Showing papers on "Theme (narrative) published in 2014"

Life Themes: A Theoretical and Empirical Exploration of Their Origins and Effects

Abstract: Whenever a person’s life is passed in review, either in an autobiography, a biography, a psychohistory, or a clinical report, a more or less implicit assumption is made that the life in question has a certain coherence, a form and purpose which is in some way uniquely different from that of others (Buhler and Massarik 1968; Pascal 1960). In fact a biography would be unimaginable if the life events of a person followed each other randomly or if they were determined only by the vector forces of genetics and social milieu. The assumption behind any biography is that the subject’s actions over time reflect a unique theme played out against a wider background of historical themes.

My Struggles with the Block Universe

Abstract: This document is the second installment of three in the Cerro Grande Fire Series. Like its predecessor arXiv:quant-ph/0105039, "Notes on a Paulian Idea," it is a collection of letters written to various friends and colleagues, most of whom regularly circuit this archive. The unifying theme of all the letters is that each has something to do with the quantum. Particularly, the collection chronicles the emergence of Quantum Bayesianism as a robust view of quantum theory, eventually evolving into the still-more-radical "QBism" (with the B standing for no particular designation anymore), as it took its most distinctive turn away from various Copenhagen Interpretations. Included are many anecdotes from the history of quantum information theory: for instance, the story of the origin of the terms "qubit" and "quantum information" from their originator's own mouth, a copy of a rejection letter written by E. T. Jaynes for one of Rolf Landauer's original erasure-cost principle papers, and much more. Specialized indices are devoted to historical, technical, and philosophical matters. More roundly, the document is an attempt to provide an essential ingredient, unavailable anywhere else, for turning QBism into a live option within the vast spectrum of quantum foundational thought.

The Shield of Homer: Narrative Structure in the Illiad

Abstract: In this masterly interpretation of narrative sequence in the Iliad, Keith Stanley not only sharpens the current debate over the date and creation of the poem, but also challenges the view of this work as primarily a celebration of heroic force. He begins by studying the intricate ring-composition in the verses describing Achilles' shield, then extends this analysis to reveal the Iliad as an elaborate and self-conscious formal whole. In so doing he defends the hypothesis that the poem as we know it is a massive reorganization and expansion of earlier "Homeric" material, written in response to the need for a stable text for repeated performance at the sixth-century Athenian festival for the city's patron goddess. Stanley explores the arrangement of the poem's books, all unified by theme and structure, showing how this allowed for artistically satisfying and practically feasible recitation over a period of three or four days. Taking structural emphasis as a guide to poetic discourse, the author argues that the Iliad is not a poem of "might"--as opposed to the Odyssean celebration of "guile"--but that in advocating social and personal reconciliation the poem offers a profound indictment of a warring heroic society. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Great Expectations: Doctoral Student Mothers in Counselor Education

Abstract: This article presents a phenomenological study of the experiences of 10 female counselor education doctoral students who are also mothers. The interviews produced the overarching theme of expectations, with 3 subthemes: self, counselor education, and society. Implications for future research and doctoral program policy are discussed.

Unsettling anthropocentrism

Abstract: This paper provides a brief critique of anthropocentrism and introduces the papers of the special theme issue on “non-anthropocentric conceptions of nature.”

Information Experience: Approaches to Theory and Practice

Abstract: ""The German word for experience - Erlebnis - the experience of the life, to live through something - underpins this book: making visible scholarly opportunities for richer and deeper contextualizations and examinations of the lived-world experiences of people in everyday contexts as they be, do and become." (Ross Todd, Preface). Information experience is a burgeoning area of research and still unfolding as an explicit research and practice theme. This book is therefore very timely as it distils the reflections of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines, with interests ranging across information, knowledge, user experience, design and education. They cast a fresh analytical eye on information experience, whilst approaching the idea from diverse perspectives. Information Experience brings together current thinking about the idea of information experience to help form discourse around it and establish a conceptual foundation for taking the idea forward. It therefore "provides a number of theoretical lenses for examining people's information worlds in more holistic and dynamic ways." (Todd, Preface)."

Insecure bodies/selves: introduction to theme section

Abstract: This short piece introduces a three-paper theme section on the theme of ‘Insecure bodies/selves’, growing out of a conference session held in 2012. Using the brief example of a brain-injured soldier's ‘shattered world’, creating a thoroughly ‘unsecured’ self/body, attention is given to how contemporary human geography has gradually opened itself to engaging with the multiple spaces of insecure bodies/selves. The three papers are then formally outlined and situated within these new currents of geographical and trans-disciplinary scholarship.

Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China

Abstract: Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China, by Hans Steinmuller. New York: Berghahn, 2013. xiv + 276 pp. US$95.00/£60.00 (hardcover).In this rich ethnography, Hans Steinmuller explores the creation of what Arthur Kleinmann calls "local moral worlds" within the village of Zhongba and the nearby market town of Bashan, in the Enshi region of Western Hubei Province. His particular focus is on the role of "everyday ethics" and "irony" in the creation of what he calls "communities of complicity". Local moral worlds, for Steinmuller, "never exist in isolation", and his book seeks to explore the complex engagements of the local with "outside frameworks, both moral and spatial" (p. 63).Steinmuller begins in Chapter 1 by considering the construction of the Bashan and Zhongba localities through an analysis of local historical sources, discourses from contemporary media and government, and local practices carried out in the family. Here Steinmuller also begins to tease out his central theme. He describes how a local farmer admitted to the power and potency of geomancy (fengshui) only after getting to know him sufficiently well. Geomancy was condemned as peasant backwardness but simultaneously also known to be crucially important in local sociality. "Such an intimate knowledge, then", Steinmuller argues, "is what makes a community of complicity" (p. 61).In Chapter 2, the book builds on the importance of geomancy by exploring changes in the siting and construction of houses in the village. Even though most houses were now "Western houses" or "small comfortable houses" made of baked bricks (as opposed to wood or stamped mud), most of them shared a common structure. In particular, the central axis of the main room (the line from the ancestral shrine towards the main door) was crucial to most households and, before new houses were constructed in the region, a geomancer was usually hired to determine the central axis. Thus, despite changes in the construction materials used for the house itself, Steinmuller stresses here the ongoing importance of "centring, linking, and gathering in the material space of the house" (p. 72).In Chapter 3, Steinmuller begins the exploration of moral ambiguities in relation to the different forms of work in which people now engage, such as migrant labor and odd jobs. He emphasizes that these forms of work "take place outside and away from the moral framework of the family. It is here, when people are seen to be abandoning the moral framework of the family, that the moral ambiguity of commodified work and consumption is felt most acutely" (p. 118).This lack of a "moral centre" once provided by the family leads on to Chapter 4, in which Steinmuller returns to the notion of "centring" as an aspect of li, or the propriety of social action. …

The effectiveness of using 'Reading To Learn, Learning To Write' pedagogy in teaching Chinese to non-Chinese speaking students in Hong Kong

Abstract: Congress Theme: Systemic Functional Linguistics and Language Education: Contemplating novel applications of well-established and evolving lines of enquiry to language education theory and practice

Some Underexamined Aspects of Evaluation Capacity Building

Abstract: Evaluation capacity building (ECB) has progressed as a concept since it was the conference theme of the American Evaluation Association in the year 2000. This commentary poses some questions about underexamined issues in ECB about organizations, evaluators, and funders.

Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives in Ecology and Evolution: A Survey

Abstract: Scientific research is often conceptually divided into empirical and theoretical approaches, and researchers often specialize as empiricists or theorists. Both approaches are essential to scientific progress, but interactions between the two groups have at times seemed problematic. I present results from a recent survey of 614 scientists (predominantly ecologists and evolutionary biologists) regarding interactions between theoretical and empirical work. Some overall themes emerged from these results. One theme is a widespread and mutual lack of trust, understanding, and interaction between empiricists and theorists. Another is a general desire, among almost all of the respondents, for greater understanding, more collaboration, and closer interactions between empirical and theoretical work. The final theme is that institutions, such as journals, funding agencies, and universities, are often seen as hindering such interactions. These results provide a clear mandate for institutional changes to improve interactions between theorists and empiricists in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Capitalism in Question

Abstract: Paul Adler was Program Chair for the 2013 meeting of the Academy of Management in Orlando, Florida, in August. In this capacity, he organized the “All-Academy Theme” component of the meeting progra...

Much Ado (or Not) About Twitter? Assessing an Emergent Communication and Sport Research Agenda:

Abstract: This Twitter Research Forum essay by Communication & Sport editor Lawrence Wenner introduces a set of invited commentary essays by leading scholars on the theme “Much Ado (or Not) About Twitter? As...

Machiavelli, Civic Humanism, and the Humanist Politics of Virtue

Abstract: Modern studies of Italian humanist political thought emphasize the theme of republican liberty, but this conception has been understood in anachronistic ways and exaggerated in importance. Much more central is the problem of how to encourage virtuous and prudent behavior in the ruling class. The humanist answer — a classical education in virtue and wisdom, along with the creation of new social technologies of persuasion — was comprehensively rejected by Machiavelli, whose own approach to political success truly introduced new modi e ordini.

Building Better Universities: Strategies, Spaces, Technologies

Abstract: List of Figures List of Textboxes Introduction: the shifting boundaries of higher education Chapter 1: Re-shaping universities and colleges Theme 1.1: Alternative universities? Theme 1.2: Radical restructuring Theme 1.3 Enhancing the student offer Chapter 2: New patterns of public and private competition and collaboration Theme 2.1: Hybrid non-profit and for-profit entities Theme 2.2: Social enterprise and civic engagement Theme 2.3: Widening participation Theme 2.4: Improving student performance Chapter 3: Responding to internationalization Theme 3.1: International collaborations Theme 3.2: International networks Theme 3.3: Developing global citizens Chapter 4: Changing learning spaces Theme 4.1: Comprehensive campus re-design Theme 4.2: Re-designing processes Theme 4.3: Creating hybrid spaces Chapter 5: Beyond virtual learning environments Theme 5.1: The massification of eLearning Theme 5.2: Seamless virtual and physical integration Theme 5.3: Increasing digital literacy Theme 5.4: Using big data Theme 5.5: Open badging Chapter 6: The implications of new technologies for learning Theme 6.1: Changing learning and teaching methods? Theme 6.2: Open sourcing and sharing Theme 6.3: Embodied learning Conclusion: Learning in a post-university world?

Traces of Another Time: History and Politics in Postwar British Fiction

Abstract: Is the historical novel the outmoded genre that some people imagine--form inseparable from romanticism, nationalism, and the nineteenth century? In this stimulating volume, Margaret Scanlan answers a convincing "no, " as she demonstrates the relevance of historical novels by well-known figures such as Anthony Burgess, John le Carr, Graham Greene, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, and Paul Scott, as well as by less well established writers such as Joseph Hone and Thomas Kilroy. Scanlan shows what a skeptical, experimental approach to the relationship between history and fiction these writers adopt and how radically they depart from the mimetic conventions usually associated with historical novels. Drawing on contemporary historiography and literary theory, Scanlan defines the problem of writing historical fiction at a time when people see the subject of history as fragmentary and uncertain. The writers she discusses avoid the great events of history to concentrate on its margins: what interests them is history as it is experienced, usually reluctantly, by human beings who would rather be doing something else. The first section of the book looks at fictional representations of England's difficult history in Ireland; the second examines spies, aliens, and the loss of public confidence; and the third probes the theme of Apocalypse, nuclear or otherwise, and depicts the collapse of the British Empire as an instance of the greatly diminished importance of Western culture in the world.

Knowledge and numbers in education

Abstract: This special issue takes as its core theme the relationship between knowledge and numbers in education, with a particular emphasis on the diverse forms of knowledge that emerge from the collection ...

Multimodal Spatio-Temporal Theme Modeling for Landmark Analysis

Abstract: Here, we discuss mining and summarizing landmarks' general themes as well as the local and temporal themes. General themes occur extensively in various landmarks, and include accommodations and other standard features. The local theme implies a specific theme that exists only at a certain landmark, such as a unique physical characteristic. The temporal theme corresponds to the location-time-representative pattern, which relates only to a certain landmark during a certain period-such as fleet week at the Golden Gate Bridge or red maple leaves in Kiyomizu-dera. Local themes are useful in landmark analysis for their discriminative and representative attributes. However, the ability to discover landmark diversity at different moments makes temporal themes equally important in landmark studies. Time dependent diversity shows complete viewing angles over time and complements local themes in landmark understanding. Furthermore, it provides more comprehensive and structured information for landmark history browsing and tourist decision making. We propose a probabilistic topic model called Multimodal Spatio-Temporal Theme Modeling (mmSTTM). The model considers both textual and visual contexts to learn general, local, and temporal themes, which span a low-dimensional theme space. The model also assigns all textual and visual keywords to each theme, along with a probability for each; a keyword with high weight assignment is meaningful for the theme, while low-weighted keywords are considered noise.

Theme and thematic progression in learner English: A literature review

Abstract: Theme and thematic progression in learner English has been studied extensively. This paper reviews the literature of Theme and thematic progression in learner English. Related articles appearing in the international journals from 1994 to 2013 are gathered and analyzed so that the following four questions can be answered: (i) How can Theme and thematic progression improve coherence in learner English output? (ii) How do English learners deviate from English native speakers in Theme and thematic progression in their output? (iii) What factors contribute to English learners’ deviation in use of Theme and thematic progression? (iv) How can instruction in Theme and thematic progression improve English learners’ use of Theme and thematic progression? Observations are also provided. This review not only provides a synthesis of the related literature in Theme and thematic progression, but also points to issues that could be further addressed in this research area.

Competitive violence and the micro‐politics of the fight label

Abstract: Although physical fighting is a common theme in research on youth, crime, and schools, social scientists have only rarely confronted a basic question: What makes a fight a ‘fight’? The label and it...

Sentences with Words: Text and Theme-Type in Die schöne Müllerin

Abstract: Research on theme-types (periods, sentences, hybrids, etc.) has dealt primarily with instrumental music. This article focuses on sentence form in vocal music, using Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin as a case study. Analysis reveals that Schubert's sentences often go hand in hand with poems that begin with rhyming couplets, that the type of sentence he uses depends upon the sense and structure of the text associated with it, and that he favors sentences with oddly repetitive presentation sections — \" manic \" versions of the form that emphasize the repetitiveness of Müller's verses and the obses-siveness of his lovesick hero. I magine that you are a composer, sitting down to write the main theme of a piano sonata and contemplating what form your theme will take. The number of possible forms available to you would be almost limitless. I say almost because that number might be limited to some extent by the conventions of the style in which you are writing or perhaps the character of the piece, but essentially your options would know no end. Now imagine that you are sitting down to write the main theme of a song, with some lines of poetry in front of you. In this case the very presence of a text would seem to reduce your choices considerably, since some poetic lines will sound more natural with some phrase structures than with others. Poetic meter and rhythm; rhyme scheme; line length; patterns of repetition , alliteration, and assonance; subtleties of tone and meaning—each of these would undoubtedly influence your decisions about the shape of your thematic material. Each would provide a creative constraint. My article focuses on these constraints and the ways that poetry and phrase structure interact. How do words influence compositional decisions about thematic design? Why might a composer set some poetic lines as a period, others as a sentence, others as a hybrid, and still others as a deviation from a recognized phrase-structural norm? Are there meaningful correlations between certain patterns of poetic rhythm, meter, and rhyme and certain theme-types? What makes some lines of poetry sound better with some theme-types than with others? For all the recent resurgence of interest in Formenlehre, scholarship on theme-types has tended not to address these questions, the main reason being that it has dealt primarily with instrumental music. 1 Though plenty has been written on the relationship between text and rhythm, text and …

Is there a relationship between critical thinking and critical reading of literary texts: A case study at Arak University (Iran)

Abstract: Examining the theme, plot, and characters of a literary work is a common practice for students of literature so that they can criticize literature. Unlike a non-critical reading which provides readers only with facts, a critical reading also entails depicting how a book or a source illustrates the subject matter. Through various reading procedures including interpretation, inference and examining ideologies embedded in texts, readers can develop critical thinking. This paper aims at examining whether or not there is a relationship between critical thinking and critical reading of literary texts in higher education. To meet the mentioned aim, 121 EFL learners from Arak University were invited to participate in this study. After administrating English proficiency test, total numbers of students were 98 male and female. Data analysis was done through employing ANOVA and T-test.

Introduction to the Anesthesiology Medical Education Theme Issue

Abstract: 1 January 2014 T HIS unique Medical Education Theme Issue, first for AnEStHESIology, furthers the Journal’s commitment to education and educational research. The topic areas well represented in this theme issue include (1) anesthesiologist’s achievement as student learners, (2) responding to learner needs by interpreting data and developing curriculum, (3) searching for return on the investment of education through documented enhanced clinical competency, and (4) engaging the anesthesiology community in education needs and interests. Experiential learning using modalities such as simulation is recognized as essential to medical education. In this Theme Issue, our specialty’s leadership and commitment to simulation education are evident in articles that include (1) a scheme for identifying clinical performance gaps early in core-resident education, (2) application of simulation to teach and enhance performance of psychomotor skills, specifically, transesophageal echocardiography, (3) exploring anesthesiologist’s communication styles during “routine” and “crisis-driven” simulation scenarios, and (4) educating faculty to provide better feedback to residents, all coupled with an Editorial to stimulate readers to ponder whether the clinical performance of anesthesiologists can be assessed and made better through the simulation setting. other key educational concepts are addressed in Theme Issue articles expounding upon (1) the patient safety curriculum and the need to reduce critical incidents through developing more effective approaches to patient handoffs, (2) competency-based education, a timely area of interest as milestone-defined education, has recently been mandated for all of graduate medical education and is currently being designed for anesthesiology-specific core-resident and specialty-fellow education, (3) cognitive psychology as a way to gain clarity on how anesthesiologists process information and formulate patient care decisions, (4) anesthesiology resident evaluation of their teachers as a guide to the identification of characteristics of “above-average” educators, (5) the impact of developing a curriculum about research on anesthesiologists contributing to research activities, (6) curriculum development for pain medicine, (7) understanding the implications of teaching airway management to nonanesthesiologists, (8) a historical account of the start of graduate education in anesthesiology, (9) an essay revealing the thought process of an individual choosing our specialty as a future career pathway, and (10) the current and future status of continuing medical education for anesthesiology. The Medical Education Theme Issue experiment by AnEStHESIology is a resounding success, demonstrating that many in our ranks have a keen interest in educational research and they wish to share their findings to inform daily clinical practice and transform our practice of anesthesia patient care. Read on and absorb all that the authors have provided for your scrutiny. Read on and learn how you can become a better teacher and guide your residents and fellows to become better anesthesiologists. Read on and let your light bulbs turn on to the future education about education that you can investigate and impart to your colleagues.

At the interface between translation history and literary history: a genealogy of the theme of ‘progress’ in seventeenth-century English translation history and criticism

Abstract: The study of English translation from the perspective of literary history suffers at times from a lack of critical attention to the construction of translation discourses through history. Insufficient awareness of the paratexts of translation has sometimes resulted in avoidable forms of anachronism and, perhaps more problematically, the failure to identify the discursive strategies at work in the margins of literary translations has led to rather simplifying narratives of linear progress. This paper focuses on the theme of ‘progress’ as a discursive strategy in major seventeenth-century English translations of Classical literature. The aim is to establish a genealogy of this trope by exploring the ideological, cultural or aesthetic tensions that the discourse on ‘improvement’ or ‘restoration’ may disguise. Particular attention is devoted to the role played by these topoi in the increasingly competitive culture of translation developing in seventeenth-century England, and to their ties with the emerging ne...

Children, youth, and subjectivity

Abstract: This special issue is on the relationship between violence and young subjectivities in contexts of conflict and post-conflict. The theme for this special issue arose out of the Economic and Social ...

Recognition, conflict and the problem of ethical community

Abstract: Recognition has become a key theme in contemporary political, social and international relations theory. Its centrality to social life appears almost self-evident given that how we recognise others...

"A Very Poetical Town": Newspaper Poetry and the Working-Class Poet in Victorian Dundee

Abstract: In the assessment of Victorian periodical poetry, newspaper verse has received comparatively little attention. As Natalie M. Houston comments in her important article on newspaper poems, this is partly due to the "privileging of individual authorship" in literary criticism, meaning that anonymous poems tend to be devalued, and due to the fact that newspaper poems often "function as topical commentary" and are thus difficult to assess once extracted from their original contexts. (1) The sheer volume of newspaper verse is daunting: recent work in the field, by Andrew Hobbs, estimates that around five million individual poems were published in the nineteenth-century provincial press. (2) Spatially, as Houston notes, poetry is easily identifiable because its layout stands out on the page; but in terms of content and form, the title of newspaper poems alone often gives little clue about their theme, and in terms of authorship, pseudonyms acquire full significance only when situated within the content of the newspaper's readerly community. James Mussell's observation that without the "shared cultural resources" which contemporary readers took for granted, "we struggle to realize the meanings and effects such texts had for their readers ... the familiarity or novelty of what was under discussion" is as true for the poetry column of the newspaper as it is for reports on contemporary events. (3) This article approaches newspaper poetry via the local and (relatively) small-scale, by analyzing the presence of poetry in three newspapers published in Victorian Scotland--the Dundee Courier, the Dundee Advertiser, and the Dundee, Perth and Forfar People's Journal--in a brief but vital period for their development, 1858-60. (4) These were not the only papers published from Dundee. While space precludes detailed consideration of more than three papers, I also reference their closest competitors, The Telegraph and the Weekly News, published by Park, Sinclair and Co., Dundee. All five newspapers had benefited from the repeal of the Stamp Duty in 1855 (and would do so further from the repeal of the Paper Duties in 1861), and were part of the massive expansion of the Scottish newspaper press after that period; in these two years, the Courier, facing decreased circulation and competition from rivals, merged with the Daily Argus and moved from weekly to Mon-Wed-Fri publication, the Advertiser to daily publication, and the short-lived Telegraph began, failed, and merged with the Weekly News. The two major weekend papers in Dundee, the older Weekly News and the new People's Journal, which began its run in 1858 and still survives today, were the success stories of this period. Such expansion and development was mirrored by the general growth of the provincial newspaper industry across Britain. As Aled Jones comments, between 1855 and 1861 "137 newspapers were established in 123 towns in England where there had previously been no local newspaper." (5) By studying publications from the same town and the same years, I argue that one of the most important directions for the study of newspaper poetry is an examination of its relations to the provincial press, which enabled a remarkably strong kinship to develop between newspapers, the working-class poet, and local readership. The significance of the provincial press in creating "a sense of local identity and attachment, " for working-class readers in particular, has been recognized by recent scholars, notably Hobbs in his work on the Lancashire press. (6) The role of poetry and the poetry column, however, still remains relatively unexplored. In publishing poetry, Victorian newspapers frequently relied upon what Meredith McGill, considering a North American context, describes as the "culture of reprinting," designed to redistribute elite culture "in a variety of mass-cultural formats. (7) Tennyson and Longfellow, who both had an international reputation by 1860, are the most cited poets in the newspapers that I consider, and Tennyson s 1859 Riflemen, Form! …

Style, Character, and the Theme of Struggle and Change: Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah

Abstract: Following insights from stylistic studies on European and American literature, as well as a few earlier attempts on African literature, there has been a recent growing interest in the stylistic analysis of the African novel. The present study is meant to contribute to this growing literature by exploring Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah , primarily from a systemic functional linguistics perspective. Critics of the novel have emphasized that it represents Achebe’s most articulate ideology on the sociopolitical situation of postcolonial Africa, in general, and Nigeria, in particular. The present study sheds new meaning on the thematic concern of the novel by exploring the interaction between narrative situation, transitivity patterning, and symbolism, on the one hand, and the characterization of Chris (one of the protagonists) and the themes of struggle and change, on the other hand. The study demonstrates that the systematic variation in narrative situations and transitivity patterns in which Chris is cast across key passages in the plot of the narrative show a transformation in his character, from powerlessness and ineffectiveness through perplexity and fear to self-reformation and bravery. This narrative and linguistic configuration of Chris’s characterization, together with the symbolic intervention he makes in saving a girl from abuse towards the end of the novel, realizes the theme of struggle and change. Through Chris, Achebe urges the enlightened but apathetic citizen to rise up and transform his society through struggle. The study has implications for studies on Anthills of the Savannah , stylistic analysis, and further research. It particularly shows that linguistic analysis and the tools of literary criticism can complement each other in the interpretation of literature.

Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion. Russia's Influence Abroad

Abstract: This book is the final product of a Chatham House project examining the mechanisms via which Russia exerts international influence. Russian ‘soft power’ was a central theme of the project and the c...

Ambivalent Characters and Fragmented Poetics in Anthropocene Literature: Max Frisch and Ilija Trojanow

Abstract: This essay discusses the value of the Anthropocene concept for the environmental humanities and in particular for the analysis of contemporary environmentally themed literature. The first part of the essay considers the culturally relevant consequences of the originally geographic Anthropocene concept, to filter out a heuristic for the analysis of literary texts. In the second part, this perspective is applied comparatively to two German-language novels that address geologic eras. Through the two examples, by Max Frisch and Ilija Trojanow, I want to argue that although environmental literature since its emergence in the 1970s has never explicitly thematized the Anthropocene, this perspective is arguably a hidden theme. I propose the term Anthropocene literature as a descriptive and diagnostic concept to characterize literary texts that reflect on the human condition in the face of fundamental human transformations of the planetary surface on a global scale.