Bøker utgitt av Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

While the literature of the ancient Near East portrays legendary heroes, this is not the case with the biblical narrative, which portrays the patriarchs and matriarchs as fallible human beings. Their story is a multigenerational one of family and the dynamics that exist within. Reading these stories is like hearing the echo of family feuds, which is what makes them timeless. Were the patriarchs real people? Or can we say that many details in the Book of Genesis are fictions that project later romantic ideals of life and faith? To answer these questions the author examines the patriarchs' daily life, beliefs, and customs to provide provocative and useful insights into the life of the Patriarchs.

The 1798 Rebellion, a watershed event in Irish history, has been a source of both inspiration and controversy over the last two centuries and continues to provoke debate up to the present day. The ongoing discussion about the meaning of the Rebellion has not been limited to history books, but has also found vivid expression in Irish fiction and theatre. The product of extensive research, this study provides a comprehensive survey of historical novels and plays published on the topic throughout the twentieth century, comparing them with relevant historiography. It draws attention to a number of outstanding but often neglected literary works, bringing together materials written in both English and Irish. Employing important theoretical concepts such as Derrida's 'spectre' and Hayden White's tropological view of history, the book probes the relationship between historiography and fiction to shed light on their interplay in the Irish context, including the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland. This investigation illuminates a number of broader questions, including the most pressing of all: in what way should we deal with the 'spectres' of the past and their complex legacies?

This book adds new impetus to ecumenical theology by focusing on embodied faith or the contextual interpretation of Revelation. It does so through an exploration of the insights of Lewis S. Mudge and Joseph Ratzinger. Mudge advocates catholicity as a hermeneutic which embraces the contextuality of faith in local contexts, including Christian communities and the religious practice of those of other Abrahamic faiths. Through his use of semiotics and social theory, Mudge offers novel ways to interpret faith lived as redemptive existence. Since for Joseph Ratzinger Revelation can never be fully confined to rational statements, it is nevertheless expressed in living praxis. This relates to his view of wisdom, Tradition, truth and the sensus fidei. Ratzinger focuses on embodied faith in Christian experience, the lives of the saints, New Ecclesial Movements and the plurality of different expressions of faith in synchronic unity. This study encourages the reader to explore the Church as a sacrament of redemption through contextuality and embodiment. Through the writings of two authors with contrasting and yet complimentary approaches, it highlights the transformative potential of Christianity which can serve as a point of ecumenical learning.

This edited collection focuses on the negotiation of national, geographic and cultural identities during the Second World War among the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. Adopting a four nations approach, it contributes to understanding of how pluralistic identities within Britain informed the functioning of Britishness during the war.

This book sheds new light on the relationship between conservative Christianity and Hollywood through a case study of Walden Media, which produced The Chronicles of Narnia franchise. Financed by a conservative Christian, Walden Media is a unique American company producing educational and family-friendly films with inspiring, moral, redemptive and uplifting stories. However, there is more to Walden than meets the eye and the company reflects wider trends within contemporary American society. Drawing on film industry data, film study guides and marketing campaigns targeting mainstream and conservative Christian audiences in the United States and abroad, this book reflects on Walden Media's first ten years of activity as well as on the relationship between Hollywood and conservative Christians, notably evangelicals, at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Though both worlds are still wary of one another, this study shows that Walden Media films, and particularly The Chronicles of Narnia franchise, have tread a workable path between Hollywood and Godlywood albeit within the constraints of the now global film business.

This corpus-based study investigates the use of nominalization in English translations of Chinese literary prose by analysing three versions of the Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. This book provides a comprehensive look at nominalization in English translations of Chinese prose and encourages further study into nominalization in translation.

This book examines new literary imaginings of the interconnected city spaces of Bombay, London and New York in South Asian diasporic texts from the 1990s to the present. It charts the transition from London-centric studies on postcolonial city spaces to the new axis of Bombay, London and New York. The book argues that two key dynamics have developed from this shift: on the one hand, London, once the destination of choice for migrants, becomes a transit zone for onward movement to New York; on the other, different cities are perceived to coexist and come together in one single location. To investigate these new webs of interactions and power relations, this monograph employs Bakhtin's model of the chronotope. Serving as a magnifying lens, the chronotope inserts different spatial and temporal segments within wider narratives of urban space. This book promotes a new understanding of the cities of the South Asian diaspora as subversive sites for defining processes of cultural signification.

This book argues that changes in sensory relationships, often claimed to be symptoms of 21st-century technology, are not as recent as they may seem. The author analyses how 'haptic' sensory interactions (simultaneous manifestations of tactile and visual sensation) are portrayed in the work of Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot and Michel Serres.

Ballet Body Narratives is an ethnographic exploration of the social world of classical ballet and the embodiment of young ballet dancers as they engage in becoming a dancer in ballet school in England. In contrast to the largely disembodied sociological literature of the body, this book places the corporeal body as central to the examination and reveals significant relationships between body, society and identity. Drawing on academic scholarship as well as rich ballet body narratives from young dancers, this book investigates how young ballet dancers' bodies are lived, experienced and constructed through their desire to become performing ballet dancers as well as the seductive appeal of the ballet aesthetic. Pierre Bourdieu's critique of the perpetuating social order and his theoretical framework of field, habitus and capital are applied as a way of understanding the social world of ballet but also of relating the ballet habitus and belief in the body to broader social structures. This book examines the distinctiveness of ballet culture and aspects of young ballet dancers' embodied identity through a central focus on the ballet body.

This book argues that in order to develop just and inclusive institutions, particularly within the education system, we must begin from the standpoint of those who feel silenced, marginalised and excluded. It makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about how institutions need to change if they are to become genuinely inclusive.

This book argues that power struggles between internal and diasporic elites play a central role in building political agendas that shift national borders. It takes Albania as the primary case study, examining how the understanding of the Albanian nation has taken on different geographical borders over time and among different communities.

Why has the swimming pool fascinated filmmakers? This collection investigates the appearance of the swimming pool in film not merely as a setting but as a dynamic site where social, political, cultural and aesthetic forces converge. Studied films include classics such as The Philadelphia Story (1940) and recent films like Water Lilies (2007).

This volume contains papers from the first major conference on the post-1789 Paris Fine Art Salon (University of Exeter, September 2013), originating from research project Painting for the Salon? The French State, Artists and Academy, 1830-1852. It examines the national and international artistic, political and cultural dimensions of the Salon.

At the height of the Second World War, Hitler's Deputy, Rudolf Hess, made a dramatic solo flight to the British Isles. His arrival there was sensational news - and it baffled everyone. Why had he come? Hess claimed he had flown to Britain entirely of his own initiative and was on a personal mission of peace. But so unlikely was the success of such an appeal in Churchill's entrenched Britain that historians continue to wonder at his motives. In this book, Peter Raina publishes, for the first time, complete texts of Hess's 'peace proposals' and a treatise he wrote in captivity outlining how he saw Nazi Germany's role in Europe. These texts throw considerable light on Hess's mission and also on how the Nazi leadership saw their programme of expansion and their relations with Britain. Disconcertingly single-minded and an unashamed disciple of Hitler, Hess was at heart an idealist. His friend and confidant Albrecht Haushofer was an idealist of a different kind, and joined the German Resistance Movement. The frame story of this book relates how the two men moved to their tragic ends.

With national industrial relations systems struggling to keep apace with the global and mobile nature of capital, the emergence of the European works council has caught the imagination of both practitioners and scholars of this institution in the last two decades. European works councils find themselves at the centre of an ever emerging European industrial relations landscape, offering employees of multinationals within the European Economic Area the opportunity to work together in regulating employment conditions. An in-depth empirical study of five European works councils, this book offers a unique look into factors which promote and hinder the development of solidarity amongst employees. With a sociological bent, this volume is a must for EWC delegates struggling to deal with geographical, cultural and historical factors that undermine relations between them.

This book is also available as a set, together with Volume II. Please visit www.peterlang.com/?431876. Patterns of Patronage in Renaissance Rome is the first full-length study of the life and works of Francesco Sperulo of Camerino (1463-1531). In a remarkable career during which the poet progressed from serving as a soldier of fortune in the service of Cesare Borgia to an Italian bishopric, Sperulo produced a significant body of Latin poetry, here presented in a critical edition for the first time. An impressive array of contemporary figures including Leonardo da Vinci, Isabella d'Este, Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione appear in his verse. By placing his work within the larger historical, literary, political and social context, this study, published in two volumes, sheds light on the role played by neo-Latin poetry at the papal court and documents the impact of classical culture in Rome during the period usually referred to as the High Renaissance Volume I reconstructs Sperulo's life and circle of contacts by placing the poet's works in chronological order and setting them within the political and social circumstances of their composition. Archival documents scattered across Italy, penitentiary records from the Vatican Archives and a voluminous correspondence with the Duke of Urbino and members of the Varano family of Camerino show that Sperulo was intimately involved in papal politics and intrigue; indeed, he was almost assassinated for his involvement. A selection of this correspondence is included here to supplement the poet's biography.

This book addresses ethical and spiritual issues in economics. The central idea advanced in the book is that the extreme focus on the self by economic actors leads to the destruction of both material and non-material values. The assumptions of self-interest in behavior represent the core of mainstream economics today. From this perspective, the welfare of economic agents depends on their own consumption; their goal is to maximize their own welfare; and their choice is guided by the pursuit of their own goals. Throughout the book the author argues that self-interest-based actions and policies have a detrimental impact on nature, future generations, and society at large. If we want to survive and flourish in the material world we have to transcend the self and embrace wholeness. This value shift requires enormous changes in economics, politics and social life, but there may not be any other option in light of the current state of ecological degradation and human suffering.

In this volume, academics involved in teaching second languages at university level describe how they have embraced the challenges involved in facilitating student learning. It sets out practical ideas which can be implemented in everyday contexts, while ensuring that pedagogical practice is underpinned by the relevant theoretical literature.

This book is a comparative analysis of policy making in Australian and British telecommunications and printing trade unions. It tests the validity of different models of union policy making and behaviour, whilst assessing the strength of the book's hypothesis, that informal micro-political influences inside unions affect union policy-making.

Addresses whether the collective entity known as Germany should more properly be conflated with the Federal Republic, with its successful sixty-five-year history ('the best Germany we have ever had'), rather than the 'nation' with all its tainted connotations and corrupted concepts such as 'Vaterland'.

The thirteen essays in this book, presented in honour of Dr A. V. C. (Carl) Schmidt, are designed to reflect the range of his interests, from his magisterial work on Piers Plowman to his major contribution to the study of Chaucer and the medieval English contemplatives.

The scholarly reflections in this volume, drawing upon historical, theoretical and empirical perspectives, provide a wealth of insights into past, present and potential future developments in religious and values education in a range of national contexts, including Germany, Israel, Norway, Canada and South Africa.

Today's European universities are confronted by profound changes. This book constitutes an accessibly written, polemical and bold exploration of how current crises facing higher education institutions could be more effectively addressed by institutional resilience and new forms of adaptive and future oriented governance.

The paradox within the title of this book refers to its principal theme, that of elucidating our innate capacity to transform/convert from an inauthentic everyday mode of being to an authentic one. This study provides an analysis of affect as a means of highlighting a number of key points of contact between the disciplines of philosophy and theology when addressing this topic. The author explores Martin Heidegger's intimate connections with Christianity, firstly, by examining the close ties he and his family had to the Catholic Church and, secondly, from within his fundamental ontology as developed in Being and Time. Finally, he demonstrates through literary and comparative analysis the affinity that exists between a philosophy of facticity and Christian theology in their descriptions of humankind without faith or Dasein's inauthentic existence.

This book explores non-territorial autonomy (NTA), an important modality of ethnic and religious diversity management. It addresses issues such as the limits and possibilities of implementing NTA models in liberal democracies, the ways in which NTA can serve the goals of European integration, and the role of NTA in resolving territorial conflicts.

Cet ouvrage propose une etude de la question du genre dans l'oeuvre d'Agota Kristof, ecrivaine suisse francophone d'origine hongroise. La preponderance des narrateurs masculins dans sa prose suggere la superiorite du masculin.

The Language of Self explores the portrayal of subjectivity in Don DeLillo's fiction. It proposes that his characters' conception of self is determined by the tension between a desire for connection and a longing for isolation. The particular form taken by this language of self is shown to be both shaped by, and in turn formed through, an interaction with larger, social constructions of agency. In order to explore this phenomenon from both an individual and a social perspective, the author undertakes detailed close readings of DeLillo's texts, informed by nuanced theoretical analysis which stresses the symbiotic interaction of social and individual context. This method informs the structure of the book, which is divided into three sections. The first, entitled 'Dasein', conceptualises how DeLillo's characters navigate between isolation and connection, shaping a particular enunciation of self which reflects the balance they strike between self and other. 'Phenomenology', the second section, explores how DeLillo's treatment of language and image alters this balance and examines the sustainability of each enunciation of self. The final section, 'Das Man', addresses how the language of self shapes, and is shaped by, a wider social context.

Contemporary impressions of Islam - especially in the post-9/11 world - are creating daunting challenges for Muslims everywhere. Muslim women, because of their specific mode of attire, seem to be at the forefront of the growing skepticism surrounding Islamic education. Ironically, it would appear that the same detailed attention devoted by Islamic scholars to the conduct of Muslim women now surfaces in contemporary debates, focusing on the exclusionary practices they remain subjected to in their communities. Yet because these debates seldom move beyond continued diatribes against Muslim women's subjugation to entrenched societal norms of male chauvinism, little is known about what has given shape to their identity and sense of belonging. This book attempts to further the debate in two ways: Firstly, it offers an insight into how some Muslim women engage with one another and with society more generally, and how their practices reflect the plurality of interpretations constitutive of Islam both within and outside the spheres of cosmopolitanism. Secondly, it offers the opportunity to consider how a renewed Islamic education informed by the principles of democratic citizenship education can begin to reshape multifarious forms of engagement by, with and among Muslim women.

Analysis of language as a combination of both a structural and a lexical component overlooks a third all-encompassing aspect: dynamics. Dynamic Linguistics approaches the description of the complex phenomenon that is human language by focusing on this important but often neglected aspect. This book charts the belated recognition of the importance of dynamic synchrony in twentieth-century linguistics and discusses two other key concepts in some detail: speech community and language structure. Because of their vital role in the development of a dynamic approach to linguistics, the three linguists William Labov, Andre Martinet and Roman Jakobson are featured, in particular Martinet in whose later writings - neglected in the English-speaking world - the fullest appreciation of the dynamics of language to date are found. A sustained attempt is also made to chronicle precursors, between the nineteenth century and the 1970s, who provided inspiration for these three scholars in the development of a dynamic approach to linguistic description and analysis. The dynamic approach to linguistics is intended to help consolidate functional structuralists, geolinguists, sociolinguists and all other empirically minded linguists within a broader theoretical framework as well as playing a part in reversing the overformalism of the simplistic structuralist framework which has dominated, and continues to dominate, present-day linguistic description.

Many countries have national policies in relation to English language teaching that are monitored through standardized tests, and students' performance in these tests may have a significant impact on their career prospects. When such high stakes become attached to a language test, it begins to play a far greater role than originally intended. A preeminent example is the College English Test (CET), taken biannually by upwards of ten million students in China, which makes it the world's largest national English test. Its impact is evident in many areas of Chinese society. Specified grades on the CET are requirements for graduation from universities, many job applications and even some residence permits. Consolidated CET results are widely used for rating teachers for promotion and for competitively grading institutions, hence influencing strategic planning by universities, government departments and companies, particularly those engaged in publishing or bookselling. The CET has, furthermore, given rise to a highly organized cheating 'industry', which is the subject of frequent governmental disclaimers and warnings. This book reports on an extensive study of the impact of the CET in China, both on the lives of students and teachers and on educational and governmental institutions. The authors also draw theoretical and practical implications from their study for educational planners in other countries.