Books published by University Press of Southern Denmark

Humanlike robots and digital humans are both fun and useful in many situations. But the more we interact with technology with human traits, the more we believe it to possess real human characteristics like consciousness and personality. As a new breed of artificial beings enters society on a large scale, many of us will start believing they deserve moral consideration and perhaps even rights.In this entertaining and humorously written book, Thomas Telving argues that even though the above scenario is close to inevitable, we should still do all we can to avoid it. Presenting us with thought-provoking future scenarios, state of the art scientific research, and engaging philosophical reflections, he shows us how to avoid some of the scariest pitfalls of human-like technology.“The rapid development in (embodied) artificial intelligence is all but certain to change our lives in the coming years. Using a philosophical framework, Thomas Telving convincingly presents a number of pitfalls following a large increase in human-robot interaction. He joins the important roboethic debate on what future we want to live in, and what it takes for humanity to keep the upper hand in shaping it.”— Tobias Larsen, PhD in Computational Neuroscience from the University of Bristol and senior data scientist at Oviva AG.“Artificial intelligence and advanced robots are increasingly used in science and society, and in many ways they outperform human capabilities. An important question is how our moral and legal stance towards robots will develop when their human likeness increases. In this entertaining new book Thomas Telving takes us through possible scenarios seen in a philosophical perspective. Enlightening, thought-provoking and highly recommended.”— Jacob J. K. Kirkensgaard, PhD, Associate Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.

Bob Dylan’s songs have been the subject of countless interpretations. In fact, Dylan’s work is one of the fastest-growing research areas within the humanities, and the interest has increased dramatically since Dylan’s receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.There is a distinguished history of scholarly work on Dylan. Textual scholars focus on Dylan’s lyrics, parsing out their verbal artistry and identifying their numerous and farflung sources.Historians and biographers try to clarify the details of Dylan’s life and the chronologies that link him with other notable figures and movements. Social scientists have focused on the cultures inspired by Dylan, the institutions and communities of fandom and appreciation which surround him.NEW APPROACHES TO BOB DYLAN break down the disciplinary silos that have kept these lines of work separate, to think about how lyrics, performances, personal history, and mass movements all coincide and shape one another. NEW APPROACHES TO BOB DYLAN is edited by Anne-Marie Mai and contains 16 essays and an interview with Horace Engdahl, The Swedish Academy. Among the contributors are Stephen Greenblatt, Sean Latham, Nina Goss, Johnathan Hodgers, Michael Gray and Gisle Selnes.

In a military operation that ran from autumn 2013 to summer 2014, a multinational naval force managed to remove approx. 1,300 tons of chemical weapons and substances from civil war-torn Syria.The operation was led by Danish naval officer Torben Mikkelsen. This book is based on the diary he wrote during the six months he was in command of the Danish-Norwegian-British force.The book provides a frank and honest insight into the work of a naval officer in the 21st century and the challenges inherent in conducting a multinational operation at a time of increasing tensions between the world’s great powers.The book is illustrated with more than 100 maps and photographs, the majority of which have not been published before.

"Health care involves a complex interplay of medical and behavioural expertise. This book offers both a broad overview of medical psychology and some deep dives into specific areas of practice. We are, I suspect, only beginning to discover the ways in which medical and psychological science offer complementary paths for healing.Medical professionals face a broad range of challenges beyond acute healing. As reflected in the chapters of this book, much of current medical practice involves managing chronic conditions that are related to patients’ behaviour and lifestyle. Whether or not a disease was caused by lifestyle, its course, management, and outcome are often intertwined with behavioural choices. Even in acute care, pharmacotherapy and physical rehabilitation rely on patients adhering to prescribed medication or practices. Behaviour change is therefore fundamental in health care; yet it often receives relatively little time and attention in medical training".– William B. Miller

Danish literature from 1000 to 1900 is an account of Danish literature from the earliest period to the modern breakthrough of the late 19th century. Together with Danish literature in the 20th and the early 21st century this volume forms a complete history of Danish-language literature. At a time when information about individual authors and their works is only a quick click away and constantly updated, it can be an advantage to gather together this myriad of information and place it in coherent order – particularly for readers unable to read Danish. That is the basis for these two volumes on Danish literature. They provide a framework within which the richness of information about authors and their works can be appreciated as forming a rich, connected and connecting narrative.Danish Literature from 1000 to 1900 is an inclusive and networked literary history that does not turn literary texts into mute museum pieces. The volume includes an analysis of the world famous Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus of the middle ages as well as a presentation of the renaissance masterpiece, Memoirs, by Leonora Christina Ulfeldt. The writings of the leading enlightenment author, Ludvig Holberg, are also introduced and the romanticist novelist Thomasine Gyllembourg, the fairytale author Hans Christian Andersen and the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard are key figures of the historic exposition. The volume is concluded by an introduction to the authors of the modern breakthrough. Central international contributions to literary studies and extensive discussion on periodization is included in Danish Literature from 1000 to 1900 so that readers may relate this periodization to the periodization of other national literatures. The volume also includes chronological overviews and notes on literary studies’ discussion of historiography and influential recent research and approaches to Danish literature.

On 16 April 1620, Raghunatha Nayak of Tanjore invited Danes to settle down and establish trade in Tharangampadi – known also as Tranquebar. Over the next 225 years, several hundred Danes made Tranquebar their home, and over a thousand found their resting place here. During this period, printing was established by German missionaries, a Protestant mission was founded, science and arts flourished, an astronomical observatory was set up and an exploration of the Nicobar Islands took place. The town had to be rescued several times from impending wars. This book shows glimpses of this exciting period from the remains left by the Danes. Arranged as a walking tour of the town, we pass by places where significant people lived and noteworthy events took place.P. S. Ramanujam, Professor Emeritus in Optics at the Technical University of Denmark, was born in Tamilnadu, India, and has lived in Denmark for more than 40 years. Besides a significant number of scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, he has also written several articles on Tranquebar and is coauthor of Videnskab, oplysning og historie i Dansk Ostindien (2020), a book on the Norwegian astronomer, scientist, historian, philosopher, and reformer in Tranquebar Henning Munch Engelhart.

Circling Marilyn approaches the famous star in a manner that recognizes the impossibility of ever locating the ´real´ Marilyn Monroe. It gets close to the actress by discussing the chameleonic performances of Marilyn as woman, star, and text. Like Elvis, Marilyn lives, because she has become a discourse articulating major issues in the cultures she inhabits, whether in the 1950s or in the 21st century. In circling ´Marilyn country,´ this book discusses Marilyn as text, since those who knew and did not know her—husbands, lovers, fans, writers, directors, co-stars, critics—have written about Marilyn differently, and endlessly. Circling Marilyn also scrutinizes Marilyn as Body, but it locates not just one body, but many—including a disciplined and a communicative body. Other chapters consider the performing Marilyn and Marilyn performed. Marilyn takes on roles as herself, as a white and black woman, as a cowgirl on the Last Frontier, while others play Marilyn by snatching her famous body for their own purposes, at gay parades or in cyberspace. Circling Marilyn aims at readers engaged in American Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and Literature, as well as the general public, whose appetite for Marilyn Monroe keeps her alive, if eternally elusive.

Pausanias´ Description of Greece is the only or at least the most important source to more than 60 percent of the oracular tales that it includes. This makes the work crucial to anyone wishing to study the oracular tales in the form they have been handed down to us in the antique written sources. In Oracular Tales in Pausanias a study of the collected oracular tales in Pausanias´ Description of Greece is made available for the first time. Up till now, research into the history of oracles has emphasized either the archaeology of the oracle sites or the degree of authenticity of the oracular responses. The present book provides a new approach by not only focusing on the god´s oracular response, but also by viewing the entire oracle consultation as a narrative with a certain narrative structure, which makes it possible to view oracular tales as a specific, orally transmitted literary genre.

This book contains 22 articles based on mini-surveys carried out in The Danish Supply Chain Panel from 2012 to 2016. The panel includes supply chain practitioners who have willingly joined the panel and accepted to answer on a number of mini-surveys per year. Beyond the presentation of the articles, the book also contains an evaluation of the first five year of the panel. The Danish Supply Chain Panel can be perceived as a commitment to practical relevance concerning both knowledge production, in terms of raising the right questions to be researched and knowledge transfer, in terms of disseminating the research.