Behemoth : a Journal on Civilisation 

About: Behemoth : a Journal on Civilisation is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & State (polity). It has an ISSN identifier of 1866-2447. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 142 publications have been published receiving 1089 citations.

The Abolition of Man

Abstract: Scepticism and fear about biotechnology is widespread. It takes two important literary forms, namely dystopias and jeremiads. Neither is compelling in itself, but together they provide a strong collection of arguments for great caution. The dystopias examined here range from Aldous Huxley′s Brave New World to o two recent novels by Margaret Atwood. The Jeremiads range from C. S. Lewis in 1942 to Habermas and Fukuyama.

Unequal ‘Partners’. AIDS, Academia, and the Rise of Global Health

Abstract: The last decade has seen the proliferation of "global health" departments, centers, programs, and majors across top research universities in North America and Europe. This trend has been particularly pronounced in the United States, where it is connected to America′s new role as a major sponsor of HIV treatment in Africa. This paper describes the rise of "global health" as a research, funding, and training priority within U.S. academic medicine, and the increasing desirability of "global health partnerships" with institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. Leading spokespersons emphasize that "partnership" with poor nations is central to the mission of global health, an ethic that distinguishes it from older, more paternalistic traditions of international health and tropical medicine. However, at the same time, the field of academic global health depends on steep inequalities for its very existence, as it is the opportunity to work in impoverished, low-tech settings with high disease burdens that draws North American researchers and clinicians to global health programs and ensures their continued funding. This paradox – in which inequality is both a form of suffering to be redressed and a professional, knowledge-generating, opportunity to be exploited – makes the partnerships to which global health aspires particularly challenging.

The vulnerable can't speak. An integrative vulnerability approach to disaster and climate change research

Abstract: This article discusses a vulnerability approach to disaster research and research on climate change adaptation. As an integrated approach, it claims to consider social, economic and ecological factors. A hypothesis is debated in which the vulnerability of a reference unit (humans, community, ecosystem, etc.) is highly dependent on the degree of influence the unit can exert on its relevant conditions for subsistence. The ability to influence theses conditions depends, to a large extent, on discursive factors. To emphasise this special determinant of vulnerability, the term “participative capacity” is proposed.

Vorbeugen ist besser … Zur Soziologie der Prävention

Abstract: In neun Thesen skizziert der Artikel aus soziologischer Perspektive die spezifische Rationalitat und die Technologien vorbeugenden Handelns. Pravention wird dabei beschrieben als ubergreifender Modus des Zukunftsmanagements zeitgenossischer Gesellschaften.

Werner Schiffauer: Parallelgesellschaften. Wie viel Wertekonsens braucht unsere Gesellschaft? Für eine kluge Politik der Differenz. Bielefeld: transcript 2008.

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