Humanities & Social Sciences

Historians have long been aware that the encounter with Europeans affected all aspects of Native American life. But were Indians the only ones changed by these cross-cultural meetings? Might the newcomers' ways, including their religious beliefs and practices, have also been altered amid their myriad contacts with native peoples? In Encounters of the Spirit, Richard W. Pointer takes up these intriguing questions in an innovative study of the religious encounter between Indians and Euro-Americans in early America. Exploring a series of episodes across the three centuries of the colonial era and stretching from New Spain to New France and the English settlements, he finds that the flow of cultural influence was more often reciprocal than unidirectional.

Bringing together 21 contributions by researchers from Poland and Ukraine, this volume offers a rich interdisciplinary exploration of the protection and promotion of cultural heritage. Moving between theoretical reflection and practical perspectives, it engages with questions in the fields of philosophy, law, public administration, and cultural management. The authors consider the complex challenges facing heritage protection today, particularly in times of armed conflict and social crisis, while drawing attention to the vital role of public institutions, civic organisations, and local communities in safeguarding tradition. At the same time, the volume underscores the importance of cooperation, new technologies, and grassroots activities in shaping effective and forward-looking approaches to cultural heritage protection.

Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit steht die optimale Steuerung und Regelung von hybriden Energiesystemen bestehend aus einem Verbrennungsmotor und einem elektrischen Generator. Da bei der Auslegung und dem Betrieb solcher Systeme eine große Anzahl unterschiedlicher Einflussgrößen, Abgängigkeiten und Beschränkungen existiert, stellt die Bestimmung des wirkungsgradoptimalen Betriebsverfahrens eine komplexe Aufgabenstellung dar. Eine wichtige und in bisherigen Arbeiten noch nicht ausführlich untersuchte Betriebsgröße ist dabei die über einen Wechselrichter hochdynamisch vorgebbare drehmomentbildende Stromtrajektorie. Prinzipiell wirkt sich diese auf das Geschwindigkeitsprofil der Motorkolben und damit zugleich sowohl auf die elektromagnetischen als auch auf die thermodynamischen Vorgänge innerhalb der Dauer eines Verbrennungszyklus aus und bietet somit Potential zur Nutzung als Optimierungsgröße. Der wesentliche Beitrag dieser Dissertation ist ein zweistufiges Konzept, mit dessen Hilfe sich die Frage nach der effizientesten Betriebsstrategie bei Einbeziehung der verfügbaren Freiheitsgrade, insbesondere einer variablen Systemauslegung, systematisch beantworten lässt. Die Untersuchung wird hierbei am Beispiel eines Einzylinder-Dieselmotors, dessen Motorwelle mechanisch mit einer permanentmagneterregten Synchronmaschine gekoppelt ist, durchgeführt. Im ersten Schritt erfolgt eine simulative Betrachtung der Fragestellung mithilfe einer nulldimensionalen Modellierung des Dieselgenerators sowie der Anwendung von Optimalsteuerungsmethoden. Die Ergebnisse der Optimierung zeigen, dass hinsichtlich der Freiheitsgrade der dynamischen Trajektorienvorgabe vor allem eine Reduktion von stromabhängigen Verlusten zielführend ist. Des Weiteren werden in diesem ersten Teil der Dissertation Vorschläge zur wirkungsgradoptimalen Auslegung des mechatronischen Systems abgeleitet und die Robustheit der vorgeschlagenen Strategie diskutiert. Der Schwerpunkt des zweiten Teils der Arbeit liegt auf der Validierung der für das Modell bestimmten Betriebsstrategie an einem Versuchsaufbau. Hierzu wird ein auf Extremum-Seeking-Control beruhendes Echtzeitoptimierungsverfahren entwickelt, mit dem sich eine Maximierung des Gesamtwirkungsgrads bei gleichzeitiger Vorgabe der elektrischen Ausgangsleistung des hybriden Systems erreichen lässt. Die Konvergenz des entwickelten Ansatzes wird sowohl mithilfe von Simulations- und Experimentalstudien untersucht als auch mittels einer analytischen Stabilitätsuntersuchung formal nachgewiesen. Insgesamt bestätigen die Ergebnisse der Versuchsreihen die am Modell getroffenen Aussagen zum effizientesten Betrieb; an ihnen wird aber auch der Nutzen des rein modellfreien Echtzeitoptimierungsansatzes deutlich.

Exiles, lost souls, remnants of a dying race ... The fate of the First Nations peoples of Van Diemens Land is one of the most infamous chapters in Australian history. The men, women and children exiled to Flinders Island in the 1830s and 40s have often been written about, but never allowed to speak for themselves. This book aims to change that. Documents penned by the exiles during their 15 years at the settlement Wybalenna offer a compelling counter-narrative to traditional representations of a hopeless, dispossessed, illiterate people's final days. The exiles did not see themselves as prisoners, but as a Free People. Seen through their own writing, the community at Wybalenna was vibrant, complex and evolving. Rather than a depressed people simply waiting for death, their own words reveal a politically astute community engaged in a 15 year campaign for their own freedom. This book tells a compelling story that will profoundly affect understandings of Tasmanian and Australian history.

Watching television plays an important role in our daily lives. Especially serial narratives like the popular German police procedural Tatort (FRG, since 1970) bear great potential to catch and keep their viewer’s interest. Analysing the integration of the long running TV series Tatort into its viewers’ weekly routines, this study investigates movements in the realm of what is called ‘social positioning’. In online fora, in discussions or while watching the latest episode, television audiences share their impressions. They compare inspectors and crime sites and express their views upon socio-political debates. At the same time watching series for many is a deeply social activity. The series helps its viewers to get together with friends, partners or the family on a regular basis, others enjoy sharing their viewing experience in social networks. Together they laugh or discuss the issues that are brought up by the police investigation. The practice of watching Tatort thereby provides a wide range of possibilities to act upon one’s perspective on how the social world is structured. The ethnographic approach towards practices of social positioning is based upon participant observations in viewing situations over three years, 43 semi-structured narrative interviews, as well as an online ethnography concentrating on Facebook and the fan page Tatort-Fundus. This approach allows for two kinds of findings: Current perspectives on ‚the cultural other‘ as a figure that is bound to situational practices of positioning are enlightened by comparisons to fictional criminals and investigators as well as representations of social, professional and ethnic groups in Tatort. On a more theoretical level, the ethnographic insights on biographies, viewing situations, and practices in between the episodes call for corrections of the still persistent model of taste as a reliable indicator of people’s standing in society. Instead, the study points out the importance of situational and serial acts of positioning. Watching Tatort is a cultural practice with much variation. Still, how its viewers deal with Tatort as a narrative as well as a cultural practice is linked to a set of discursive fields. Describing the practice of watching Tatort as bound to activity/passivity, pleasure/critique, tension/relaxation, real/unreal, entertainment/information, and femininity/masculinity as well as to German/not-German reveals that all of these oppositions are continuously under negotiation. And Tatort viewers are usually positioned in-between.

»Gute Wissenschaftler«, so wird gemeinhin angenommen, entstehen allein durch ihre individuelle Leistung. Diese auf einer empirischen Untersuchung basierende Studie setzt dagegen die These, dass Leistung nicht unabhängig von der Anerkennung der im wissenschaftlichen Feld etablierten Akteure als funktionales, »objektives« Prinzip existiert, sondern innerhalb sozialer Prozesse individuell zugeschrieben und hergestellt wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird auch die Frage beleuchtet, wie es dazu kommt, dass wesentlich mehr männliche als weibliche Aspiranten die akademische Karriere fortsetzen. Der Blick richtet sich dabei weder auf »subjektive Laufbahnen« noch auf »objektive Strukturen«. Untersucht wird vielmehr die alltägliche Praxis des wissenschaftlichen Feldes, die sich im praktischen Sinn, der illusio der Akteure, widerspiegelt. Damit schließt die Studie an Pierre Bourdieus Untersuchungen des wissenschaftlichen Feldes an und ergänzt diese um neue Gesichtspunkte.

The volume contains the documents of the study day held in Florence on the 4th October 2012 and presents the contributions of nine young scholars of proven competence, belonging to different Italian universities. The multifaceted Greek poetic production of the post-Hellenistic age is investigated through its literary genres and the specific issues it poses: mythological-narrative and didactic epic, theological oracles, pagan and Christian hymnography, an epigram, survival of the poetic expressive code in the prose of the early Byzantine age. The essays are different in perspective - critical-textual, exegetical, historical-literary - but are united by a solid philological basis; moreover, each of them offers innovative ideas that make the volume of great interest for the international scientific community.

In this open access book the cost and revenue overruns of Olympic Games from Sydney 2000 to PyeongChang 2018 from eight years before the Games to Games‐time are investigated to provide a base for future host cities. The authors evaluated the development of expenditure and revenues of the organizing committees to operate the event, and the investment of taxpayers’ money for Olympic venues (non‐OCOG budget). The study is based on data collected worldwide and is currently the most advanced study on cost and revenue changes of Olympic Games.

"This book presents essays exploring the ways in which popular culture reflects and engenders ongoing changes in Japan–Korea relations. Through a broad temporal coverage from the colonial period to the contemporary, the book’s chapters analyse the often contradictory roles that popular culture has played in either promoting or impeding nationalisms, regional conflict and reconciliations between Japan and Korea. Its contributors link several key areas of interest in East Asian Studies, including conflicts over historical memories and cultural production, grassroot challenges to state ideology, and the consequences of digital technology in Japan and South Korea. Taking recent discourse on Japan and South Korea as popular cultural superpowers further, this book expands its focus from mainstream entertainment media to the lived experience of daily life, in which sentiments and perceptions of the ‘popular’ are formed. It will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese and Korean studies, as well as film studies, media studies and cultural studies more widely."

This book outlines the trajectory from Paul Ricœur’s The Symbolism of Evil to his writings devoted to psychoanalysis, the common thread being the residue left by the subject of evil, which guided Ricœur to Freud. This book is a collection following two Fonds Ricœur summer workshops co-organized with the Society for Ricœur Studies at the Ricœur Archive in Paris. It is a groundbreaking work for those interested in Ricœur, Freud and religion.

Eine der grundlegenden Fragen, im öffentlichen Recht im Allgemeinen wie im Bergrecht im Besonderen, ist immer noch die Frage nach der Rechtsnachfolge in öffentlich-rechtliche Zulassungen. Dabei ist kaum ein anderes Rechtsgebiet wie das Bergrecht von einer langen Tradition geprägt, ohne an Aktualität einzubüßen. Gerade in einer Situation wie der heutigen, in der viele (ehemalige) Bergbauunternehmen einem Restrukturierungsprozess unterzogen werden, ist besonders die bergrechtliche Nachfolgefrage von praktischer Bedeutung: was geschieht im Falle des Todes eines Berechtigungsinhabers, in Fällen gesellschaftsrechtlicher Umwandlungen bestehender Bergbauunternehmen oder im Falle der Veräußerung eines Bergwerks mit den erteilten Bergbauberechtigungen und Betriebsplanzulassungen? Ein Vergleich mit der Rechtsnachfolge in verschiedene Zulassungsakte auf dem Gebiet des vorhaben- und produktbezogenen Umweltrechts liefert Lösungsmöglichkeiten und fördert zugleich das Bedürfnis nach einer Änderung der im Bundesberggesetz bestehenden Regelungen über die Rechtsnachfolge zutage.

This book provides critical insights into the framework of consumer collective redress within EU law, including recent changes introduced by the Representative Actions Directive (EU) 2020/1828. The focus is on Poland, where group proceedings have been operating since 2009. The exploration of Poland’s 15-year time-span experience constitutes a comprehensive case study, offering valuable examples and recommendations. The study examines whether, collective redress mechanisms can ensure effective enforcement of consumer rights and, at the same time, guarantee a high level of consumer protection. The discussion is composed of three fundamental parts. The first chapter explores the nature of collective redress from the perspective of EU law. In the second chapter, the book addresses the various legal mechanisms operating in the Member States and the UK that serve consumers as means of collective redress. The final chapter focuses on Poland, discussing the legislative framework and functioning of group proceedings in practice. The discussion is enriched with specific solutions for the further development of collective redress in the EU. This book covers issues that will be of interest to researchers investigating EU consumer law, collective redress, class actions and law enforcement more in general. It will be of relevance to consumers and practicioners, including attorneys and consumer organisations aiming to bring representative actions in one of the EU Member States.

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.

On the eve of its fourth general elections, South Africa finds itself in the midst of a rearrangement of its political landscape after a decade and a half of governance by a unified African National Congress. This political realignment is occurring at the same time as economic gloom spreads around the globe in the wake of the American subprime crisis. South Africa’s response to this confluence of circumstances may very well become a test of its resilience, as two relatively constant variables in recent years, political and economic stability, come under pressure. Times of uncertainty and volatility pose significant risks, which need to be understood; at the same time, they should not blind us to the opportunities for innovation when tested policy and strategy fail to measure up to the challenges of the day. This is the perspective that the 2008 Transformation Audit wishes to employ in its four traditional focal areas – the economy, the labour market, skills and education, and poverty and inequality.

Rainbow family, insemination family, multi-parent family: These terms try to understand the phenomenon that parenthood and family are realized in diverse constellations. They are caught between empirical diversity and societal norms and norms. The articles in the special issue explore the family forms of lesbian two-parent families, trans * and co-parenting, non-monogamous relationship networks as well as queer relationship networks in the context of escape .; Same-sex parenting, co-parenting, blended family: These terms try to capture the phenomenon that parenthood and family are realized in manifold constellations. They are caught between empirical diversity and social notions of norm and normality. The articles in this special issue explore the family forms of lesbian two-parent families, trans * and co-parenthood, non-monogamous relationship networks, and queer relationship networks in a refugee context.