Books published by De Gruyter

A critical reading of both literary and non-literary German texts published between 1490 and 1540 exposes a populist backlash against perceived social and political disruptions, the dramatic expansion of spatial and epistemological horizons, and the growth of global trade networks. These texts opposed the twin phenomena of pluralization and secularization, which promoted a Humanist tolerance for ambiguity, boosted globalization and spatial expansion around 1500, and promoted new ways of imagining the world. Part I considers threats to the political order and the protestations against them, above all a vigorous defense of the common good. Part II traces the intellectual and epistemological upheaval triggered by the spatial discoveries and the new methods of visual and verbal representation of space. Part III examines the nationalistic backlash triggered by the rising global trade and related abusive trading practices and by perceived undue foreign influences. It is the basic premise of this book that the texts examined here protested the observed disruptions of the status quo and sought to reestablish a stable imperial order in the face of political and social upheaval and of the felt cultural decline of the German nation.

Das Werk der Nobelpreisträgerin Elfriede Jelinek hat die Möglichkeiten literarischer Ästhetik in den letzten fünf Jahrzehnten entscheidend erweitert ¿ fast durchgängig durch die polemische Infragestellung und Aberkennung geltender Doxa.Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes beleuchten an ausgewählten Beispielen aus unterschiedlichen Werkphasen die ästhetischen Provokationskräfte der Jelinekschen Werke und rücken sie damit in den Kontext der künstlerischen Avantgarde, deren Destruktionen im literarischen Feld immer auch zu produktiven Revisionen geführt haben. In einer solchen Optik wird sichtbar, in welchem hohen Ausmaß die spezifisch ästhetische Kampfansage der Texte vornehmlich der Kunst selbst gilt und zentrale Bereiche der Poetologie, Werkpolitik, Autorschaft, Intertextualität und Intermedialität umfasst. Die Provokationen der Kunst, so erweist sich, gehen einher mit einer neuen Auffassung von Literatur, die sich nicht zuletzt in der ästhetischen Figuration der Texte selbst zeigt.

Kaum ein Egodokument ist heute verbreiteter und selbstverständlicher als der Lebenslauf. Unter welchen Bedingungen aber ist diese Form der Selbstbuchhaltung entstanden? Ihre Geschichte reicht, wie diese Studie zeigt, bis ins Preußen des 18. Jahrhunderts zurück. In der preußischen Verwaltung macht der Lebenslauf nicht nur vergangene Lebensereignisse schreib- und lesbar; fortan bahnt er als ¿Bewerbungsunterlage" auch Karrieren an und erweist sich damit als elementares Werkzeug im Wettstreit um soziale Ränge.

How do scholarship and practices of remembrance regarding Nazi Germany benefit from digital tools and approaches? What challenges arise from "doing history digitally" in this field ¿ and how should they best be dealt with? ¿The eight chapters of this book explore these and related questions. They discuss the digital initiatives of various archives and source databases, highlight¿findings of research undertaken with digital tools, and examine how such tools can be used to present history in education, exhibitions and memorials. All contributions focus on recent or, in some cases, ongoing digital projects related to the history of National Socialism, World War II, and the Holocaust.

The volume gathers together over twenty contributions that emerged from a conference held in in honour of Dermot Moran on the occasion of his retirement from University College Dublin. The book explores the contribution of phenomenology to empathy, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and the constitution of the cultural and social world, from both a historical and an applied philosophical perspective. Theoretical and methodological differences in approach notwithstanding, phenomenologists have converged in the recognition that self and others are fundamentally related, and have provided fine-grained accounts of the origin, forms, and implications of such relationship. The volume critically reconstructs and further develops central aspects of this body of research within a pluralistic framework. It offers a renewed investigation of the work of classical phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as an original application of phenomenological concepts and theories to contemporary discussions on intentionality, culture, emotions, and morality. The book provides insights for scholars in phenomenological philosophy as well as in philosophy of mind and interpersonal and social experience.

How are artificial intelligence (AI) and the strong claims made by their philosophical representatives to be understood and evaluated from a Kantian perspective? Conversely, what can we learn from AI and its functions about Kantian philosophy¿s claims to validity? This volume focuses on various aspects, such as the self, the spirit, self-consciousness, ethics, law, and aesthetics to answer these questions.

This volume brings together renowned scholars and early career-researchers in mapping the ways in which European cinema ¿whether arthouse or mainstream, fictional or documentary, working with traditional or new mediä engages with phenomena of precarity, poverty, and social exclusion. It compares how the filmic traditions of different countries reflect the socioeconomic conditions associated with precarity, and illuminates similarities in the iconography of precarious lives across cultures. While some of the contributions deal with the representations of marginalized minorities, others focus on work-related precarity or the depictions of downward mobility. Among other topics, the volume looks at how films grapple with gender inequality, intersectional struggle, discriminatory housing policies, and the specific problems of precarious youth. With its comparative approach to filmic representations of European precarity, this volume makes a major contribution to scholarship on precarity and the representation of social class in contemporary visual culture.Watch our book talk with the editors Elisa Cuter, Guido Kirsten and Hanna Prenzel here: https://youtu.be/lKpD1NFAx2o

Science and Catholicism in Argentina (1750¿1960) is the first comprehensive study on the relationship between science and religion in a Spanish-speaking country with a Catholic majority and a "Latin" pattern of secularisation. The text takes the reader from Jesuit missionary science in colonial times, through the conflict-ridden 19th century, to the Catholic revival of the 1930s in Argentina. The diverse interactions between science and religion revealed in this analysis can be organised in terms of their dynamic of secularisation. The indissoluble identification of science and the secular, which operated at rhetorical and institutional levels among the liberal elite and the socialists in the 19th century, lost part of its force with the emergence of Catholic scientists in the course of the 20th century. In agreement with current views that deny science the role as the driving force of secularisation, this historical study concludes that it was the process of secularisation that shaped the interplay between religion and science, not the other way around.

Efficient, simple, and empirically grounded, Lucien Tesnière¿s principles of structural syntax have remained to this day very popular among linguists. Far beyond the field of syntax itself, the Elements of Structural Syntax have found lasting echo in all branches of linguistics. This volume offers a contemporary appraisal of Tesnière¿s legacy.

A new wave of thinkers from across different disciplines within the analytical tradition in philosophy has recently focused on critical, societal challenges, such as the silencing and questioning of the credibility of oppressed groups, the political polarization that threatens the good functioning of democratic societies across the globe, or the moral and political significance of gender, race, or sexual orientation.Appealing to both well-established and younger international scholars, this volume delves into some of the most relevant problems and discussions within the area, bringing together for the first time different essays within what we deem to be a ¿political turn in analytic philosophy.¿This political turn consists of putting different conceptual and theoretical tools from epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics at the service of social and political change. The aim is to ensure a better understanding of some of the key features of our social environments in an attempt to achieve a more just and equal society.

Seventh-century Gaelic law-tracts delineate professional poets (filid) who earned high social status through formal training. These poets cooperated with the Church to create an innovative bilingual intellectual culture in Old Gaelic and Latin. Bede described Anglo-Saxon students who availed themselves of free education in Ireland at this culturally dynamic time. Gaelic scholars called sapientes ("wise ones") produced texts in Old Gaelic and Latin that demonstrate how Anglo-Saxon students were influenced by contact with Gaelic ecclesiastical and secular scholarship. Seventh-century Northumbria was ruled for over 50 years by Gaelic-speaking kings who could access Gaelic traditions. Gaelic literary traditions provide the closest analogues for Bede's description of Cædmon's production of Old English poetry. This ground-breaking study displays the transformations created by the growth of vernacular literatures and bilingual intellectual cultures. Gaelic missionaries and educational opportunities helped shape the Northumbrian "Golden Age", its manuscripts, hagiography, and writings of Aldhelm and Bede.

In this first book-length treatment of MELF, the authors assert that MELF represents an important contribution to our understanding of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), in that existing ELF research has been limited to relatively low stakes communicative situations, such as interactions in business, academia, internet blogging or casual conversations. Medical contexts, in contrast, often represent situations calling for exceptional communicative precision and urgency. Providing both evidence from their own research and analysis from (the limited number of) existing studies, the authors offer a counterpoint to the optimism regarding communicative success prevalent in ELF. The book proposes a theoretical perspective on how the various features of healthcare communication serve as important variables in shaping interaction among speakers of ELF, further enlarging our understanding of this emerging sub-field.