Humanities & Social Sciences

The terms "figure" and "ground" became fundamental to art-historical analysis. But is this dichotomy suited to describe premodern art and? This volume calls into question long-standing habits of seeing and understanding figure-ground relations, expands art historical vocabularies, and challenges anachronistic attachments to modernist paradigms

This book gives readers detailed explanations of the techniques used to map and monitor the built and natural environment and how that data, collected from a wide range of scales and cost options, is translated into an image or visual experience. It is written with technical, professional, and academic readers in mind.

Levees are built on many rivers and mountain torrents to protect populations against floods. During medium floods, a well-constructed levee offers sufficient protection without requiring additional hydraulic structures. But this same levee represents a source of danger during high floods, since there is a risk of overtopping. Water that spills over a levee may create a breach that could potentially provoke flash flooding in the area it was supposed to protect, endangering human lives and infrastructure. It is therefore advisable to equip levee systems with spillways, which are common appurtenant structures on dams. Yet spillways on levees play a far more complex role than those on dams, from securing protected areas to flood control. These structures can function as safety spillways or diversion spillways, or both (especially the older ones). This technical handbook, first published in French in 2012, covers different types of spillways on river levees, including their function, hydraulics, river morphology, civil engineering, and flood management. Written by a working group led by INRAE, it is intended for levee managers, control authorities, engineering firms, and hydraulics or civil engineering students. Given increasing international interest in levees and flood protection systems, particularly following ICOLD’s creation of a Technical Committee on Levees, INRAE decided to update and translate this guide into English to share the French experience.

The future of the teaching profession is central not only to the field of education but also to the development of democratic and inclusive societies. Since the 1980s, however, the teaching profession has undergone unprecedented changes in terms of the status and attractiveness of the profession, labor markets, and accountability models. At the same time, it has become increasingly subject to global/regional discourses and a variety of new governance mechanisms. In this volume, the authors answer two critical questions for the future of the teaching profession: How does the teaching profession (re)institutionalize itself in a globalizing world? And how does globalization affect the central mechanisms of the profession, such as its models of education and professional development, modes of recruitment, and labor markets and careers? Although these changes are global in nature, this volume examines them in the European context. The volume addresses the structural and cultural environments that shape the employment regimes of the teaching profession in Europe. Based on a multiscalar study that combines multiple sources of data and methods, it looks innovatively at the reconfiguration of teachers’ careers by analyzing the joint evolutions of the European Union’s governance of education and teachers and of employment regimes in two contrasting European countries (England and France). Observing different trajectories of employment liberalization in the two countries, emblematic of liberal or bureaucratic public professions, leads the authors to discuss different scenarios for the future of the teaching profession in Europe.

The paper analyzes two strategic choices by European firms: whether they invest in energy efficiency and what share of their total investment they allocate to such measures. It combines firm level data from the EIB Investment Survey with regulatory indicators from the World Bank’s RISE database. Accounting for firms’ self selection into energy efficiency investment, the study finds that financial constraints—particularly for SMEs—limit their ability to undertake energy efficiency projects. It also shows that firms devote a larger share of investment to energy efficiency in countries with stronger incentive based regulatory frameworks. These findings highlight clear policy opportunities to strengthen both the financial and regulatory channel for improving energy efficiency investments across sectors in EU countries.

Analysis of two key medieval reflections at the intersection of our mental representations and external reality Thought, in a sense, transforms the world. When we think of a particular thing - Charlie the dog, for example - we always think of it in a universal way: as a dog. Through this act of thinking, Charlie comes to exist in our mind and becomes the dog that is the object of our thought. Explaining how our act of thinking relates to and transforms the reality around us is often considered the hallmark of the modern age. Yet the Middle Ages offer illuminating examples of speculation on the human mind and how it functions. This book explores the views on mental acts, concepts and objects of the mind of two of the most eminent Dominican authors of the late Middle Ages: Thomas Aquinas and Hervaeus Natalis, one of his closest followers. By putting Aquinas and Hervaeus Natalis directly in conversation with each other Amerini proposes a new interpretative framework for understanding their philosophy of mind and traces the origins of modern accounts of the intentionality of the mind.

Joel B. Lande’s Persistence of Folly challenges the accepted account of the origins of German theater by focusing on the misunderstood figure of the fool, whose spontaneous and impish jest captivated audiences, critics, and playwrights from the late sixteenth through the early nineteenth century. Lande radically expands the scope of literary historical inquiry, showing that the fool was not a distraction from attempts to establish a serious dramatic tradition in the German language. Instead, the fool was both a fixture on the stage and a nearly ubiquitous theme in an array of literary critical, governmental, moral-philosophical, and medical discourses, figuring centrally in broad-based efforts to assign laughter a proper time, place, and proportion in society. Persistence of Folly reveals the fool as a cornerstone of the dynamic process that culminated in the works of Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist. By reorienting the history of German theater, Lande’s work conclusively shows that the highpoint of German literature around 1800 did not eliminate irreverent jest in the name of serious drama, but instead developed highly refined techniques for integrating the comic tradition of the stage fool.

Based on the collaborative, interdisciplinary research project Shift-Plastics this book establish sustainable circular value chains for managing plastics in the fisheries and aquaculture industries, which are significant causes of ocean plastic pollution. Focused on reducing plastic production and consumption by examining the entire life cycle and taking upstream measures, the Norwegian case presented in this book highlights globally relevant insights into how to manage the complexity of plastic pollution and the systemic changes needed for a sustainable circular economy (SCE). This book takes a transdisciplinary approach, incorporating academic perspectives and collaborating with industry and public bodies to improve plastic handling in the fisheries and aquaculture industries. It integrates multiple scientific disciplines, including technological science, policy science, economics, environmental science, design thinking, and systems thinking. It also investigates the value chain of plastic use in the fisheries and aquaculture industries to map their management practices and pinpoint issues that can be improved throughout the process. In doing so, it provides practical advice on how to create effective policies in line with a SCE for both businesses and policymakers. Further, it highlights how plastic production can be reduced through extended usability, ways to apply eco-design principles to create products that can easily be disassembled, repaired, and recycled, and options for using bioplastics and recycled materials. Finally, it presents a roadmap that connects changes in industrial practices, infrastructure needs and policy design in the short, medium, and long term to achieve reduced plastic use and plastic pollution in the fisheries and aquaculture industries. Managing Marine Plastic Pollution in Norway will be an important research reference and tool for academics, students, policymakers, industry and business professionals in pollution and waste management, sustainability, circular economy, and marine, fishery, and environmental management.

Was sind die individuellen und methodischen Voraussetzungen der Marx'schen ökonomischen Theorie? Martin Eichler untersucht Marx' Schriften im Lichte seiner emanzipatorischen Absichten und unterstreicht so ihren kohärenten Zusammenhang. Darüber hinaus stellt er den Wertbegriff als methodisches und inhaltliches Zentrum der Marx'schen ökonomischen Theorie vor und hebt die Bedeutung des geldvermittelten Tausches für die Konstitution der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsweise hervor. Die Studie begreift die ökonomische Theorie als Geisteswissenschaft auf empirischer Grundlage und liefert so einen wertvollen Beitrag zur neuen Marx-Lektüre.

This Open Access book explores the meaning and roles that strategy and leadership play in our lives. Based on decades of experience, the author contemplates whether we believe strategic leadership exists because it actually exists, or whether it exists because we believe it does? Both answers are true. The author argues that the duality of the essence of strategic leadership is clear. It may appear to be personalised, or it may seem to be an important characteristic of the organization enacted everywhere where there is guidance. In fact, the discussion about strategic leadership raises more questions. In this thought-provoking book, the author puts forward a robust critical assessment of one of the most widely used concepts in management research and practice. Beginning with an ontological and historical discussion around which the concept of strategic leadership has developed, the book continues to discuss the phenomenon of strategic leadership. Utilising a post-modern perspective and by heavily drawing on concepts such as hegemony and ideology, the author then discusses the role of organizational culture and networks, as well as the underlying tensions that come associated with strategic leadership.

Vor dem Hintergrund der sozial-ökologischen Krisen der Gegenwart ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, nachhaltigere Formen der Lebensführung zu realisieren. Auch wenn sich diese Einsicht in den letzten Jahren zunehmend verbreitet, bleibt weiterhin umstritten, wie dieses Ziel erreicht werden kann. Bildung und »aufgeklärter Konsum« allein werden nicht ausreichen, wie immer wieder deutlich wird. Aber welche Faktoren sind dann von Bedeutung und wie entsteht nachhaltige Lebensführung in der alltäglichen Praxis? Benjamin Görgen geht diesen Fragen nach und nimmt dazu die Realisierungsbedingungen nachhaltiger Lebensführung am Beispiel gemeinschaftlicher Wohnprojekte im urbanen Raum differenziert in den Blick.

During the celebrations for Leonardo’s fifth centenary, and under the patronage of their Italian Committee, a “21st century workshop of knowledge” worked eagerly in an interdisciplinary key, ranging on many aspects (from engineering to philosophy of nature, to history of architecture, reading of sources, technical knowledge, project analysis, cartographic interpretation), with the aim of contributing to the advancement of studies on an artist-researcher who synthesized the knowledge of his time in an extraordinary verbal-visual language, pushing them forward with anticipations and intuitions which are still relevant for the contemporary project, interpreting the territory as a common good and a living being. The volume presents the outcomes of this intense work.

Freed documents the network of marriage practices among ministerials in the archdiocese of Salzburg and in the process reconstructs an important and previously unexplored chapter in the rise of the German principalities.

On May the 5th, 1875, Marquis Carlo Alfieri di Sostegno announced the foundation of the School of Social Sciences. In 1877, the School settled permanently in the former convent of Crocette, in via Laura 42. The first years of the School were characterized by relevant financial difficulties, but also by countless successes. Between 1887 and 1909, the number of students enrolled increased from 43 to 87. The number of courses gradually rose from 8 to 19. By March 1909, the Royal Institute had already graduated up to 245 students. During the Italian participation to the World War, the Institute was stressed by the drop in registrations caused. Although at the eve of the fascist seizure of power and of the high education reform launched by Giovanni Gentile, the "Cesare Alfieri" Institute represented a great reality.

This open access book offers in depth knowledge on the challenges and opportunities offered by the inclusion of minority teachers in mainstream educational settings from an international perspective. It aims to be a unique and important contribution for scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners considering the complexities brought about by global trends into national/local educational systems and settings. It will also serve to guide future research, policy, and practice in this important field of inquiry. The work will contribute answers to questions such as: How do immigrant/minority teachers experience their work in mainstream educational settings?; How do mainstream shareholders experience the inclusion of immigrant/minority teachers in mainstream educational settings?; What is the effect of the successful (and/or unsuccessful) integration of minority teachers and teacher educators into mainstream education settings?.