Journals
2026 EN
Lammers Lukas
Within Abdulrazak Gurnah’s oeuvre, Afterlives is notable for its close attention to the impact of German colonialism in East Africa. Covering a period of roughly 70 years, from about 1900 to the 1970s, and moving between East Africa and Germany it explores some of the historical depth and cultural entanglements that shaped a culturally diverse region. This paper suggests that Afterlives can be seen as a commemorative event in its own right, one that effectively uses the outpouring of memories of World War I in particular as an effective foil to present, reconfigure, and connect different traumatic histories. Drawing on Michael Rothberg’s concept of multidirectional memory it argues that the novel complicates hegemonic Western accounts by making four strands of traumatic memories, in Rothberg’s words, “bump up” against each other ( 2009 , 2): memories of the two World Wars, memories of (especially German) colonialism, memories of slavery and indentured labour, and, less predictably, memories of the Holocaust. It is arguably the consistency with which these traumatic histories have been kept separate in dominant accounts that renders Gurnah’s retelling so compelling.
Journals
2026 EN
Noga-Banai Galit
The German military cemetery in Menen was founded in 1917. Between 1955 and 1959, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK) reburied there the corpses of soldiers transferred from smaller cemeteries. Designed by the VDK’s chief architect Robert Tischler (1885–1959), the cemetery features a reception house at the entrance to the grounds, as well as an octagonal chapel located in the center of the lawn. The article focuses on the architectural layout and the decorative plan of the chapel. I argue that Tischler was inspired by medieval wind-rose diagrams and by the Hellenistic Tower of the Winds in Athens. Consequently, I suggest what kind of experience Tischler was planning for visitors, and reflect on the thoughts, sentiments, and intentions of the VDK after Germany lost World War II and had to face the mass reburial of the casualties from both World Wars.
Journals
2026 EN
Rohls Jan
This essay demonstrates how Thomas Mann, in resuming work on The Magic Mountain , incorporated political and religious views encountered not only in contemporary written sources but also in the context of the events following the First World War. These views served him both to construct the antithetical positions of the progressive Settembrini and the reactionary Naphta, the two self-appointed tutors of Hans Castorp, and to formulate the synthesis of these positions, which the protagonist arrives at in the dream of the famous „Snow Chapter.“ This synthesis, the message of The Magic Mountain that transcends the novel itself, expresses the political and religious stance that Thomas Mann developed during the course of writing the novel and which represents his commitment to Weimar democracy. This stance constitutes a synthesis of the German spirit, shaped by Romanticism, with the Western spirit, a cultural synthesis, for which he explicitly invokes Ernst Troeltsch.
Journals
2026 EN
Centeno Sonsoles
The succession of crises over the past decade — the COVID-19 pandemic, the aftermath of the 2008 Economic and Financial Crisis, the war against Ukraine, and the energy crisis — has placed EU State aid policy under significant strain, blurring the general prohibition on State aid under Article 107 TFEU through the repeated use of Temporary Frameworks. Against this backdrop, this article examines the state of play of EU State aid policy and whether a new State Aid Modernisation Plan or some amendments are needed; identifying three areas for improvement (including concrete proposals): the duration of proceedings and investigation procedures; cooperation between the European Commission and Member States in ex-post enforcement; and enhanced transparency. Drawing on the Draghi and Letta reports and the current geopolitical context, the article concludes that it is the moment to reflect on structural changes to ensure that State aid control policy remains fit for purpose. Keywords: temporary frameworks; State Aid Modernisation Plan; SAM; permacrisis
Journals
2026 EN
Jingjing Yang · Mowahed Shah Mir · Reha Mariam
Abs tractIn recent decades, the role of institutions has become a central topic of discussion among scholars and policy makers. This study used time-series data from Afghanistan between 1996 and 2024 to gain new insights into the impact of political instability ( POI ), corruption ( COR ) and government effectiveness ( GEF ) on economic growth. The results of Quantile-on-Quantile Regression and Wavelet Quantile regression reveal that POI , COR , and GEF have adverse and statistically significant effects on GDP growth across all quantiles and over long-term time periods. Event analysis through the interrupted time series technique shows that the key political events, including the Civil War ( CW ), the First Round of the Taliban Regime ( FRTR ), U.S.-NATO interventions ( USN ), the Second Round of Taliban Regime ( SRTR ), and Regime Changes ( RCH ), have had a negative impact on Afghanistan’s GDP growth. The immediate impact of the Soviet Union’s war is estimated to be positive. At the same time, Afghanistan’s GDP experienced negative growth during SUW , CW , FRTR , and RCH , while during USN and SRTR , the GDP growth was positive. Based on these findings, the paper discusses possible policy implications.
BRICS Journal of Economics
Journals
2026 EN
Xiaoqing Ye · Yaoqun Xu
Hampered by fragmented data, traditional Eastern Han monetary research cannot capture currency circulation's spatiotemporal dynamics. To address key gaps, this study develops an integrated system merging HGIS, archaeological metal composition analysis, and spatio-temporal network simulation. Based on Eastern Han counties, the authors achieved high-precision coin-hoard registration and built three models (quality heat map, circulation network, time series map). Key findings include: (1) a three-tier core-edge monetary gradient (Sili-Yuzhou core, Hebei-Jingyang transition, Yizhou-Liangzhou margin); (2) the 140–160 AD Qiang War drove a 230.4% Kanto-Hexi currency surge, verifying military expenditure's traction on monetary networks; (3) post-184 AD Yellow Turban Uprising, Jiaozhi Commandery saw severe monetary centrifugation (rising diameter deviation, falling central standard coin ratio). Via a coupling framework, the authors replaced static views, tying monetary fragmentation to imperial decline and supplying a reusable pre-modern geo-economic model.
Book Series
2026 EN
Angela G. Schear · John J. Hennessy
Mercy in Disaster is about the forgotten nurse in America’s signature, iconic photograph of Civil War wounded: abolitionist Abby Hopper Gibbons. Hung in museums large and small, pictured in books, and found across the internet, rarely is what the New York Times called “one of the most remarkable women of this century” identified. More practitioner than pundit, an organizer and social reformer for nearly six decades before the war, Gibbons spent the majority of America’s largest crisis at the front or in various hospitals. Mercy in Disaster is the compilation of Gibbons’s wartime letters and journals, which are a vivid window on the emerging role of women, medical care, the struggle for freedom by African Americans, and Gibbons’s fascinating place in it all. An educated Quaker, Gibbons chronicles her efforts to overcome, avoid, or accommodate the obstacles confronting the women of her time. She responded to the suffering of war, witnessed medical care in evolution, and everywhere abetted the end of chattel slavery through aid and advocacy.
University of Georgia Press
Book Series
2026 EN
Mark A. Johnson
In American Bacon , Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culinary and cultural powerhouse? Starting in early modern Britain and tracing the story of bacon through the colonial era, the Civil War, the Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry, Johnson provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives. More than a story of production, marketing, and consumption, Johnson argues, this cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while also illuminating major historical forces, such as migration, warfare, urbanization and suburbanization, reform movements, cultural trends, and globalization. For Johnson, bacon’s story from “most dangerous food in the supermarket” to pop culture and gastronomic phenomenon reflects the cultural values of a nation.
University of Georgia Press
Book Series
2026 EN
Judkin Browning
This book explores nearly two hundred letters from Confederate deserters to Governor Zebulon B. Vance from 1861 to 1865. It shares the voices of deserters or friends and family petitioning on their behalf. Browning helps us understand who deserters were and lets us tease out some of the factors that motivated soldiers to leave their posts. These letters add vivid specificity to the often-contentious debates over deserters in the Confederacy and shed light on the changing attitudes of deserters over the course of the war. North Carolina is an excellent case study for desertion, as the state had the highest number of deserters. The Old North State also represents a microcosm of the entire South’s geography and demography.
University of Georgia Press
Book Series
2026 EN
Claire Bourhis-Mariotti
We Are American Citizens offers a groundbreaking reexamination of the antebellum national Colored Conventions, demonstrating that these gatherings constituted the first structured civil rights movement in the United States, and examines the emergence of Black transnationalism within this context. Drawing from an extensive archive of convention minutes, press coverage, and writings by Black activists, Bourhis-Mariotti shows how free people of color used these conventions not only to protest racial injustice but to build a collective political identity and formulate strategies to claim their rightful place as American citizens. Indeed, the conventions functioned as collaborative spaces where diverse voices debated, strategized, and forged solidarity across regional and (trans)national boundaries. These animated discussions gave rise to a diasporic political and social consciousness, shaping the Black community as both a social and political group in the decades leading up to the Civil War. The study reveals how strategies—from respectability to emigrationism—evolved in response to shifting local and federal contexts and how Black activists engaged with American and foreign people of color. Importantly, it challenges the view that Black emigrationism undermined civil rights efforts, positioning it instead as a foundational expression of Black transnationalism. Ultimately, the book restores the conventions to their rightful place at the heart of early Black activism and political thought.
University of Georgia Press