Journals
2009 DE
David Barnett
Books reviewed in this issue. 18th& 19 th Century Literature and CultureBecker‐Cantarino, Barbara.Meine Liebe zu Büchern: Sophie von La Roche als professionelle Schriftstellerin.Chambers, Helen.Humor and Irony in Nineteenth‐Century German Women's Writing: Studies in Prose Fiction, 1840–1900.Greaney, Patrick.Untimely Beggar: Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin.Messling, Markus.Pariser Orientlektüren. Zu Wilhelm von Humboldts Theorie der Schrift. Nebst der Erstedition des Briefwechsels zwischen Wilhelm von Humboldt und Jean‐François Champollion le jeune (1824–1827).Pfeiffer, Peter C.Marie von Ebner‐Eschenbach. Tragödie, Erzählung, Heimatfilm.Schneider, Gerd K.“Ich will jeden Tag einen Haufen Sternschuppen auf mich niederregnen sehen.” Zur künstlerischen Rezeption von Arthur Schnitzlers “Reigen” in Österreich, Deutschland und den USA.Seidler, Andreas.Der Reiz der Lektüre: Wielands Don Sylvio und die Autonomisierung der Literatur.Tafazoli, Hamid.Der deutsche Persien‐Diskurs: Zur Verwissenschaftlichung und Literarisierung des Persien‐Bildes im deutschen Schrifttum. Von der frühen Neuzeit bis in das neunzehnte Jahrhundert.Zima, Peter V.Der europäische Künstlerroman: Von der romantischen Utopie zur postmodernen Parodie.20th& 21 st Century Literature and CultureBalogh, András F., and Harald Vogel, eds. “ Erliegst du der Götter Abgeschiedenheit.” Exil und Fremdheitserfahrung in der deutschen Literatur.Bong, Jörg, Roland Spahr, and Oliver Vogel, eds.“Aber die Erinnerung davon.” Materialienzum Werkvon Marlene Streeruwitz.Duttlinger, Carolin.Kafka and Photography.Dwars, Jens‐Fietje.Und dennoch Hoffnung. Peter Weiss. Eine Biographie.Fritzsche, Sonja.Science Fiction Literature in East Germany.Gelber, Mark H., ed.Stefan Zweig Reconsidered. New Perspectives on His Literary and Biographical Writings.Goebel, Walter, Hans Ulrich Seeber, and Martin Windisch, eds.Conrad in Germany.Jaeger, Dagmar.Theater im Medienzeitalter. Das postdramatische Theater von Elfriede Jelinek und Heiner Müller.Mennel, Barbara.The Representation of Masochism and Queer Desire in Film and Literature.Mews, Siegfried.Günter Grass and His Critics. From the “Tin Drum” to “Crabwalk.”Schaller‐Fornoff, Branka.Novelle und Erregung. Zur Neuperspektivierung der Gattung am Beispiel von Michael Kleebergs “Barfuß”.Schneider, Thomas F., and Hans Wagener, eds.«Huns» vs. «Corned Beef»: Representations of the Other in American and German Literature and Film on World War I.Tigges, Stefan, ed.Dramatische Transformationen: Zu gegenwärtigen Schreib‐ und Aufführungsstrategien im deutschsprachigen Theater.Weitz, Eric D.Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy.German Studies across the DisciplinesBrobjer, Thomas H.Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography.Citton, Yves.Lire, Interpréter, Actualiser: Pourquoi les Études Littéraires ? Trepsdorf, Daniel K. W.Afrikanisches Alter Ego und europäischer Egoismus: Eine komparative Studie zur Selbst‐ und Fremdenperzeption im Wilhelminischen Deutschland und Spätviktorianischen Großbritannien (1884–1914): Ausgewählte Aspekte zur Wahrnehmungskultur des »wilden schwarzen Anderen« sowie deren Konsequenzen für die indigene Bevölkerung der britischen und deutschen Kolonien im südlichen Afrika.Verheyen, Dirk.United City, Divided Memories? Cold War Legacies in Contemporary Berlin.Williams, Paul.Memorial Museums. The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities.Yair, Gad, and Michaela Soyer.The Golem in German Social Theory.
Journals
2009 EN
Riegert Leo W.
Scholars of German‐Jewish Studies have built on Suzanne Zantop's groundbreaking work on German colonial fantasies by encouraging us to consider more fully the role of Jews and of antisemitism in German colonialism's contradictory evolution. I briefly outline some of this scholarship along with the ways post‐colonial theory has and, more to the point, has not been employed as a theoretical framework in these studies. Even as we pay attention to colonial fantasies about Jews, I argue that colonial fantasies (and actions) by Jews deserve more explicit consideration. In the remainder of my discussion, I examine the colonialist motivations of the late nineteenth century Austrian‐Jewish writer, Karl Emil Franzos (1847–1904), and of his ethnographic writings about Habsburg Eastern Europe. Always keeping in mind the ways in which German Jews were subjects of internal colonization, by paying attention to Jews as colonial agents as well, we may increase our understanding of the possible roles for Jews in the development of German national and colonial discourses prior to World War II.
Journals
2009 EN
Streb Jochen
This article examines the determinants of contractual form and renegotiations in the German construction industry during the Third Reich. At the beginning of World War II, firms dealt with growing uncertainty by convincing procurement agencies either to use cost‐plus contracts or to include an additional risk premium in fixed‐price contracts. In the later years of the war, procurement agencies initiated renegotiations over contract clauses to reduce the extraordinary profits resulting from information rents and high‐risk premiums. This regulatory course undermined the credibility of the regulatory commitment, thereby weakening the incentives of the fixed‐price contracts still in use.
Journals
2009 EN
Houston Christopher
Research on ‘Muslim societies’ is a controversial topic in the present, particularly given the US army’s current employment of anthropological experts in war zones under military occupation. In 2006 the UK Foreign Office, too, sought to include anthropologists in its worldwide research project entitled ‘Combating Terrorism by Countering Radicalization’, with grants given outside the normal process of research funding and differently assessed. In this article, I immodestly argue for how the discipline of anthropology should apprehend and analyse Islam in the present political context. The paper claims that anthropological research provides an antidote to the Islamophobia of much talk about Islam in the Australian public sphere, an Islamophobia originating not only from the right but from some leftists and feminists as well.
Journals
2009 EN
Premawardhana Shanta
The crisis in Sri Lanka, which is rooted in the politics of ethnicity and reached a new stage in May 2009 when the government forces militarily defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, forms the backdrop to this article. Transformative spirituality in this context is demonstrated in the strong bond of friendship between the author, a Sri Lankan Sinhalese, and a colleague who is a Sri Lankan Tamil. The article draws upon four principles of transformative spirituality in the interreligious context articulated by Sri Lankan Jesuit priest Aloysius Pieris. First, it must take the context seriously, which, in the Sri Lankan context means its grinding poverty and its rich religious diversity, to which must now be added the devastating war that has just concluded. Second, robust interreligious dialogue requires that Christians look beyond typologies such as exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism, and engage other religious traditions on their own terms. Third, unless religions engage with the other core‐to‐core, rather than engage the kernel of Christianity with the husk of Buddhism, there cannot be genuine transformative spirituality. Fourth, transformative spirituality is only possible when the core of Christianity meets the core of Buddhism in the praxis of liberation. Acknowledging that dialogue never engages only the participants' religious identity, but engages the other as a whole person with multiple identities, the article applies Pieris' interreligious dialogue principles to conflictual ethnic relations seeking to provide dialogue as a model for other types of reconciliation.
Journals
2009 EN
Edey Malcolm
The global financial crisis has been one of the most significant economic shocks in the post‐war period. At its core, the crisis originated in credit markets in developed countries – centred particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe – but the fallout has had a significant effect on activity in every country and region. As the crisis intensified, there was a large swing in the appetite of world financial markets for risk, and in their capacity to accept risk. The result was a shift from the easy credit conditions that had prevailed for some years to a situation of tight credit and in some cases dysfunctional markets. This was accompanied by a loss of consumer and business confidence, with significant effects on global activity. This article focuses on the main causes of the crisis, how it has affected the world economy, and how governments and central banks have responded.
Journals
2009 EN
Honwana Alcinda
This article discusses the issue of child soldiers by weaving together the threads of experiences of violence, terror and survival narrated by children directly involved in armed conflicts. Despite the fact that the majority of them have been forced to enter the military, they are not just empty vessels into whom violence is poured. Having started as victims, many are converted into perpetrators of the most violent and atrocious deeds. The article suggests that former child soldiers exercise a ‘tactical agency’ to deal with the immediate circumstances of their situation. The interstitial position of child soldiers, as both victims and perpetrators of violence, places them in a unique position vis‐à‐vis their communities and society in general. The article examines the role of local community strategies for healing, rehabilitation and social reintegration of former child soldiers. But beyond social healing in the immediate aftermath of war, these children and their families need to be given access to education, training and employment to rebuild their lives.
Journals
2009 EN
Wilson Fiona
This article argues that the position of political violence in developing countries has changed in the post‐Cold War period, from being seen (by some) as a legitimate response to dictatorship to become associated with criminality and delinquency on the one hand and terrorism on the other. This provides a new context for ‘identity politics’, the definition of which has tended to become narrower and in practice more restrictive, leading to a hardening of ‘community’ boundaries. Taking the Maoist insurgency in Peru as a case study, the article enquires how identity, violence and security have been lived and understood by people in the Andean region. At the centre is an emblematic narrative of an indigenous schoolteacher who explores connections between his experiences of Peru's agrarian and education reforms, early support and later rejection of political violence, and the way his community envisioned and practised security in response.
Journals
2009 EN
AlSayyid Mustapha Kamal
This article takes a critical stand towards primordialist interpretations of identity conflicts in the Arab world. It argues that identity‐framed conflicts have usually coincided with differential access to wealth, power or status of the groups in conflict. This has been the case in the bloodiest inter‐group conflicts in Arab countries, namely those in Sudan, Iraq and Lebanon. It also argues that political divisions based on ideology or religion have often been more important than ethnic or racial differences ‐ as in the Algerian civil war, the recent confrontation between government and opposition supporters and conflict between FATAH and HAMAS in Palestine. These conflicts had important implications for human, as well as national, regional and international security.
Journals
2009 EN
Woodward Susan L.
The global security order has been evolving since 1989, led initially by the USA to expand its post‐1945 order in Europe to the rest of the world but propelled as well by competition and debates within that post‐Second World War alliance, as collective victors in the Cold War, about how to define a new international order. This article identifies three US policies that began this restructuring; their parallel redefinitions of security, and the tensions provoked by this agenda and its consequences, both within the ‘North’, replacing the ‘West’, between North and ‘South’, replacing the‘East’and the resulting multiple opportunities for alternative political coalitions, North against South, between North and South, and within the South, that have yet to play themselves out fully. The resulting fluidity has not yet stabilised into a new international security order.