Open Access Books

Six institutions in five countries that have key interests in North Korea's future undertook a collaborative effort to determine ways in which the North Korean system could move toward modernization. The effort produced illustrative plans, a consensus plan, and a tool kit for constructing alternative plans for stimulating the modernization of the North Korean system.

Written by a practicing business attorney with startup experience in the environmental and technology sectors, this comprehensive handbook assists entrepreneurs in tackling the wide variety of opportunities to go green. A one-stop resource for entrepreneurs, it helps readers incorporate clean technology, environmental practices, and green business approaches into the work environment. The book discusses how to sell to utilities, explores fundraising outlets for green businesses, covers government incentives, presents key startup tools aimed at green businesses, and addresses challenges of many new businesses, such as raising money and making sales. Additional resources are available on the book's website.

Even though the similarities of philological methods and traditions across various cultures have been the subject of scholarly research, the reasons for these occurrences usually remain obscure. The present volume addresses this obscurity through introducing the concept of 'Connected Philology' from an interdisciplinary perspective. 'Connected Philology' explores underlying causes for similarities in philological practices: in the process of re-textualisation, written and oral traditions are translated, reformulated, and combined; the contact with foreign cultures leads to the expression of unfamiliar concepts in other languages, and the reconceptualisation of word meanings. In addition, such practices are understood in the context of an interplay between politics, society, and individual actors. The contributions focus on transcultural encounters, the subsequent movement of texts, processes of cultural transfer, as well as the history and politics of connected and connecting philology. Connected Philology transcends both national and disciplinary boundaries within philology and establishes connections with history, cultural studies, and linguistics.

This book explores the history and significance of the natural voice movement and its culture of open-access community choirs, weekend workshops, and summer camps. Founded on the premise that “everyone can sing”, the movement is distinguished from other choral movements by its emphasis on oral transmission and its eclectic repertoire of songs from across the globe. First, the book reveals how and why songs from non-Western and folk traditions inform the movement’s ideological, methodological, and ethical principles and contribute to the rewards—social, psychological, and existential, as well as musical—reported by participants. Second, it argues that the UK-based Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network, built on the pioneering work of English folksinger Frankie Armstrong, has become a major player in the democratisation of singing and represents a powerful force for community building and for facilitating intercultural understanding. Third, it suggests that the natural voice phenomenon poses a significant challenge to assumptions about musical competency and training that underpin music education in Britain and other Western societies. Among the book’s most striking revelations is the extent to which amateur and aspiring singers who are not musically literate, and who may belong to socially marginalised groups, become competent participants in a vibrant musical community and, in the process, find their voice metaphorically as well as literally. These trends are theorised in terms of the politics of participation, the transformative potential of performance, building social capital, the global village, and reclaiming the arts of celebration and conviviality.

Relationality and Learning in Oceania: Contextualizing Education for Development critically engages debates in comparative education and international development relating to context, culture, language and indigenous epistemologies. It draws on experiences of a south-north research-practice team in Solomon Islands and Tonga.; Readership: All interested in comparative education and international development relating to context, culture, language and indigenous epistemologies. It draws on experiences of a south-north research-practice team in Solomon Islands and Tonga.

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This chapter focuses on a formal feature of displayed writings on portable media from Egypt, in particular whitewashed wooden tablets and papyri, namely the use of large letters. By examining a series of case studies that indirectly or directly bear evidence of this kind of script and in the light of some new readings, I attempt to determine whether the use of large letters was influenced by document type and to what extent it fulfilled the need to improve the document’s readability and highlight certain parts of the text. Similarities to writings displayed on durable materials are also investigated.

Rechtspopulismus ist kein fehlgeleiteter Protest gegen Neoliberalismus und Postdemokratie, sondern eine Gestalt der konformistischen Revolte. Seinen Kern bilden rassistische und konspirationistische Mythen: Das Eigene werde vom Fremden überwältigt, weil globalistische Eliten Souveränität und Gemeinschaft zerstört hätten. Leo Roepert analysiert, wie diese Mythen die Krisentendenzen der Gegenwart zu verarbeiten versuchen, ohne deren gesellschaftliche Ursachen wahrnehmen zu müssen. Dabei wird deutlich, dass der rechtspopulistische Kampf gegen »Globalismus« und »Überfremdung« darauf abzielt, eine Ordnung wiederherzustellen, die es vermeintlich schon immer gegeben hat.

The central role of nationality as a criterion for distinguishing between nationals and others is significantly curtailed by European Union citizenship within the European Union. Historical parallels are often drawn between this removal of distinctions and the German federal tradition. This work examines the development of status categories as criteria for distinguishing between nationals and foreigners from the 18th century up to the Zollverein. In doing so, it uncovers the complex genealogy and heterogeneous traditions underlying the differentiating function of nationality. It also examines the historical assessment of the effect of this distinction and strategies for overcoming it.

To offer insights into the challenges faced by active-duty service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and their families in coping with these challenges, and the adequacy of defense manpower policy in assisting members and families, this monograph draws on the perspectives of economics, sociology, and psychology; provides a formal model of deployment and retention; reviews published work; reports on the results of focus groups conducted in each of the services; and presents findings from an analysis of survey data.

"Not of woman born, the Fortunate, the Unborn"—the terms designating those born by Caesarean section in medieval and Renaissance Europe were mysterious and ambiguous. Examining representations of Caesarean birth in legend and art and tracing its history in medical writing, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski addresses the web of religious, ethical, and cultural questions concerning abdominal delivery in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Not of Woman Born increases our understanding of the history of the medical profession, of medical iconography, and of ideas surrounding "unnatural" childbirth.Blumenfeld-Kosinski compares texts and visual images in order to trace the evolution of Caesarean birth as it was perceived by the main actors involved—pregnant women, medical practitioners, and artistic or literary interpreters. Bringing together medical treatises and texts as well as hitherto unexplored primary sources such as manuscript illuminations, she provides a fresh perspective on attitudes toward pregnancy and birth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; the meaning and consequences of medieval medicine for women as both patients and practitioners, and the professionalization of medicine. She discusses writings on Caesarean birth from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when Church Councils ordered midwives to perform the operation if a mother died during childbirth in order that the child might be baptized; to the fourteenth century, when the first medical text, Bernard of Gordon's Lilium medicinae, mentioned the operation; up to the gradual replacement of midwives by male surgeons in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Not of Woman Born offers the first close analysis of Frarnois Rousset's 1581 treatise on the operation as an example of sixteenth-century medical discourse. It also considers the ambiguous nature of Caesarean birth, drawing on accounts of such miraculous examples as the birth of the Antichrist. An appendix reviews the complex etymological history of the term "Caesarean section."Richly interdisciplinary, Not of Woman Born will enliven discussions of the controversial issues surrounding Caesarean delivery today. Medical, social, and cultural historians interested in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, historians, literary scholars, midwives, obstetricians, nurses, and others concerned with women's history will want to read it."Not of woman born, the Fortunate, the Unborn"—the terms designating those born by Caesarean section in medieval and Renaissance Europe were mysterious and ambiguous. Examining representations of Caesarean birth in legend and art and tracing its history in medical writing, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski addresses the web of religious, ethical, and cultural questions concerning abdominal delivery in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Not of Woman Born increases our understanding of the history of the medical profession, of medical iconography, and of ideas surrounding "unnatural" childbirth.Blumenfeld-Kosinski compares texts and visual images in order to trace the evolution of Caesarean birth as it was perceived by the main actors involved—pregnant women, medical practitioners, and artistic or literary interpreters. Bringing together medical treatises and texts as well as hitherto unexplored primary sources such as manuscript illuminations, she provides a fresh perspective on attitudes toward pregnancy and birth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; the meaning and consequences of medieval medicine for women as both patients and practitioners, and the professionalization of medicine. She discusses writings on Caesarean birth from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when Church Councils ordered midwives to perform the operation if a mother died during childbirth in order that the child might be baptized; to the fourteenth century, when the first medical text, Bernard of Gordon's Lilium medicinae, mentioned the operation; up to the gradual replacement of midwives by male surgeons in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Not of Woman Born offers the first close analysis of Frarnois Rousset's 1581 treatise on the operation as an example of sixteenth-century medical discourse. It also considers the ambiguous nature of Caesarean birth, drawing on accounts of such miraculous examples as the birth of the Antichrist. An appendix reviews the complex etymological history of the term "Caesarean section."Richly interdisciplinary, Not of Woman Born will enliven discussions of the controversial issues surrounding Caesarean delivery today. Medical, social, and cultural historians interested in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, historians, literary scholars, midwives, obstetricians, nurses, and others concerned with women's history will want to read it.

Colloque des 28, 29 et 30 novembre 2007 Grâce au regain d’intérêt pour l’histoire institutionnelle et au renouvellement des questionnements sur l’État royal sous l’Ancien Régime, les Chambres des comptes sont enfin sorties de l’ombre. Les actes du colloque tenu à Paris du 28 au 30 novembre 2007, à l’occasion du bicentenaire de la Cour des comptes et du 25e anniversaire des Chambres régionales, présentent la géographie des Chambres des comptes, qu’elles soient royales ou princières, décrivent leurs attributions en matière de contrôle des comptables et de surveillance du domaine royal et se penchent sur des aspects moins connus comme l’administration de la régale temporelle. Cet ouvrage apporte des éclairages sur le personnel des Chambres des comptes, la hiérarchie marquée par un clivage majeur entre les présidents et les maîtres — qui ont seuls la qualité de juge — et les auditeurs et correcteurs, le recrutement social et les dynasties qui y ont vu le jour et donné corps à l’institution. Il replace enfin les Chambres des comptes dans le champ institutionnel en reconstituant les relations — faites de conflits mais aussi d’alliances, parfois surprenantes — qu’elles ont nouées avec d’autres corps comme les États provinciaux ou les Parlements. Supprimées en 1791, les Chambres sont réapparues à l’époque contemporaine : obéissant à d’autres principes, elles n’ont qu’un lointain rapport avec leurs devancières comme le révèle la table ronde qui a réuni à l’issue du colloque plusieurs de leurs magistrats et dont les principaux éléments sont rapportés en fin de volume.

In East and West Germany, coffee took on great symbolic value as an indicator of prosperity, both for the individual and society. In her comparative and richly illustrated presentation, Monika Sigmund reveals the status and emotional valence that were associated with drinking a cup of coffee. In both Germanys, coffee consumption was far more than just a private act.