Open Access Books

Der afrikanische Kontinent hat nicht nur mit gewaltsam ausgetragenen Konflikten, Hungersnöten und Armut zu kämpfen, sondern auch mit den Folgen des Klimawandels. Zugleich ist Afrika aber auch ein Kontinent der Chancen und der Zukunft. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes fragen daher: Was können und sollten wir tun, damit sich auf unserem Nachbarkontinent ein nachhaltiger und gerechter Friede etablieren kann? Im Zentrum dieser Überlegungen stehen dabei die UN-Nachhaltigkeitsziele (Sustainable Development Goals), denen eine Kompassfunktion zugeschrieben werden kann, die aber auch selbst diskussionswürdig sind.

This study investigates the perceptions of teachers of change in schooling. It is contextualized in the After-Genocide Rwanda; a period marked by a plethora of social and economic transformations as well as sporadic educational changes. Similarly, the world is experiencing manifold changes which reshape social relations, individual and societal needs, the structure of the labour market and the understanding of life. The school system has been overhauled in its dimensions; however, this dynamicity did not get a similar echo from the scientific community. The study at hand stands out by its intention to give voice to teachers and bring to the fore their digestion of both changes in schooling and the current changing environment. A sample of 30 teachers was given room to share their perceptions of change through semi-structured interviews. The main finding of this research is the differentiated perception of the change by the teachers in three ideal types with associated different potentials to promote change: the instrumental understanding of the change as policy-oriented for a stable society, the vacillating understanding of the change as context adaptation-oriented for integration into the global world and the functional understanding of the change as human capital investment-oriented for a knowledge society. Again, this study reveals a differing perception of the changing world between optimism and pessimism. These findings have been discussed in line with theories of teachers’ agency in change, school improvement, and globalization.

During the year 2013 the Society of New Testament Studies (SNTS) decided to involve itself in the promotion of young scholars in the Asia-Pacific region for a broader international audience. In cooperation with local institutions conferences were organized with great success. The conference held in 2018 at the Chung Yuan Christian University in Taipei, Taiwan, is the first conference to have its contributions published. Young scholars from Asia-Pacific proudly present New Testament research of an Asian perspective in dialogue with more traditional approaches. - Im Jahr 2013 begann die Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS), junge Forscher im Asiatisch-Pazifischen Raum zu ermutigen, ihre Forschungen einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit vorzustellen. In Zusammenarbeit mit lokalen Institutionen wurden seitdem internationale Konferenzen mit großen Erfolg organisiert. Die Konferenz in 2018 an der Chung Yuan Christian University in Taipeh, Taiwan, ist die erste dieser Reihe, deren Diskussionen nun auch einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit in dieser Dokumentation zugänglich gemacht werden. Forscherinnen und Forscher stellen neutestamentliche Forschungen asiatischer Prägung im Dialog mit anderen Traditionen vor.

This books deals with the Italian opera business in nineteenth century-London. A special emphasis lies on the opera singers as the most important protagonists of the London system. This special role will be examined through the analysis of the opera audience in London, the contractual practice and the tradition of the adaptation of operas to the likes of the London market as well as the substitution of arias.

Evidence-based practice in psychology is the dominant regulatory principle in clinical psychology, defining psychological knowledge and its application. This book provides a critical analysis and a reconstruction of the policy statement focusing on epistemology and ethics. The book shows the ideological and historical background for the development of evidence-based practice in psychology. It covers the main conceptual and empirical arguments leading to this transition including philosophy and evidence-based medicine. The book goes on to show some of the defects of evidence-based practice in psychology: it misconstrues psychological knowledge; reduces the number of ethical resources available to regulate psychological practices; does not fulfil its ambitions of being a tripartite concept; and undertheorises the issue of integration. The closing chapters provide a constructive critique, preserving the valuable aspects of evidence-based practice in psychology while developing it to make it function adequately. In that sense, the book aims to change the way psychological knowledge is understood and used in practice. This text will be engaging and thought-provoking for anyone using psychological knowledge with patients or clients. It will provide analytic resources to understand psychology better and facilitate the application of psychological knowledge in various settings.

This book discusses contemporary film in all the main countries of Southeast Asia, and the social practices and ideologies which films either represent or oppose. It shows how film acquires signification through cultural interpretation, and how film also serves as a site of contestations between social and political agents seeking to promote, challenge, or erase certain meanings, messages or ideas from public circulation. A unique feature of the book is that it focuses as much on films as it does on the societies from which these films emerge: it considers the reasons for film-makers taking the positions they take; the positions and counter-positions taken; the response of different communities; and the extent to which these interventions are connected to global flows of culture and capital.

The building industry is one of the largest energy consumers and countries all over the world are striving to design buildings that satisfy the user’s expectations while containing their energy consumption. In this context, zero-energy buildings have emerged as a technological paradigm that can solve this global issue, but its implementation in different contexts has brought a profound debate about its technical, social, and environmental limitations. Thanks to contributions from a variety of scholars from different countries, this book explores different aspects of the zero-energy buildings and gives the reader a broad view of the feasibility of implementation in different contexts.

Based on fieldwork among state officials, NGOs, politicians, and activists in Costa Rica and Brazil, A Future History of Water traces the unspectacular work necessary to make water access a human right and a human right something different from a commodity. Andrea Ballestero shows how these ephemeral distinctions are made through four technolegal devices—formula, index, list and pact. She argues that what is at stake in these devices is not the making of a distinct future but what counts as the future in the first place. A Future History of Water is an ethnographically rich and conceptually charged journey into ant-filled water meters, fantastical water taxonomies, promises captured on slips of paper, and statistical maneuvers that dissolve the human of human rights. Ultimately, Ballestero demonstrates what happens when instead of trying to fix its meaning, we make water’s changing form the precondition of our analyses.

How to do cultural studies in the twenty-first century? This essay collection is not a handbook, encyclopedia, or a »state of the field« compendium. Instead, it is a reflexive exercise in cultural studies, featuring fifteen accessible essays on a selection of critical key works published since 2000. The contributors aim to provide readers with a fresh and engaging look at recent criticism, exploring the interdisciplinary traffic of theories, methods, and ideas within the field of cultural and literary studies. This book shows how the work of Lauren Berlant, Rita Felski, Fred Moten, Anna Tsing, and others can inspire new thinking and theorizing for the twenty-first century.

In der Reihe Slavistische Beiträge werden vor allem slavistische Dissertationen des deutschsprachigen Raums sowie vereinzelt auch amerikanische, englische und russische publiziert. Darüber hinaus stellt die Reihe ein Forum für Sammelbände und Monographien etablierter Wissenschafter/innen dar.

The series Comparative Theology, Islam and Society (CTIS) presents innovative perspectives on Islamic theology. It offers genuinely Islamic theological approaches to comparative theology and to the cultural and legal disciplines. CTIS does not just view itself as a forum for discussions of Islamic theology but also aims to build a bridge to other theological traditions, as well as to the cultural and legal disciplines. This allows the series to make an important contribution to the ongoing development of Islamic theology and comparative theology as a whole. Advisory Board: Kecia Ali (Boston) Elisa Klapheck (Paderborn) Britta Konz (Mainz) Frederek Musall (Würzburg) Martin Nguyen (Fairfield) Joshua Ralston (Edinburgh) Jerusha Tanner Rhodes (New York) Klaus von Stosch (Bonn) Pim Valkenberg (Washington) David Vishanoff (Oklahoma)

Max Weber argued that a religious group or individual is influenced by all kinds of things but if they claim to be acting in the name of religion, we should attempt to understand their perspective on religious grounds first. He gives religion credit for shaping a person's image of the world, and this image of the world can affect their view of their interests, and ultimately how they decide to take action. For Weber, religion is best understood as it responds to the human need for theodicy and soteriology. He believes that human beings are troubled with the question of theodicy. How can the extraordinary power of a divine god be reconciled with the imperfection of the world that he has created and rules over? People need to know, for example, why there is undeserved good fortune and suffering in the world. Religion offers people soteriological answers, or answers that provide opportunities for salvation - relief from suffering, and reassuring meaning. This volume is a collection of ten articles by Christopher Adair-Toteff that examine the fundamental aspects of Max Weber's sociology of religion. They were published between 2002 and 2015 in various renowned journals and deal with different topics such as charisma, asceticism, mysticism, theodicy, prophets, and "Kulturprotestantismus." In his work, the author attempts to understand, clarify, and interpret key concepts and themes in Weber's sociology of religion.

Themenheft 32: Offenheit in Lehre und Forschung – Königsweg oder Sackgasse?. Herausgegeben von Franziska Bellinger und Anna Heudorfer

What is the role of the humanities at the start of 21st century? In the last few decades, the various disciplines of the humanities (history, linguistics, literary studies, art history, media studies) have encountered a broad range of challenges, related to the future of print culture, to shifts in funding strategies, and to the changing contours of culture and society. Several publications have addressed these challenges as well as potential responses on a theoretical level. This coedited volume opts for a different strategy and presents accessible case studies that demonstrate what humanities scholars contribute to concrete and pressing social debates about topics including adoption, dementia, hacking, and conservation. These “engaged” forms of humanities research reveal the continued importance of thinking and rethinking the nature of art, culture, and public life.

In our democratic society, how is the right to access information and participate in the preparation of decisions on major projects exercised? How does the exercise of these rights fit into the decision-making process? The answers provided to these questions in the conduct of three sensitive projects, the subject of lively social debate, are described here: the mediation set up in 2017 by the government on the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project, the 2019 public debate on the radioactive materials and waste management plan, and the 2023 public debate on the launch of two new EPR2 nuclear reactors at Penly. Michel Badré was involved in the debates on all three projects, in a position of independence from the decision-makers and stakeholders in favor of or opposed to the projects under discussion. What he offers here is personal feedback rather than theoretical reflection. His analysis shows that a shared understanding of the technical and social issues at stake, in all their complexity, makes these debates effective. It takes time, but it's the key to finding solutions that are accepted by society, and that meet the environmental challenges of our time.