investigates the theme of ‘Transitions’, which particularly effectively represents our time and the current condition of the discipline of Drawing. The term, beyond its generic meaning of an intermediate stage in a process in which a condition changes from one state to another, has always been used in various fields, from music to geophysics. In fact, the disciplines of drawing have always been confronted with themes and issues relating to transitions from one condition to another. The history of representation tells us of transformations, even epochal ones, relating to ‘drawing’, with all that such transitions entail: suffice it to think of the evolution of forms of representation, of instrumental apparatuses, of the mutability of supports, of the analogical-digital transition underway, of the new modes of communication on platforms, of the hypertrophic offer of images also on the net that confirms Guy Debord’s intuitions relating to the new spectacularisation of society. Similarly, representation triggers transitions in the prefiguration and communication of design, the anticipation and foreshadowing of future events.The challenges posed by the digital pose open questions whose scope can only be glimpsed, such as the relationship between drawing and the act of modelling, and the construction of new paradigms of visual language and communication. ‘Transitions’, almost implicitly, points to possible futures, the evolution of technique and the search for new modes of expression; at the same time, however, it can suggest silences and reflections in a process of connection between history, theory, criticism and construction.

Whether in cookery books, on planes, in factories or laboratories - instructive images are omnipresent. They explain, pass on and store knowledge about bodies, materials and processes: Schematically, they visualise positioning in space, movement, temporal sequences, or operating methods, encouraging us to imitate them. This volume examines their primary function as conveyors of practical knowledge, and describes their development in the context of social, technological and media transformation processes. A historical cross-section is provided by interdisciplinary contributions discussing aesthetic, communicative and political aspects of this visual cultural field, which is extremely diverse but has been little acknowledged to date.

Selected Essays and Dialogues is a collection of translations of Italian writer and filmmaker Gianni Celati’s theoretical and musing work from the late 1960s to the present. Topics range from environmental perception and archaeological conceptions of historical knowledge, to street theatre, writing, photography, cinema and translation. The book provides a framework of key literary, theoretical and artistic movements of the last 50 years, as well as a guide for English-language readers to place Celati’s work in historical, cultural and biographical context, serving to illuminate his books available in English, namely Towards the River’s Mouth, Adventures in Africa, Voices from the Plains and Appearances. There are various paths to take, tempting readers to wander and become lost in webs of daring thought, drawn ever on by Celati’s fondness for the unexpected ordinary and his bonhomie with others. Indeed, a genial adventurousness can be found within all of Celati’s writings collected here, driven by an affectionate and light-hearted engagement with the surrounding world. Herein is a taste of a seemingly endless series of adventures of the mind and body, always tapped into a lithe sensitivity for an encompassing collective imagination not restricted to the so-called high arts or letters, but very much also engaged with the everyday lives, places and tales we all constantly share. Praise for Selected Essays and Dialogues by Gianni Celati ‘Barron’s volume is a very welcome addition to the field. As the first collection of Gianni Celati’s essays in English translation, the book makes accessible a wide selection of his critical work to an Anglophone audience.’ Marina Spunta, University of Leicester

This open-access book investigates Francophone Caribbean literature by exploring and analyzing French seventeenth-century travel writings. The book argues for a literary re-examination of the representation of the early colonial Caribbean by proposing theoretical linkages to contemporary Caribbean theories of creolization and archipelagic thinking. Using Édouard Glissant’s notion of points of entanglement, Christina Kullberg claims that the historical, social, and political messiness of the Caribbean seventeenth century make for complex representations and expressions, generating textual instability despite the travelers’ apparent desires to domesticate the islands. Taking a synoptic approach to travel narratives in French from 1620 up to the publication of Labat’s Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amérique in 1722, Kullberg examines textual instances where the islands and the peoples of this period disrupt and unsettle dominant French narratives and enter productively into the construction of knowledge and the representations of the region. Kullberg’s contribution is to read French early modern travels in situ as shaped by the archipelagic geography, its history and social formations in order to interrogate both the construction and the limitations of discourses of power.

In Awesome Families, Kathleen Jenkins draws on four years of ethnographic research to explain how and why so many individuals-primarily from middle- to upper-middle-class backgrounds-were attracted to this religious group that was founded on principles of enforced community, explicit authoritative relationships, and therapeutic ideals. Weaving classical and contemporary social theory, she argues that members were commonly attracted to the structure and practice of family relationships advocated by the church, especially in the context of contemporary society where gender roles and family responsibilities are often ambiguous. Tracing the rise and fall of this fast-growing religious movement, this timely study adds to our understanding of modern society and offers insight to the difficulties that revivalist movements have in sustaining growth.

Political Science; Public Administration

Harnessing the Bohemian takes a fresh and interdisciplinary perspective on the intractable problem of shrinking populations and resources in remote/rural communities. It challenges the conventional wisdom of community development theories and practices and envisages more central roles for the creative disciplines in revitalising futures planning. It argues that the evolution of technologies, the emergence of creative economies, the increasing demand for creative products, and the emergence of new creative talent are continually changing community expectations and opportunities. Consequentially, fresh arguments and new ideas must be developed to stimulate more creative and innovative approaches to community development. Recognising that creativity and innovation exist across all community sectors, this book proposes practical new approaches that harness the creative capital of all community stakeholders.