Steffen Schneider

Angela Fabris

Albert Göschl

Mediterranean studies flourish in literary and cultural studies, but concepts of the Mediterranean and the theories and methods they use are very disparate. This is because the Mediterranean is not a simple geographical or historical unity, but a multiplicity, a network of highly interconnected elements, each of which is different and individual. Talking about Mediterranean literature raises the question of whether the connectivity of Mediterranean literature can or should be limited in some way by constructing an inside and an outside of the Mediterranean. What kind of connectivity and fragmentation do literary texts produce, how do they build and interrupt references (to the real, to fictional forms of representation, to history, but also to other texts and discourses), how do they create and deny communication, and how do they engage with and reflect literary and non-literary concepts of the Mediterranean? These and other questions are considered and discussed in the over twenty contributions gathered in this volume.

Towards a Theory of Mediterranean Literature

Sea of Literatures

mareTV - Reportage: Mississippi, der Fluss im Meer

H. Rothgang

The democratic nation state of the post-war era has undergone major transformations since the 1970s, and political authority has been both internationalized and privatized. The thirteen chapters of this edited collection deal with major transformations of governance arrangements and state responsibilities in the countries of the OECD world. A unified conceptual and explanatory framework is used to describe trajectories of state change, to explain the internationalization or privatization of responsibilities in the resource, law, legitimacy and welfare dimensions of the democratic nation state, and to probe the state's role in the today's post-national constellation of political authority. As the contributions show, an unravelling of state authority has indeed occurred, but the state nevertheless continues to play a key role in emerging governance arrangements. Hence it is not merely a 'victim' of globalization and other driving forces of change.

Dimensions, Driving Forces, and Trajectories

State Transformations in OECD Countries

Henning Schmidtke

Sebastian Haunss

Jennifer Gronau

This volume examines why the 2008 financial crisis with the subsequent Great Recession did not foster a major institutional transformation of the capitalist market economy. It highlights the role of ideas and public discourse in explaining institutional stability and change in the wake of economic crises and other critical junctures. Examining legitimation discourse in four OECD countries (Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States) between 1998 and 2011, the contributions to the volume use different text-analytical methods to bring out the ideas that underpin affirmative and critical media discourse on the capitalist regime. Individual chapters focus on the contours and trajectories of legitimation discourse before and after the financial crisis, on the attribution of responsibility for the crisis, on the use of metaphors and narratives, and on the formation of discourse coalitions challenging the regime. Together, they show that the post-2008 legitimation crisis of the capitalist market economy did not result in its sustained delegitimation or in powerful new ideas that might have mobilized support for radical institutional change. The book will appeal to students and scholars of economic sociology, media studies and political science.

Capitalism and Its Legitimacy in Times of Crisis

Spirits in Early Modern Science, Religion, Literature and Music

Aisthetics of the Spirits

Frank Nullmeier

Dominika Biegon

Falk Lenke

Auch ökonomische Ordnungen können an Legitimität verlieren. Viele Beobachter erwarteten, dass mit der Finanzmarkt- und der Eurokrise die Marktwirtschaft in die Kritik geraten würde. Der Band zeigt in empirischen Analysen für vier Länder über 15 Jahre, wie sich die öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit und die Bewertung von Marktwirtschaft und Kapitalismus verändert haben. Ob die Marktwirtschaft in eine Legitimationskrise geraten ist oder ein andauerndes Unbehagen an der Ökonomie dominiert, wird in diesem Buch untersucht.

Ein internationaler Vergleich

Marktwirtschaft in der Legitimationskrise?

English summary: The notion 'spirit' is dazzling: it has manifold meanings and plays a crucial role in Early Modern medicine, psychology, religion, natural philosophy and cosmology. This book contains twenty papers, written by international experts; it explores how those disciplines conceived of the spirits and shows that knowledge of the spirits is an essential prerequisite for the understanding of Renaissance literature and music. The volume focuses on the way in which the spirits act upon the soul's perception, imagination and cognition, and on the cultural practices which aim to use, to purge, or to ban the spirits. German description: Der Begriff des Spiritus ist schillernd: mit seinen vielfaltigen Bedeutungen bildet er einen zentralen Bezugspunkt fur die fruhneuzeitliche Medizin, Psychologie, Religion, Naturerkenntnis und Kosmologie. Das Buch enthalt zwanzig Beitrage von internationalen Experten, es untersucht die Konzeptionen der Spiritus in diesen Disziplinen und zeigt, dass deren Kenntnis eine wichtige Voraussetzung fur das Verstandnis vormoderner Literatur und Musik darstellt. Der Band fokussiert die Rolle der Spiritus fur Wahrnehmung, Vorstellung und Erkenntnis und die kulturellen Praktiken, mit denen die Geister genutzt oder gebannt werden konnen.

Steffen Schneider

Books

Your next favorite book is out there