Bücher veröffentlicht von Verlag Peter Lang

This Festschrift for Ronald Speirs, Professor of German at the University of Birmingham, contains twenty-four original essays by scholars from Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Norway. Between them they encompass the entire modern period from the later eighteenth century onwards, and focus on a wide range of German-speaking environments. Several essays throw new light on authors to whom Professor Speirs himself has devoted particular attention (such as Brecht, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, and Fontane), whilst others discuss writers such as Lenz, Büchner, Böhlau, C. F. Meyer, Keyserling, Jahnn, and Huch. Above all, however, the contributions address the complexities of writing in ideologically diverse contexts, including the Third Reich and the former German Democratic Republic. This interplay between text and context is the cornerstone which links all the essays, as it has consistently informed Ronald Speirs¿s own work ¿ which combines a scrupulous attention to textual detail with an acute awareness of the socio-political milieux and philosophical influences that shape creative literature.

This original collection of articles, derived in part from the papers presented at the twenty-sixth biennial conference of the Classical Association of South Africa held at Durban and Pietermaritzburg 5-7 July 2005, explores a wide range of receptions of Classical ideas in the fiction, drama, poetry, history, opera, and popular culture of a number of countries from South Africa to Cuba. There is a strong emphasis on the use of Greek and Roman tragedy, especially Aeschylus Seven against Thebes, the Electra plays of Sophocles and Euripides, various reworkings of the figures of Antigone and Medea, and the dramatic style of Seneca, but the compendium also includes chapters on Platonism, Horatian Satire, Mythology, Roman Civilization, Roman Historiography, and Greek erotic spells. Chronologically, the scope of reception extends from the contemporary (the problem of HIV/AIDS in South Africa), to the twentieth century (Soyinka, Walcott, Forster, Seth, Campbell), and the Renaissance (Daniel Heinsius). The book illustrates the depth, diversity, and complexity of the interconnections between the Classical past and the present. It provides a refreshingly different perspective on a vitally important and vibrant field of research.

This first biography of Racine in over half a century for an English-language readership also traces the impact of Racine over three centuries in England as well as France. The plays and their reception are reviewed, using contextual approaches as part of each phase of Racine¿s life-story, with excerpts and quotations translated. Racine¿s upbringing and work as poet and historiographer are related to the France of Louis XIV, to audiences and to advancement for this ¿man from nowhere¿, with parallels in Britain and elsewhere. Changing attitudes to Racine are traced across the centuries, across literary movements and on stage, including recent productions. The book provides insights in the specialist field of Racine studies and seventeenth-century French literature and theatre, in comparative literary studies, particularly between France and Restoration England, and to the interaction of Racine and European cultural movements to the present day.

This book explores the creation of knowledge in applied mathematics. It mainly analyses applications of mathematical theories in several contexts. The author analyses the generation of advanced theories that enable people to understand problems in a scientific way, and proposes cognitive models dealing with the observation of human behaviour and its abstraction into comprehensible mathematical models, as this is a main problem in our modern world. This work is directed at people concerned with understanding cognitive processes when tackling complex problems, as it shows the building of knowledge in the making of scientific approaches to any discipline. Using a cross-disciplinary approach, he focuses on the key issues of theories and technologies applicable in a wide variety of contexts, for example in military organizations, in research and development departments and in general strategic planning, as shown in applied cases in Latin America.

This book considers how Early Modern England was transformed from a turbulent and rebellious kingdom into a peaceable land. By considering the history of Taunton, Somerset, the most rebellious town in the kingdom, it is possible to see how the emerging features of the Enlightenment ¿ moderation, reason and rational theology ¿ effected that transformation. The experience of Taunton in the seventeenth century was marked by economic fluctuations of the cloth trade and military struggles in the Civil War, the Monmouth Rebellion and the Glorious Revolution. The primary motivation for the citizens was zealous Puritanism. It inspired support for Parliament and rebellion against James II. But in the final quarter of the century a new rational and moderate Protestantism emerged from the largest Nonconformist congregation in the country and from a distinguished dissenting academy. The study shows that both the militancy of the seventeenth century and the enlightened moderation of the eighteenth century were principally inspired by religious rather than secular values. This book contributes to our understanding of England¿s transformation and of the religious factors that stimulated it.

This book breaks new ground in considering the nature and function of anthologies of poetry and short stories in twentieth-century Portugal. It tackles the main theoretical issues, identifies a significant body of critical writing on the relationship between anthologies, literary history and the canon, and proposes an approach that might be designated Descriptive Anthology Studies. The author aims to achieve a full understanding of the role of anthologies in the literary polysystem. Moreover, this study considers anthologies published in Portugal in the early years of the twentieth-century, the influential figures who made them, the works they selected, and who read them. It also focuses on the principal publishing houses of the 1940s and 50s, and how their literary directors shaped public taste and promoted intercultural transfer. The author reveals tensions between conservative, nostalgic anthologies that promote an idyllic vision of rural Portugal, and collections of poems that question and challenge the status quo, whether in respect of the colonial wars or repressed female sexuality. The last part of the book explores anthology production in the period following the Revolution of 1974, observing the co-existence of traditional anthologising activity with new trends and innovations, and noting the role of women, both as anthologists and anthology items.

Postmodern Spain examines the cultural transformation experienced by Spanish society during the late 1980s and 1990s. By looking at specific aspects of culture, the representation of the human subject, the past, and the transformation of the city this book critically re-assesses the validity of postmodernism in Spain. Focusing on the novels written by Juan Goytisolo during this period this book examines the representation and development of the human subject and its identification with the marginalized ¿other(s)¿. It further analyses various representations of the Spanish Civil War, challenging the prevalent view of post-Franco Spain as suffering from amnesia, and thereby vindicates postmodern historical representations as a valid dialogue with the past. The third chapter examines Barcelonäs urban redevelopment, analysing the transformation effected in some of its popular sites as a postmodern re-formulation of the city as a fluid, flexible public space. Finally it brings its previous findings to bear on an analysis of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games. It argues that these celebrations constituted a performance of Spain¿s ¿new¿ cultural identity designed for global, national and local consumption. Thus, these cultural celebrations corroborated the emergence of postmodernism as a cultural dominant which has exceeded modern and pre-modern cultural practices while, paradoxically, containing and enhancing both.

From 1937 to 1944 the National Socialist regime organized a series of high-profile art exhibitions at the purpose-built Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. Boasting huge numbers of participants and visitors and high sales figures, the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung became the most important showcase of National Socialist art. Adolf Hitler played a crucial role in determining all aspects of the exhibition, most notably the selection of artworks. His vast purchases from the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung contributed to the inflation in the market for contemporary art and led to the establishment of a group of favoured painters and sculptors which can be compared to the court artists of early modern times. This book traces the history of the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung, characterizes the artists and artworks shown and investigates how the local Munich tradition of displaying art was reinvented for national purposes. It examines the social policies for artists in the Third Reich, highlights Hitler¿s role as a patron for the exhibition and points out some of the contradictions and inconsistencies in National Socialist art policies.

An influential forerunner of French Existentialism, the Russian-born thinker Lev Shestov (1866-1938) elaborated a radical critique of rationalist knowledge and ethics from the point of view of individual human existence. Best known for his ground-breaking comparative studies of Tolstoy and Nietzsche, and of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, Shestov defined his conception as the ¿philosophy of tragedy¿. Shestov¿s philosophical hermeneutics of the literary work of art was later developed and disseminated through the writings of his disciple, the Romanian-born Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944), who was also a poet, filmmaker and playwright. The two authors provided one of the earliest and most consistent critical accounts of Husserlian phenomenology in France. ¿The philosophy of tragedy¿ and its associated notions of ¿revolt¿ and existential truth had a lasting impact on a number of prominent writers and philosophers including Georges Bataille, André Gide, André Malraux, Albert Camus and Emmanuel Lévinas. Précurseur influent de l¿Existentialisme, le philosophe d¿origine russe, Léon Chestov a élaboré une critique radicale de la connaissance rationnelle et de l¿éthique du point de vue de l¿existence individuelle. Connu en particulier pour l¿originalité de ses études comparatives sur Tolstoi et Nietzsche, et sur Dostoïevski et Nietzsche, Chestov a défini sa conception comme une ¿philosophie de la tragédie¿. L¿herméneutique philosophique de l¿¿uvre littéraire chez Chestov a été ultérieurement developpée et disséminée à travers les écrits de son disciple d¿origine roumaine, Benjamin Fondane, philosophe, mais aussi poète, cinéaste et homme de théâtre. Les deux auteurs ont élaboré une des premières et des plus cohérentes critiques de la phénoménologie d¿Husserl en France. La « philosophie de la tragédie » et les notions qui y sont associées, en particulier celle de « révolte » et de vérité existentielle, ont exercé une influence durable sur nombre d¿écrivains et des philosophes réputés, dont Georges Bataille, André Gide, André Malraux, Albert Camus et Emmanuel Lévinas.

Anglo-American Idealism

This book is an investigation of non-fatal injury and bloodspill in Homer¿s Iliad and demonstrates the crucial significance of these motifs in the epic. They are shown to be fundamental to defining heroic status and a powerful means for developing the narrative and thematic structures of the poem. The study offers a nuanced definition of the nature of mortality and immortality and shows how the motifs of injury and bloodspill explicate the plot of the poem and its ethical values. This work is the first to examine these motifs in a systematic and comprehensive investigation. Focusing exclusively on the Iliad, the book sheds new light on ideals of heroic conduct.

Am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts setzt sich die tschechische Gesellschaft intensiv mit neuen spirituellen Strömungen wie Theosophie, Anthroposophie und Okkultismus auseinander. Durch die Übersetzungen der Werke von Huysmans, Strauss, Nietzsche, Steiner und anderen ein¿ußreichen europäischen Denkern gerät der Katholizismus immer stärker in den Kon¿ikt mit der Moderne. Die Bewegung Katolická moderna versucht in Böhmen den Katholizismus zu erneuern. Zu den Mitarbeitern der Zeitschrift Nový ¿ivot zählen wichtige tschechische Künstlerpersönlichkeiten. Auch die Autoren der Zeitschrift Moderní revue streben eine entsprechende Reform religiös ausgerichteter Kunst an. Die tschechische Musik dieser Zeit widerspiegelt die vielfältige Auseinandersetzung mit den neuen Denkrichtungen. Charakteristisch für die betreffenden Werke ist der Synkretismus in Form einer persönlichen Synthese aus verschiedenen Formen der Spiritualität. In diesem Kongressband werden neben den Beiträgen zu diesen Fragen bislang unbekannte Dokumente zur tschechischen Musik der Jahrhundertwende veröffentlicht und die Rezeptionswege von massgebenden Komponisten der Zeit (Dvöák, Janá¿ek, Hába, Schulhoff, Novák, Martin¿) untersucht. At the end of the 19 century, Czech society was preoccupied with new spiritual trends such as theosophy, anthroposophy, pantheism and occultism. The ideas of Schuré, Huysmans, Péladan, Renan, Strauss, Nietzsche, Steiner, Blavatsky and other in¿uential European thinkers were compiled and made available thanks to numerous translations. At the same time, Catholicism was coming into increasing con¿ict with modernism. One of the attempts at its revival in Bohemia was represented by the movement Catholic Modernism. The contributors to the review Nový ¿ivot (New Life) were distinct personalities of Czech cultural life. The authors of the magazine Moderní revue (Modern Review) strove for reform of religion-oriented arts too. Czech music of that period re¿ects the multifaceted encounters with the new intellectual trends. Works are characterised by syncretism, in the form of a personal synthesis of various types of spirituality. In addition, the congress proceedings comprise research into hitherto unknown documents dealing with Czech music at the turn of the 19 and 20 centuries, as well as the paths of reception of the foremost composers of the time (Dvöák, Janá¿ek, Hába, Schulhoff, Novák, Martin¿).

This volume contains a selection of the papers presented at the Conference on Historical News Discourse (CHINED) that was held in Florence (Italy) on 2-3 September 2004. The aim of the Conference was to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of recent research in the field of news discourse in early modern Britain. The first section of the volume focuses on news discourse in serial publications while the second part examines aspects of news language in non-serial works. Contributions include synchronic and diachronic analyses of reportage, polemic, propaganda, review journalism and advertisements in a wide range of texts including newsletters, pamphlets and newspapers. Each section is structured chronologically so that the reader can appreciate aspects of the general historical development of news discourse. The variety of topics and methodologies reflects some of the most interesting research being carried out in the field.

This volume includes a selection of fifteen papers delivered at the Second International Conference on Late Modern English. The chapters focus on significant linguistic aspects of the Late Modern English period, not only on grammatical issues such as the development of pragmatic markers, for-to infinitive constructions, verbal subcategorisation, progressive aspect, sentential complements, double comparative forms or auxiliary/negator cliticisation but also on pronunciation, dialectal variation and other practical aspects such as corpus compilation, which are approached from different perspectives (descriptive, cognitive, syntactic, corpus-driven).

This book focuses on the novel Paradiso of Cuban author José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), and in particular on the protagonist José Cemí. It examines the development of Cemí according to the three distinct phases detailed by Lezama: the ¿placentariö world of family protection, the awakening to the exterior world and the subsequent friendships made, and the eventual encounters with Oppiano Licario. Cemí¿s progression, and his growing ability to interpret and create texts, is analysed as analogous to the reader¿s progression through the novel. In this respect, both the reader and Cemí are obliged to interpret the complex symbolism according to interpretative skills acquired from the text itself. In a similar fashion, the connection between Cemí¿s ¿guide¿ Licario, and the author Lezama is investigated. By exploring these connections between reader and protagonist, author and character, the author of this work suggests a radical and hitherto unexplored approach to the text of Lezama.

With reference to Paul Ricoeur¿s conception of the interconnectedness of history and fiction, this comparative literary study examines narrative strategies that three contemporary writers of fiction ¿ Toni Morrison, V. S. Naipaul, and Ben Okri ¿ have devised to counteract the incompleteness of historical representation. In her novel Beloved Morrison redefines the slave-narrative tradition and reveals an alternative history of slavery by unveiling the interior lives of her characters. Through a hybrid prose that mixes fiction with history in the novels The Enigma of Arrival and A Way in the World, Naipaul illuminates «areas of darkness» in the diasporic world of East Indian Trinidadians and provides new ways of transforming English literary and cultural history. Focusing on West African identity and community, Okri brings a mythic and fantastic dimension to postcolonial fiction as a way of giving a voice to people who are generally without power and almost without any place in a world of inequality and injustice. Probing into historical incompleteness, this study underscores the indispensable role of fiction in representing life, rectifying history, and enlarging reality.

This book traces how religion could have originated in prehistory and antiquity, out of natural human and prehuman behaviour. Religion is defined here as beliefs, conceptions, practices and roles concerned with the ¿supernatural¿. A variety of elements of religion can be identified. These include: spirits, ghosts, life after death, heaven, shamans. To try to reduce religion to a single original element is a mistake. There may be no single origin. But the individual elements have separate origins, and these can be traced. The common subjective component of religious elements is the numinous, which is commonly ascribed to external sources identified as ¿supernatural¿ and ¿spiritual¿. The numinous sense is explained by means of certain neural processes with a focus in the temporal lobes. Probably for the first time, evidence is brought to bear from primatology, palaeoanthropology, ethnography, ancient history and history of religions, as well as theology, neurology and psycho-pharmacology. The field of origins of religion has been neglected by anthropology since the 1930s, but has enjoyed renewed interest from the 1990s. This wide-ranging interdisciplinary book makes an important contribution to the field.

Pierre Michon is one of France¿s most significant contemporary writers. Since the publication in 1984 of his first book, Vies minuscules, Michon¿s work has never ceased to evade generic classifications. His work ingests books, lives and thought and probes their complex interrelationship and those moments of convergence that transform an ordinary name into that of an ¿Author¿ or of an ¿Artist¿. The contents of Michon¿s work are well documented: they are drawn from canonical novels, chronicles, archives and the biographies of artists¿ lives and are worked into cross-generic forms that revive names and make us rethink the uncertainty of literature. Less has been written of his engagement with avant-garde thought. The legacy of French avant-garde thinkers of the 1960s and 1970s, in particular the work of Roland Barthes, informs Michon¿s work. Barthes¿s notions of the referent, of intertextuality and of authorship, for example, are transposed, reconfigured and sometimes contested within Michon¿s work. In this way, Barthes¿s name, the afterlife of his thought, remains encrypted within Michon¿s prose. This book situates and reads Michon¿s texts through the complex inscription and transformation of names drawn from the Creuse, literature, art and avant-garde thought. And it is within this matrix that Michon puts in play his own name and its uncertain relation to literature.

This is the first edition of the fourteenth-century Lumen anime C and of its German translation Das liecht der sel, completed in 1426 by Ulrich Putsch, Bishop of Brixen (Bressanone) in the South Tyrol. The two works are theological compendia for use in homiletic and catechetical contexts, and teach their intended readership much about basic Christian doctrine and morality, with a special emphasis on the Virgin Mary. Their didactic method makes particular use of nature exempla and of (frequently spurious) quotations from authorities. Both were highly influential in late-medieval Germany, especially in Austria and Bavaria, but their important role in conveying the insights of late-medieval Catholicism to an increasingly numerous lay audience has yet to be fully appreciated. The present edition should facilitate this and several other necessary re-assessments. Critical texts of the Latin and German versions are printed in parallel. They are preceded by an introduction which offers, for each text in turn, descriptions of its manuscripts, an account of its textual history, and an evaluation of previous research ¿ and, in respect of Das liecht der sel, also covers the biography of Ulrich Putsch.

Violence is a central issue of contemporary society at all levels, affecting human relationships from the most intimate to the most impersonal. But what is violence? Is violence justifiable? What relevance does the fate of the victim of violence have to such questions? To address these and similar questions, this volume brings together thinkers from a wide range of philosophical backgrounds who employ a rich variety of methods, ranging from the strictly analytic to the postmodern. They explore issues such as responsibility, provocation, violation, cruelty, self-determination and deception in attempting to understand violence in relation both to the suffering of its victims and the justifications offered by its perpetrators and their supporters. In exploring these issues the essays collected in this volume explore terrorism, rape, genocide and state-sponsored violence.

This book critically examines David Tracy¿s well-known methodology of fundamental theology, namely his revisionist model as developed in his Blessed Rage for Order (1975), together with his methodological shifts through the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. It explores how successful he has been in constructing a methodology for the public theological discourse that he deems so necessary. More particularly, this book asks how serviceable this methodology is for articulating Christian discourse in an intelligible and public way in the contemporary context of religious plurality.

National Narcissism offers a groundbreaking anthropological and sociological approach to nationalism through an exposé of the belief systems and psychology of extreme nationalists for whom nationalism is a form of religion. This theoretical approach is illustrated with examples primarily taken from Hungary, with a special focus in two chapters on the role of gender in nationalism. The state of politics and society in Hungary is also examined in a way that steps beyond the usual simplistic, flat narratives of ¿what Hungarians are like¿, by stressing the broad variety of viewpoints current in Hungarian society, the milieu in which a small minority of extreme nationalists are able to make their voice heard out of proportion to their numbers or political support. The theory offered by National Narcissism has wide-ranging implications for the future study of extremist nationalism in nation-states throughout the world. Sociologists, anthropologists, nationalism studies specialists, social-psychologists, and historians of the recent past in Hungary will find that this theoretical book, richly illustrated with examples from Hungarian society, challenges positive and negative stereotypes about nationalism, extremism, post-communism, central and eastern Europe, the European Union and, not least, about Hungarians themselves.

This book examines the defining trends in German politics, history and thought between the Napoleonic wars and 1848, and reflects on how they shaped the verbal and visual satire of the age. Taking issue with the idea that German satire before 1848 is too fragmented for a coherent large-scale study, the author draws widely on the spheres of literature, history and philosophy to inform his work. In particular, he focuses on the all-important notion of the world order, of what constitutes the rightful path of history and of mankind ¿ a question with which German thought at the time was profoundly concerned. Whether clothed in the garb of orthodox theology or post-Enlightenment philosophy, various (and often conflicting) ideas as to the proper way of the world were fundamental in shaping satirical word and image in the first half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of satirical print and polemic, the author traces these ideas through the rise and fall of Napoleon, the ideological battles of Hegelianism and Christianity, the growth of German liberalism and the evolution of Germany¿s national figure, der deutsche Michel. In doing so, he throws new light on an interesting and often neglected corpus of German art and literature. The book is richly illustrated with over 100 contemporary prints, 16 of them in colour.

This book contains the first complete English translation, fully annotated, of the treatise Concerning Frequent Communion, commonly attributed to Sts. Makarios of Corinth and Nikodemos the Hagiorite, the compilers of the Philokalia. This pivotal treatise, by two central figures in the Kollyvades movement, which originated on Mount Athos in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, addresses a somewhat less well-known corollary issue in Orthodox spirituality, that of frequent Communion. The authors discuss the controversy surrounding a decline in the frequency of Communion in the Christian East, the relationship of that controversy to the Kollyvades movement, and the theological arguments in support of frequent Communion advanced by Makarios and Nikodemos, whose joint authorship of the treatise they endeavor to substantiate.

This book examines the contribution made by Joaquim Nabuco (1849-1910) to political thought in Brazil during the Belle Epoque (1888-1910). Nabuco was once leader of the abolitionist cause in Brazil and turned his attention after the abolition of slavery in 1888 to saving the monarchy. This study traces Nabucös views on the monarchic institution in Brazil, considering first the origins of his (liberal) monarchist beliefs and his ideas on how the institution should adapt to halt the threat of republicanism before 1889. It concentrates on the first decade of the Republic and the ways in which Nabuco presented a challenge to the new regime. By examining the impact of his views on the State¿s domestic and international roles, the book reveals Nabucös contribution to nation-building in late-nineteenth-century Brazil.

Arising from a colloquium held in Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, in March 2004, this volume offers fresh insights into Swiss culture and literature from an Irish perspective. It brings together articles by writers and scholars from various academic fields including cultural studies, linguistics and literature. The book is a reflection of the multifaceted interests of Irish academics in Switzerland as a cultural space in the heart of Europe. Ireland as a vantage point, situated at the western margin of the European continent, offers new perspectives from which differences as well as surprising parallels between the two cultures become visible and from which Switzerland appears in a different light. The volume critically addresses questions of identity in Swiss literature and culture and discusses them from various angles ¿ by analysing the representation of minority cultures in Swiss literary and media discourse, by reading Swiss literature in an intercultural context, but also through accounts of Irish visitors in Switzerland and Swiss writers travelling to or living in Ireland.

The Second World War marked an ethical turn in British fiction. The author of this study demonstrates this by closely examining John Fowles¿s and Iris Murdoch¿s works as post-war meta-textual magical-realist novels interested in ethics and the nature of contemporary reality. These ethical novels transcend mere morality to explore the essence of the Good. Through paradigms of human experience, they direct our attention towards the Other and impart moral principles based on acts of Goodness. The author assesses the moral intimations in Fowles¿s The Magus and Murdoch¿s The Sea, the Sea in the context of their philosophical writings, mainly The Aristos and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals respectively. She shows that Fowles and Murdoch endeavour to instruct the reader morally through the accessible language of fiction.