Open Access Books

This book addresses the reception of Islamic visual culture by the northern Iberian kingdoms, by systematically comparing works of art from both sides and fleshing out their historical context. This study includes figurative and iconographic motifs, architectural forms, and even the spolia from constructions and Arabic inscriptions that were embedded in Christian buildings. The Islamic visual culture of al-Andalus was often transformed as it was recreated by Christian hands, bringing to the fore various nuances in the relationship between the two religious communities. Artistic transfer was conditioned by social coexistence between Christians and Muslims—both in the caliphate al-Andalus and in the northern realms—and military conflict. To approach the different ways in which Andalusi visual culture was received in the northern kingdoms, while embracing the vast diversity of case studies available, this book is divided into three thematic sections: Reinterpretation, Appropriation, and Artistic Transfers. This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, and medieval studies.

The cry for decolonization has echoed throughout the museum world. Although perhaps most audibly heard in the case of ethnographic museums, many different types of museums have felt the need to engage in decolonial practices. Amidst those who have argued that an institution as deeply colonial as the museum cannot truly be decolonized, museum staff and museologists have been approaching the issue from different angles to practice decoloniality in any way they can. This book collects a wide range of practices from museums whose audiences, often highly diverse, come together in sometimes contentious conversations about pasts and futures. Although there are no easy or uniform answers as to how best to deal with colonial pasts, this collection of practices functions as an accessible toolkit from which museum staff can choose in order to experiment with and implement methods according to their own needs and situations. The practices are divided thematically and include, among others, methods for decentering, improving transparency, and increasing inclusivity.

By drawing on multiple examples from healthcare, religion, service encounters and poetry, Lionel Wee presents rich insights into the use of automation in communication through a posthumanist lens. As communication becomes increasingly automated, the use of automation creates significant conceptual challenges for ideologies about language, beliefs about the nature of language, as well as assumptions about the roles that interpretation, anthropomorphism, and folk theories of mind play when language is used in communication. This book unravels the ideological implications of automation in communication and provides a new theoretical ground to address the major issues raised by automation. Wee discusses the importance of thinking carefully about how we identify and distinguish the roles of speaker and hearer. He also argues that we re-evaluate our understanding of the relationship between language and community. This book will be vital to students interested in studying the intersections of AI, language and communication, as well as researchers working in communication studies, linguistics and the broader sociology of language in the age of technological change.

Wie beeinflussen Religionen die soziale Stellung von Personen? Ramona Jelinek-Menke führt das Konzept der »Dis/ability« aus den Disability Studies erstmals in die deutschsprachige Religionswissenschaft ein und macht es für Analysen der Interdependenz zwischen Religion und Inklusion nutzbar. Gleichzeitig zeigt sie, wie unter dem Eindruck von Marginalisierung religiöse Vorstellungen, Praktiken und Institutionen gestaltet werden. Damit erschließt sich nicht nur ein neues Forschungsfeld für die Religionswissenschaft, sondern es wird auch die Aufmerksamkeit auf eine sozialwissenschaftlich und gesellschaftlich unterrepräsentierte Gruppe gelenkt.

The late Chinese scholar Ji Xianlin has influenced the image of Germany for generations of Chinese relevant until today. About his time in Göttingen from 1935 1945 he wrote in the 80's a book in which he draws, in spite of negative experiences during the Nazi dictatorship, a differentiated picture of Germany and the Gottingen science. This led to a sharp increase in the number of Chinese students in Göttingen up to 400 in 2008.

This book examines the concept of quality from a social perspective. Using the example of public spaces, it demonstrates the analytical and practical benefits that can be gained from an experience-based approach to defining quality. Sociology and related social sciences have rarely explored the quality of spaces, despite qualities being social products. This has led to a clear research gap in understanding spatial quality within social theory. Addressing this gap, this book examines public space quality through a cultural-spatial lens, accounting for the complexity of polycontexturalization, which implies the increasing entanglement of social actions in multiple contexts and spatialities, as well as the materiality of spatial arrangements. Moreover, it introduces the sociologically useful distinction between Erfahrung (reflective experience) and Erlebnis (lived experience) into the analysis of spatial quality. The book’s concept is based on the idea that social experience comprises multiple logics. It is shown that the quality of public space is driven by three distinct logics: The logic of expression, evident in individuals’ drive for social integration; the logic of strategy, viewing public space as a competitive arena; and finally, the logic of subjectivation, which examines how spaces shape subjectivities and are subject to refiguration. The book targets both researchers and students in sociology, anthropology, political science, architecture, and urban planning. It also serves as a practical toolbox for professionals in architecture and planning focused on creating more socially acceptable public spaces.

Die Monografie untersucht, wie Menschen mit Beeinträchtigungen ihre Teilnahme an erwerbsbezogener Bildung und Erwerbstätigkeit gestalten. Ausgangspunkt sind aktuelle gesellschaftliche Transformationsprozesse wie Digitalisierung, Flexibilisierung und Bildungsexpansion, die neue Anforderungen an lebenslanges Lernen und insbesondere an erwerbsbezogene Bildung stellen. Trotz internationaler Inklusionsbemühungen sind strukturell benachteiligte Gruppen in der Bildungs- und Arbeitswelt nach wie vor unterrepräsentiert. Im Zentrum steht eine qualitative Analyse von 13 Interviews mit in der Schweiz erwerbstätigen Personen mit selbstdeklarierten Beeinträchtigungen. Die Auswertung nach der Grounded Theory identifizierte zentrale Kategorien, die die Teilnahme prägen: Unterstützungsstrukturen und Schlüsselpersonen für Zugänge sowie Entscheidungs- und Bewältigungsstrategien für Übergänge. Die Kernkategorie "Kenntnis der Spielregeln" beschreibt, dass Menschen mit Behinderungen dann gezielt Zugänge schaffen und Übergänge erfolgreich gestalten können, wenn sie die relevanten Strukturen und Prozesse kennen. Die Diskussion verortet die Spielregeln als Teil der erwerbsbiografischen Gestaltungskompetenz und der Erwerbsorientierung als Subjektivierung. Zugleich wird deutlich, dass der Erwerb dieser Kompetenzen paradoxerweise sowohl Voraussetzung als auch Ergebnis von Teilnahme ist. Die Monografie unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit inklusiver Strukturen und zeigt bestehende Barrieren auf. Sie bietet theoretische und empirische Impulse für Bildungs- und Arbeitsmarktpolitik, für Forschung zu Teilnahme und Inklusion sowie für die Praxis der erwerbsbezogenen Bildung und Beratung. Die Monografie wurde mit Unterstützung des Schweizerischen Nationalfonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung publiziert.

Commitment is connected to central linguistic features, such as modality and evidentiality. It has thus been investigated in many branches of the field. Building upon this heterogeneous literature, this book offers a cognitive pragmatic account of the processes involved in utterance interpretation, crucially when the hearer assesses the level of commitment linked to it. This research illustrates that the relevance-theoretic notion of strength can be used to capture the cognitive effects of commitment markers (as I think that X, I am sure that X, etc.). The author’s model is based on a novel typology as well as predictions which were experimentally tested. The results show that commitment to an utterance is indeed cognitively determined by the strength of the hearer’s corresponding assumptions.

This book about Parkinson's disease provides a detailed account of etiology and pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease, a complicated neurological condition. Environmental and genetic factors involved in the causation of Parkinson's disease have been discussed in detail. This book can be used by basic scientists as well as researchers. Neuroscience fellows and life science readers can also obtain sufficient information. Beside genetic factors, other pathophysiological aspects of Parkinson's disease have been discussed in detail. Up to date information about the changes in various neurotransmitters, inflammatory responses, oxidative pathways and biomarkers has been described at length. Each section has been written by one or more faculty members of well known academic institutions. Thus, this book brings forth both clinical and basic science aspects of Parkinson's disease.

Respiratory medicine

This collection of essays covers a hundred-year history of Russian-language literature in Israel, including the pre-state period. Some of the studies are devoted to an overview of the literary process and the activities of its participants, others—to individual genres and movements. As a result, a complex and multifaceted picture emerges of a not quite fully defined, but very lively and dynamic community that develops in the most difficult conditions. The contributors trace the paths of Russian-Israeli prose, poetry and drama, various waves of avant-garde, fantasy, and critical thought. Today, in Russian-Israeli literature, the voices of writers of various generations and waves of repatriation are intertwined: from the "seventies" to the "war aliyah" of the recent times. Both the Russian-Israeli authors and their critics often hold different opinions of their respective roles in Israel’s historical and literary storms. While disagreeing on the definition of their place on the map of modern culture, Russian-Israeli writers are united by a shared bond with the fate of the Jewish state.

Bank Regulation, Risk Management, and Compliance is a concise yet comprehensive treatment of the primary areas of US banking regulation – micro-prudential, macroprudential, financial consumer protection, and AML/CFT regulation – and their associated risk management and compliance systems. The book’s focus is the US, but its prolific use of standards published by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and frequent comparisons with UK and EU versions of US regulation offer a broad perspective on global bank regulation and expectations for internal governance. The book establishes a conceptual framework that helps readers to understand bank regulators’ expectations for the risk management and compliance functions. Informed by the author’s experience at a major credit rating agency in helping to design and implement a ratings compliance system, it explains how the banking business model, through credit extension and credit intermediation, creates the principal risks that regulation is designed to mitigate: credit, interest rate, market, and operational risk, and, more broadly, systemic risk. The book covers, in a single volume, the four areas of bank regulation and supervision and the associated regulatory expectations and firms’ governance systems. Readers desiring to study the subject in a unified manner have needed to separately consult specialized treatments of their areas of interest, resulting in a fragmented grasp of the subject matter. Banking regulation has a cohesive unity due in large part to national authorities’ agreement to follow global standards and to the homogenizing effects of the integrated global financial markets. The book is designed for legal, risk, and compliance banking professionals; students in law, business, and other finance-related graduate programs; and finance professionals generally who want a reference book on bank regulation, risk management, and compliance. It can serve both as a primer for entry-level finance professionals and as a reference guide for seasoned risk and compliance officials, senior management, and regulators and other policymakers. Although the book’s focus is bank regulation, its coverage of corporate governance, risk management, compliance, and management of conflicts of interest in financial institutions has broad application in other financial services sectors.

The enduring appeal of liberalism lies in its commitment to the idea that human beings have a "natural" potential to live as free and equal individuals. The realization of this potential, however, is not a matter of nature, but requires that people be molded by a complex constellation of political and educational institutions. In this eloquent and provocative book, Uday Singh Mehta investigates in the major writings of John Locke the implications of this tension between individuals and the institutions that mold them. The process of molding, he demonstrates, involves an external conformity and an internal self-restraint that severely limit the scope of individuality.Mehta explores the centrality of the human imagination in Locke’s thought, focusing on his obsession with the potential dangers of the cognitive realm. Underlying Locke’s fears regarding the excesses of the imagination is a political anxiety concerning how to limit their potential effects. In light of Locke’s views on education, Mehta concludes that the promise of liberation at the heart of liberalism is vitiated by its constraints on cognitive and political freedom.

The notion of "self" and "other" and its representation in artwork and literature is an important theme in current cultural sciences as well as in our everyday life in contemporary Western societies. Moreover, the concept of "self" and "other" and its imaginary dichotomy is gaining more and more political impact in a world of resurfacing ideology-ridden conflicts. The essays deal with Jewish reality in contemporary Germany and its reflection in movies from the special point of view of cultural sciences, political sciences, and religious studies. This anthology presents challengingly new insights into topics rarely covered, such as youth culture or humor, and finally discusses the images of Jewish life as realities still to be constructed.

Through a careful survey of several significant Platonic texts, mainly focussing on the nature of knowledge, Essays on Plato’s Epistemology offers the reader a fresh and promising approach to Plato’s philosophy as a whole. From the very earliest reception of Plato’s philosophy, there has been a conflict between a dogmatic and a sceptical interpretation of his work and thought. Moreover, the two sides are often associated, respectively, with a metaphysical and an anti-metaphysical approach. This book, continuing a line of thought that is nowadays strongly present in the secondary literature, maintains that a third way of thinking is required. Against the widespread view that an anti-dogmatic philosophy must go together with an anti-metaphysical stance, Trabattoni shows that for Plato, on the contrary, a sober and reasonable assessment of both the powers and limits of human reason relies on a proper metaphysical outlook.