Books published by Peter Lang International Academic Publishers

The southern Italian city of Matera was dubbed a "national disgrace" in the immediate post-war period due to media and political focus on its distinctive cave homes, the Sassi. This book explores how and why Matera came to be viewed in such negative terms and investigates the impact this had on the city's social and urban development.

Why does human music sound the way it does? To understand this, the authors look at human and animal ability for mimicry, at existing acoustic niches and introduce the idea of at least three habitats for music. Is there a unified sound quality for music created indoors, for song sung outdoors, and for music produced with electric signals?

What is Cli-Fi? Climate change fiction is a new phenomenon that responds to the effects of extreme weather events and explores what climate change means for the survival of humanity. With short, accessible chapters on texts from Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy to Frozen, this book will appeal to fans, teachers and students alike.

As Ireland changes, how should we think about the works of familiar figures - writers like Synge, O'Casey, Friel, Murphy, Carr and McGuinness? Is the distinction between popular and literary drama tenable in a Celtic Tiger Ireland where the arts and economics are becoming increasingly intertwined.

This collection aims to correct the imbalance of London-dominated periodicals by investigating the development, maturation and persistence of the provincial political press in the British Isles in the modern era. Chapters covering aspects of the Irish, Yorkshire, Welsh, Scottish and Midlands political press are included to redress this imbalance.

This book analyses the relationship between Ancient Rome and Shakespeare across his histories, tragedies and comedies.

What takes place when we examine texts close-up? The art of close reading, once the closely guarded province of professional literary critics, now underpins the everyday processes of forensic scrutiny conducted by those brigades of citizen commentators who patrol the realms of social media.

This book investigates the themes of female entrapment and the feminine gaze and explores how they function as theatrical metaphors in later Beckett plays. It offers a new perspective on love between Beckettian women, interrogating the trope of bodily sickness and its manifestations on stage and analysing how this relates to queer drives in women.

This study analyses the manner in which poets from the nineteenth century to the present day have adopted novelistic genres and techniques and adapted these to the prosodic requirements of rhyming, blank and free verse in order to produce original literary blends.

The "Movement of Writing Workers" offers a paradigmatic view of the successes and failures of attempts to implement a socialist cultural revolution in East Germany. This study, based largely on original archival research, traces the development of this major cultural initiative and highlights the diversity of state-sponsored literary production.

The Gate Theatre is one of Ireland's major theatres. It has plays by such figures as Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Denis Johnston - while also premiering significant works including unjustly-neglected female dramatists such as Mary Manning, Christine Longford, and Maura Laverty. It is the very first scholarly essay collection devoted to it.

This book is an autobiographical account of the development of an authentic interiority, based thematically around the Lord's Prayer. It charts the way in which the Christian faith in which the author was enculturated, was refined by her lived experience of music, abuse, forgiveness, interfaith dialogue, gender and vocation.

Gerard de Nerval's French translations of Goethe's Faust are key works in Franco-German cultural relations. This book presents a nuanced view of works that continue to be the principal conveyors in France of arguably the foremost work of German literature.

The entry of the capital relation into its epoch of structural crisis forms the basis for the development of the author's conception of revolutionary agency. Drawing on the work of Karl Marx and Istvan Meszaros, May relates the emergence and deepening of this crisis to the decline and growing historic outmodedness of trade unionism.

The French Revolution represents a pivotal moment within the history of personhood in France, where gender and national differences provided the foundations of society. This book considers Germaine de Stael's and Claire de Duras's depictions of men's and women's shared and diverging lived experiences to offer a new perspective on the period.

This book is intended to challenge the status quo of music learning and experience by intersecting various musical topics with discussions of spirituality and queer studies. The book reaches an international audience, with invited authors from around the world who represent the voices and perspectives of over ten countries.

This volume explores the synergies and tensions between memory studies and postcolonial studies across literatures and media from Europe, Africa and the Americas, and intersections with Asia. It makes a unique contribution to this growing international and interdisciplinary field by considering an unprecedented range of languages and sources.

This study examines the different ways in which novelists have incorporated poetry into the fabric of their fictions. It works against literary compartmentalization by revealing how poetry can enhance prose narrative and how the novel can bring poetry to the notice of a wider reading public.

Goethe's play Stella caused so much turmoil in Germany that it was retracted from the stage. This new translation provides an introduction exploring the reception of the play in Germany and England and scholarly interpretations of the play as well as a detailed appendix. A useful resource for students, teachers, and scholars alike.

This book argues that the "international community" created and managed the dysfunctional state of Bosnia and Herzegovina by effectively rewarding ethnic cleansing, drawing up a transitional constitution which encouraged ethnification. It offers a radical new perspective on post-war state-building in the Balkans.

These essays explore literary and cultural representations of urban settings originating from the Island of Mozambique, Lisbon, Luanda, Macau, Maputo, Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo. They examine how memories and identities are framed, how people at the margins express resistance and how migration disrupts established social and cultural borders.

Jazz in Europe provides a detailed record of how "new" (American) music evolved on the "old" (European) continent. The "chroniclers" explore the history of jazz in individual European countries from a local perspective, with each author contributing a unique bird's-eye view of their particular context.

Will someone with a disability, either mental or physical, be recognisable in the heavenly realm? If they no longer have their disabilities, how will we know them? This book attempts to explore the theological debate around disability and resurrection in detail by comparing two key interlocutors, St Augustine and Jean Vanier.

This volume explores the work of authors such as Mario Calabresi, Benedetta Tobagi, Luca Tarantelli and Massimo Coco, whose fathers were victims of Italian political terrorism in the 1970s. It examines how they have narrated their unique experience and how their 'postmemorials' contribute to a new relationship between history and personal memory.

This book, commissioned to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the introduction of free post-primary education in Ireland, examines the origins, legacy and impact of this crucial development. The contributors are internationally recognised for their expertise in history of education, sociology of education, education policy and curriculum.

Under-representation of women in leadership positions in education is a complex phenomenon. This book asks searching questions such as: Why do we accept male leaders as the norm? What barriers do women seeking leadership face? How do women leaders conceive of their role? How might women's leadership be supported at an institutional level?

This volume examines the multi-faceted nature of German identity through the lens of myriad forms of visual representation from the Middle Ages to the present. A broad spectrum of visual culture is considered - from painting to sculpture, advertising to architecture, film to installation art - to offer new insights into the 'German Question'.

Why are US presidents everywhere on screen? This book sheds new light on fictional representations of the American president in film and TV from the early 1990s to the present. The influence of changes in American politics and society - including 9/11, the economic crisis, and the election of the first African American president - are explored.

This book chronicles Greece's turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century as it both shapes and is shaped by one of its most distinguished political figures, Evangelos Averoff. Written by his daughter, the book is part historical biography, part coming-of-age novel and part memoir.

This work follows the life and work of the first forty-three years of Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) from the beginnings of his childhood in Anstruther to the end of his ministerial career in Glasgow in 1823. He became a theologian, minister and Scottish reformer and is best remembered for his involvement in the Disruption of 1843.