Open Access Books

biografiA gives on the basis of selected 6.367 biographies an overview over many centuries of austrian female history and various insights into the cultural and social contexts of the concerned eras both for experts and the interested public.

Pädagogische Beziehungen gelten als eine wesentliche Bedingung für Bildungs- und Entwicklungsprozesse in pädagogischen Institutionen. Sie können als spannungsreiche Beziehungskonstellationen, die um Unterrichts- und Sachbezüge zentriert sind, verstanden werden, als Adressierungsgeschehen mit hoher, auch emotionaler Bedeutsamkeit und damit als zentrale Bedingung für Wohlbefinden und Lernprozesse. Pädagogische Beziehungen können jedoch ebenso von Grenzverletzungen, mangelnder Wertschätzung und gewaltförmigen Handlungen geprägt sein. Das Buch bündelt aktuelle Forschungs- und Diskussionsbeiträge, die auf der Jahrestagung der Kommission für Professionsforschung und Lehrer:innenbildung zum Thema „Pädagogische Beziehungen“ im September 2026 an der Universität Kassel präsentiert wurden. Studien zur Professionsforschung und Lehrer:innenbildungHerausgegeben von Manuela Keller-Schneider, Katharina Kunze, Tobias Leonhard und Christian Reintjes.

Covenant: A Vital Element of Reformed Theology provides a multi-disciplinary reflection on the theme of the covenant, from historical, biblical-theological and systematic-theological perspectives. The interaction between exegesis and dogmatics in the volume reveals the potential and relevance of this biblical motif. It proves to be vital in building bridges between God’s revelation in the past and the actual question of how to live with him today.

"Most of the papers in this volume originated as presentations at the conference Biblical Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew: New Perspectives in Philology and Linguistics, which was held at the University of Cambridge, 8–10th July, 2019. The aim of the conference was to build bridges between various strands of research in the field of Hebrew language studies that rarely meet, namely philologists working on Biblical Hebrew, philologists working on Rabbinic Hebrew and theoretical linguists. This volume is the published outcome of this initiative. It contains peer-reviewed papers in the fields of Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew that advance the field by the philological investigation of primary sources and the application of cutting-edge linguistic theory. These include contributions by established scholars and by students and early career researchers. "

The issue of asylum has polarised Swiss public opinion for the last four decades. Since its entry into force in 1981, the Asylum Law has been revised on numerous occasions, following a general trend toward more restrictiveness. Among the many discourses that have accompanied the politicisation of asylum, the rhetoric of the "fight against abuse" has emerged as a dominant framework of public debate, gathering a broad consensus. With few exceptions, existing scholarship on the Swiss context has remained silent on the issue. This collective and multidisciplinary book fills this gap in the literature by exploring the various forms and expressions of the discourse of abuse, as well as its impact on the production and implementation of asylum law.

The here collected contributions relating to the 46th International Conference of the Representation Disciplines Teachers, organized jointly by Sapienza University of Rome, Roma Tre University, and San Raffaele Roma University, aim to offer the scientific community a reflection on the theoretical and methodological aspects related to the concept of èkphrasis, a term that, in the field of representation, concerns descriptive, analogical, and digital activities that generate new knowledge in several areas of application. The Conference aims to place at the center of the discussion an interpretation of the concept of research that, without neglecting an idea of study, protection, and enhancement of environmental and cultural heritage, focuses on the needs of contemporary society and its possible developments, making use of innovative theoretical, methodological, and operational activities, including those characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. According to this interpretation, research can also be seen as a foreshadowing of the definition and testing of experimental proposals aimed at exploring new areas of investigation: this opens up imaginative and utopian perspectives in the relationship between the sciences, the arts, and the disciplines that contribute to common goals, through the experimentation of methods, techniques, and languages for conceiving, prefiguring, designing, and representing.

The earliest environmental criticism took its inspiration from the Romantic poets and their immersion in the natural world. Today the “romanticising” of nature has come to be viewed with suspicion. Written by one of the leading ecocritics writing today, Reclaiming Romanticism rediscovers the importance of the European Romantic tradition to the ways that writers and critics engage with the environment in the Anthropocene era. Exploring the work of such poets as Wordsworth, Shelley and Clare, the book discovers a rich vein of Romantic ecomaterialism and brings these canonical poets into dialogue with contemporary American, Canadian and Australian poets and artists. Kate Rigby demonstrates the ways in which Romantic ecopoetics responds to postcolonial challenges and environmental peril to offer a collaborative artistic practice for an era of human-non-human cohabitation and kinship.

Modern medicine enables us to keep many people alive after they have suffered severe brain damage and show no reliable outward signs of consciousness. Many such patients are misdiagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state when they are actually in a minimally conscious state. This mistake has far-reaching implications for treatment and prognosis. To alleviate this problem, neuroscientists have recently developed new brain-scanning methods for detecting consciousness in some of these patients and even for asking them questions, including “Do you want to stay alive?” These new technological abilities raise many questions about what exactly these methods reveal (Is it really consciousness?), how reliable they are (Do they fail to detect consciousness in some patients who are conscious?), what these patients’ lives are like (Do they feel pain?), what we should do for and to these patients (Should we let them die?), who should decide (Are these patients competent to decide for themselves?), and which policies should governments and hospitals enact (Which kinds of treatment should be made available?). All of these questions and more are addressed in this collection of original papers. The prominent contributors provide background information, survey the issues and positions, and take controversial stands from a wide variety of perspectives, including neuroscience and neurology, law and policy, and philosophy and ethics. This collection should interest not only academics but anyone who might suffer brain damage, which includes us all.

This edited volume examines the performance of physicians, psychiatrists and other scientists as expert witnesses in modern European courts of law and police investigations. Its chapters discuss cases from criminal, civil and international law to parse the impact of forensic evidence and expertise in different European countries (Scotland, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Portugal, Norway and the Netherlands) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They show how modern forensic science and technology was inextricably entangled with political ideology, gender norms, changes in the law and legal systems. New scientific ideas and technology, such as blood tests and DNA, helped develop forensic science, but did not necessarily lead to a straightforward acceptance of expertise in the courtroom. Discussing fascinating case studies, the chapters in this book highlight how the ideology of authoritarian and liberal regimes affected the practical enactment of forensic expertise. They also emphasise the influence of images of masculinity and femininity on the performance of experts and their assessment of evidence, victims and perpetrators, for example in cases of rape, infanticide and crimes of passion. This book is an important contribution to our knowledge of modern European forensic practices, which, as several chapters underline, sometimes surprisingly diverge from institutional regulations.

Controlled Colours. Colours, Professional Dyers and Natural Dyes in Europe, 1300–1850 is a multidisciplinary volume whose twelve chapters examine the use and meanings of colours, along with the production, trade and regulation of natural dyes and dyers, from the fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. This collection offers the first extensive Finnish-language study of the history of natural dyes in the contexts of textiles, everyday life, and commercial exchange. It highlights the changing regulation of colours and natural dyes, colour terminology, knowledge transmission, and material technologies across the centuries, and demonstrates how colours and dyes have been deeply embedded in social, economic, and cultural processes. The volume is structured into four thematic sections that follow the chronological progression of its chapters. The three main colours of yellow, blue and red have been given their own chapters, through which the history and use of other colours are also present. In addition to social, cultural, and economic history, the volume offers perspectives from the history of philosophy and ideas, philology, art history, and the history of science. This multidisciplinary approach provides a more comprehensive picture of our research topic and highlights the social change brought about by the better knowledge, use, and wider availability of natural dyes.

This book discusses the phonological history of Mataguayan, a language family that includes no less than four distinct languages – Maká, Nivaĉle, Chorote, and Wichí – spoken by ca. 65.000 individuals in the Southern Chaco region in Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. The book starts by offering a phonological reconstruction of Proto-Mataguayan, with separate chapters dedicated to its consonants, vowels, word-level prosody, and morphophonological alternations. This is followed by an outline of the phonological evolution of each Mataguayan language all the way from Proto-Mataguayan to contemporary lects, with a special attention to the dialectal diversity of Nivaĉle, Chorote, and Wichí. The study concludes with an etymological dictionary of Mataguayan, where known cognate sets are accompanied by comments on phonetic irregularities, semantic shifts, possible cognates in the neighbouring Guaicuruan family, and references to earlier studies.

The value of global cashless payments has been radically increasing worldwide. Despite cash being the most used payment instrument in the world, technological innovation and new consumer preferences are decisively transforming the way consumers pay and manage money. The COVID-19 pandemic may also have been an accelerator of the cashless mega-trend. Private players currently dominate the digital payment ecosystem, urging central banks to seek solutions to ensure public access to legal tender if cash is phased out. In this context, the idea of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is gaining momentum. Nevertheless, there is a need to better understand the implications in terms of risks, benefits and potential costs of CBDCs. From privacy concerns to macroeconomic effects, these implications blur the boundaries of the payment and financial systems, challenging the core functions of our economy and society.

This book argues that, beyond the apparent fracture between humans and nature that defines the Anthropocene crisis, there exists a shared cultural foundation in legal traditions, converging on the recognition of the intrinsic value of Nature and of the ecosystem interconnections between human and non-human life. The legal innovations explored here—particularly from Latin America—embody a holistic, integrated view coherent with the ecosystem approach. It is proposed that these ideas offer potential not only within their own legal systems but also as models for Western legal frameworks. Divided into five parts, the book maintains a balance between theoretical and empirical, combining foundational legal and philosophical discussions with practical case studies and applications. Part 1 establishes the theoretical foundation, setting the conceptual framework of the volume. Part 2 builds on this by addressing the methodological implications and laying the groundwork for a transition from anthropocentric to ecocentric governance. Parts 3 and 4 bridge theory with practice, exploring participatory tools, bottom-up initiatives, and challenges to traditional environmental law, illustrating how theoretical advancements are applied in specific legal and policy contexts. Part 5 focuses on jurisprudence and the role of the judiciary, providing an empirical analysis of how legal principles are interpreted and enforced in judicial settings. This progression ensures that the book effectively integrates theory with empirical research, underscoring its interdisciplinary and practical significance. The volume will be of interest to those working in the areas of Legal Philosophy, Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, Comparative Law, Human Rights, Anthropology and Environmental Studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial-Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA)] 4.0 license.

Das Subjekt ist in der Gegenwart geradezu omnipräsent. Ideengeschichtlich hat es zahlreiche Transformationen durchlaufen und ist immer wieder kontrovers diskutiert worden. Trotz der These vom «Verschwinden des Subjekts» begegnet es derzeit nicht nur in neuartigen Ausformungen, sondern auch als Referenzbegriff in unterschiedlichen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen. Der vorliegende Band widmet sich der Frage, in welchen Formationen und Diskursen das Subjekt in der Gegenwart Präsenz gewinnt. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf Konfigurationen des Subjekts in theoretischen Konzepten, poetologischen Reflexionen und lyrischen Gestaltungen. Die untersuchten Texte entstammen der russischen, ukrainischen, deutschen, chinesischen, japanischen, brasilianischen, chilenischen und arabischen Gegenwartslyrik.

This book presents a detailed assessment of the role of navies in the Korean War. It highlights that, despite being predominantly a land war, navies played a vital part. Moreover, the naval war was not solely a U.S. operation. Smaller navies from many countries made important contributions both in supporting the United States and carrying out independent and combined naval operations. This subject holds special importance since current Western strategic thinking and capabilities emphasise the necessity of combined naval operations involving multiple navies in any potential future naval conflict. The example set by the Korean War therefore offers valuable insights into the operational and strategic problems, and benefits and opportunities of contemporary and future combined coalition naval operations. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.