Open Access Books

This volume takes the Kant anniversary year 2024 as an opportunity to give space to the many-voiced echoes of Kant's philosophy by renowned authors of the 20th century (Theodor W. Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, Max Horkheimer, Edmund Husserl, Avishai Margalit, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann A. Pistorius, Karl Popper, John Rawls, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Tillich and Eric Weil), centred around the core concepts of freedom, reason and sensuality. Kant's thinking is still a reference point for numerous systematic questions in philosophy, whether one sees oneself largely in agreement or rather at a distance. While reason and sensuality are fundamental to all of Kant's work, freedom is a principle that is of paramount importance to his concept of humanity.

Cameroon - formerly a German colony situated at the Gulf of Guinea - is a geostrategically relevant Central African country rich in natural resources. Cameroonian law is a fascination stemming from different sources of law. The influences of British and French law, combined with the customary law of the numerous ethnic groups, are a reflection of the existing legal pluralism - also in the area of environmental protection. The publication adapts itself to today's language policy of Cameroon, which is predetermined by its Constitution, including both English and French chapters. Cameroonian environmental law and national environmental policy are examined in the interplay of international environmental norms and standards. It also addresses the environmental law of the African Union and that of the regional economic communities in Central Africa. In detail, topics such as environmental management, water and land law, conservation of biodiversity, resource protection law, mining and energy law, criminal aspects of environmental law, climate change law, environmental justice and human rights, as well as the legal framework conditions of international trade and sustainable development are presented. In doing so, the publication reflects legal and political options for regulating environmental interests in the African context, which are also relevant for international development cooperation and economic exchange. In addition, the work provides a solid basis for comparative environmental law.

Książka jest adresowana do badaczy społecznych zainteresowanych z jednej strony metodą autobiograficznego wywiadu narracyjnego, a z drugiej – problematyką migracji i cierpienia, osadzonych w różnych kontekstach społeczno-kulturowych sposobów łączenia dwóch lub więcej kultur w doświadczaniu biograficznym. Jej odbiorcami mogą stać się także praktycy w obszarze budowania kontaktu kulturowego oraz autorzy polityk społecznych związanych z procesami migracji i integracji społecznej.

“Banal warfare” describes the ways in which the vision of the city perpetually ridden with conflicts, terrorist attacks, and disease infuses everyday urban life to the point of becoming invisible or taken for granted. The book is situated within decolonial urbanism as, to understand the urban geopolitical struggles in western Europe, it employs the conceptual framework developed in relation to cities conventionally considered war cities in the global east and south. In “reversing the gaze” on urban warfare, the focus is on the impact of framing different public emergencies and incidents of violence in Paris and Brussels as acts of war and how this contributes to the normalization of militarism within urban contexts traditionally viewed as “non-war zones.” From lockdowns to states of emergency, the book addresses how this process shapes urban governance agendas, constructs the notion of the “enemy within,” and conditions the everyday affective atmospheres of urban dwellers in Paris and Brussels. These citizens are not presented as passive victims of military urbanism, but as active subjects in the doing and undoing of notions of cities at war. The book highlights the politics of affective atmospheres in an effort to “make feminist sense” of urban warfare, drawing attention to the processes that sustain social inequalities and deepen urban geographies of exclusion while, at the same time, rethinking notions of urban peace.

Sexual criminal law is currently undergoing a profound transformation. This volume explores different dimensions of this development. It focuses on questions of sexual consent, the conditions of autonomous decision-making, the criminal law treatment of speech relating to sexual offences and the non-physical dimension of sexual self-determination. The contributions combine criminological, doctrinal, legal-policy, and feminist-critical perspectives and engage with national, EU and international criminal law contexts.

Genetic and cellular technologies in life science have recently achieved remarkable progress, and thus the roles of biochemical engineers have also been changed to incorporate the use of new technology. Therefore, this book deals with current topics in biochemical engineering. The chapters of this book discuss research that has introduced artificial enzymes, kinetic models in bioprocessing, a small-scale production process, and production of energy with microbial fuel. These chapters offer novel ideas for the production of effective compounds and energy. Moreover, other research has introduced the production technology of stem cells and biomedical processes using nanoshells and extracellular vesicles. These chapters will provide novel ideas to produce effective compounds and develop therapies for various diseases.

Kučar near Podzemelj represents one of the most significant archaeological sites not only in Slovenia but also in the wider southeastern alpine region. It is an extensive complex composed of an Iron Age and Late Roman settlement upon the hill Kučar, as well as numerous necropoli that are distributed throughout the villages of Podzemelj, Zemelj, Škrilje and Grm. The site is well-known all over the world for its elaborate material finds originating from the cemeteries there. The book presents the results from rescue excavations that were carried out between the years 1975 and 1979 on the northern top of Kučar by the Institute for Archaeology. Substantial remains of a settlement dating to the Early and Late Iron Ages (8th –1st centuries BC) were excavated, as well as the even more surprising discovery of an Early Christian building complex (5th century AD) incorporating two churches, a baptistery and a large building with an enclosing wall that was reinforced with two towers. This publication concerning the settlement on Kučar near Podzemelj is the third monograph regarding this site. The first two publications presented the material finds from the Iron Age necropolis, preserved at the National Museum in Ljubljana and at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. This third publication includes a contribution by Metka Culiberg and Alojz Šercelj on the investigations of organic remains from Kučar.

Für die Umsetzung von gesellschaftlich notwendigen Transformationsprozessen wird Bildung eine Schlüsselrolle zugeschrieben. Mit den Konzepten Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) und Globales Lernen wird der Anspruch verknüpft, zu globaler und sozial-ökologischer Gerechtigkeit beizutragen. Dass sich die Praxis dabei auf grundlegend unterschiedliche – und umkämpfte – Transformationsverständnisse bezieht, arbeitet diese qualitative Interviewstudie heraus. Transformation wird als Bildungsprojekt und Bildung als Feld und Strategie von Transformation thematisiert und analysiert. Deutlich wird, dass Globales Lernen/BNE immer als verwoben mit bestehenden Macht- und Herrschaftsstrukturen verstanden werden muss, wenn sie einen Beitrag zu einer kritisch-emanzipatorischen Subjektbildung leisten will.

This volume traces the life, thought and work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a giant of American intellectual history whose transformative ideas greatly strengthened the two leading reform issues of his day: abolition and women's rights. A broad and deep, yet cautious revolutionary, he spoke about a spectrum of inner and outer realities-personal, philosophical, theological and cultural-all of which gave his mid-career turn to political and social issues their immediate and lasting power. This multi-authored study frankly explores Emerson's private prejudices against blacks and women alongside his public championing of their causes. Such a juxtaposition freshly charts the evolution of Emerson's slow but steady application of his early neo-idealism to emancipating blacks and freeing women from social bondage. His shift from philosopher to active reformer had lasting effects not only in America but also abroad. In the U.S. Emerson influenced such diverse figures as Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson and William James; in Europe he shaped Mickiewicz, Wilde, Kipling, Nietzsche, and Camus; moreover, he had many leading followers in India and Japan. The book includes over 160 illustrations, among them eight custom-made maps of Emerson's haunts and wide-ranging lecture itineraries, as well as a new four-part chronology of his life placed alongside both national and international events as well as major inventions. Mr. Emerson’s Revolution provides essenti al reading for students and teachers of American intellectual history, aboliti on and the women’s rights movement―and for anyone interested in the nineteenth-century roots of these seismic social changes.

The issue of cultural diversity is examined from the point of view of the diversity of the market for films shown in cinemas and films released as video recordings in the 2000s, based on a new sample of 5,600 films shown in cinemas, and 6,500 video film recordings. For both markets, the method used consisted of measuring diversity based on the criteria of variety, balance and range. The issues of increased supply (films), distribution (copies) and demand (number of tickets or video recordings sold) are covered for 6 European countries, namely: France, Denmark, Spain, Poland, the UK and Sweden. The video film market is covered for France only. The method used tends to indicate that France has the most diverse cinema film market, whilst its video film market is considerably less diverse. It confirms differences in diversity according to marketing channels whilst new research shows a higher level of diversity within the internet video film market.

For more than half a century, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) possessed an independent police force that operated within the space of Japan's informal empire on the Asian continent. Charged with "protecting and controlling" local Japanese communities first in Korea and later in China, these consular police played a critical role in facilitating Japanese imperial expansion during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Remarkably, however, this police force remains largely unknown. Crossing Empire's Edge is the first book in English to reveal its complex history. Based on extensive analysis of both archival and recently published Japanese sources, Erik Esselstrom describes how the Gaimusho police became deeply involved in the surveillance and suppression of the Korean independence movement in exile throughout Chinese treaty ports and the Manchurian frontier during the 1920s and 1930s. It had in fact evolved over the years from a relatively benign public security organization into a full-fledged political intelligence apparatus devoted to apprehending purveyors of "dangerous thought" throughout the empire. Furthermore, the history of consular police operations indicates that ideological crime was a borderless security problem; Gaimusho police worked closely with colonial and metropolitan Japanese police forces to target Chinese, Korean, and Japanese suspects alike from Shanghai to Seoul to Tokyo. Esselstrom thus offers a nuanced interpretation of Japanese expansionism by highlighting the transnational links between consular, colonial, and metropolitan policing of subversive political movements during the prewar and wartime eras. In addition, by illuminating the fervor with which consular police often pressed for unilateral solutions to Japan's political security crises on the continent, he challenges orthodox understandings of the relationship between civil and military institutions within the imperial Japanese state. While historians often still depict the Gaimusho as an inhibitor of unilateral military expansionism during the first half of the twentieth century, Esselstrom's exposé on the activities and ideology of the consular police dramatically challenges this narrative. Revealing a far greater complexity of motivation behind the Japanese colonial mission, Crossing Empire's Edge boldly illustrates how the imperial Japanese state viewed political security at home as inextricably connected to political security abroad from as early as 1919-nearly a decade before overt military aggression began-and approaches northeast Asia as a region of intricate and dynamic social, economic, and political forces. In doing so, Crossing Empire's Edge inspires new ways of thinking about both modern Japanese history and the modern history of Japan in East Asia.

Published

The last few years have seen a major rethinking of some of the hallowed assumptions of range ecology and range management practice. This book examines the management of policy implications of this new ecological thinking for pastoral development in dryland areas. With examples drawn from all over Africa, the contributors examine the consequences of living with uncertainty for pastoral development planning, range and fodder management, drought responses, livestock marketing, resource tenure, institutional development and pastoral administration.

Stress is one of the most widely utilized medical concepts in modern society. Originally used to describe physiological responses to trauma, it is now applied in a variety of other fields and contexts, such as in the construction and expression of personal identity, social relations, building and engineering, and the various complexities of the competitive capitalist economy. In addition, scientists and medical experts use the concept to explore the relationship between an ever increasing number of environmental stressors and the evolution of an expanding range of mental and chronic organic diseases, such as hypertension, gastric ulcers, arthritis, allergies, and cancer. This edited volume brings together leading scholars to explore the emergence and development of the stress concept and its definitions as they have changed over time. It examines how stress and closely related concepts have been used to connect disciplines such as architecture, ecology, physiology, psychiatry, psychology, public health, urban planning, and a range of social sciences; its application in different settings such as the battlefield, workplace, clinic, hospital, and home; and the advancement of techniques of stress management in a number of different national, sociocultural, and scientific locations.

Understanding the underlying mechanisms of how axons and dendrites develop is a fundamental problem in neuroscience and a main goal of research on nervous system development and regeneration. Previous studies have provided a tremendous amount of information on signaling and cytoskeletal proteins regulating axonal and dendritic growth and guidance. However, relatively little is known about the relative contribution and role of cytoskeletal dynamics, transport of organelles and cytoskeletal components, and force generation to axonal elongation. Advancing the knowledge of these biomechanical processes is critical to better understand the development of the nervous system, the pathological progression of neurodegenerative diseases, acute traumatic injury, and for designing novel approaches to promote neuronal regeneration following disease, stroke, or trauma. Mechanical properties and forces shape the development of the nervous system from the cellular up to the organ level. Recent advances in quantitative live cell imaging, biophysical, and nanotechnological methods such as traction force microscopy, optical tweezers, and atomic force microscopy have enabled researchers to gain better insights into how cytoskeletal dynamics and motor-driven transport, membrane-dynamics, adhesion, and substrate rigidity influence axonal elongation. Given the complexity and mechanical nature of this problem, mathematical modeling contributes significantly to our understanding of neuronal mechanics. Nonetheless, there has been limited direct interaction and discussions between experimentalists and theoreticians in this research area. The purpose of this Frontiers Research Topic is to highlight exciting and important work that is currently developing in the fields of neuronal cell biology, neuronal mechanics, intracellular transport, and mathematical modeling in the form of primary research articles, reviews, perspectives, and commentaries.