Nearly one hundred years after Franz Kafka’s death, his works continue to intrigue and haunt us. Kafka is regarded as one of the most significant intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and even for those who are only barely acquainted with his novels, stories, diaries, or letters, “Kafkaesque” has become a term synonymous with the menacing, unfathomable absurdity of modern existence and bureaucracy. While the significance of his fiction is wide-reaching, Kafka’s writing remains inextricably bound up with his life and work in a particular place: Prague. It is here that the author spent every one of his forty years. Drawing from a range of documents and historical materials, this is the first book specifically dedicated to the relationship between Kafka and Prague. Klaus Wagenbach’s account of Kafka’s life in the city is a meticulously researched insight into the author’s family background, his education and employment, his attitude toward the town of his birth, his literary influences, and his relationships with women. The result is a fascinating portrait of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic writer and the city that provided him with so much inspiration. W. G. Sebald recognized that “literary and life experience overlap” in Kafka’s works, and the same is true of this book.
Using diaries and letters, Wagenbach offers an extensive biography on Kafka that explores the writer's inner turmoil and troubled psyche. 50 illustrations.
Using diaries and letters, Wagenbach offers an extensive biography on Kafka that explores the writer's inner turmoil and troubled psyche. 50 illustrations.
Nearly one hundred years after Franz Kafka’s death, his works continue to intrigue and haunt us. Kafka is regarded as one of the most significant intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and even for those who are only barely acquainted with his novels, stories, diaries, or letters, “Kafkaesque” has become a term synonymous with the menacing, unfathomable absurdity of modern existence and bureaucracy. While the significance of his fiction is wide-reaching, Kafka’s writing remains inextricably bound up with his life and work in a particular place: Prague. It is here that the author spent every one of his forty years. Drawing from a range of documents and historical materials, this is the first book specifically dedicated to the relationship between Kafka and Prague. Klaus Wagenbach’s account of Kafka’s life in the city is a meticulously researched insight into the author’s family background, his education and employment, his attitude toward the town of his birth, his literary influences, and his relationships with women. The result is a fascinating portrait of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic writer and the city that provided him with so much inspiration. W. G. Sebald recognized that “literary and life experience overlap” in Kafka’s works, and the same is true of this book.
This book is offers a broad, comparative survey of a booming field within the history of science: the history, generation, use, and function of images in scientific practice. It explores every aspect of visuality in science, arguing for the concept of visual domains. What makes a good scientific image? What cultural baggage is essential to it? Is science indeed defined by its pictures? This book aims to provide a synthesis of the history, generation, use, and transfer of images in scientific practice. It delves into the rich reservoir of case studies on visual representations in scientific and technological practice that have accumulated over the past couple of decades by historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science. The main aim is thus located on the meta-level. It adopts an integrative view of recurrently noted general features of visual cultures in science and technology, something hitherto unachieved and believed by many to be a mission impossible. By systematic comparison of numerous case studies, the purview broadens away from myopic microanalysis in search of overriding patterns. The many different disciplines and research areas involved encompass mathematics, technology, natural history, medicine, the geosciences, astronomy, chemistry, and physics. The chosen examples span the period from the Renaissance to the late 20th century. The broad range of visual representations in scientific practice is treated, as well as schooling in pattern recognition, design and implementation of visual devices, and a narrowing in on the special role of illustrators and image specialists.
This book investigates how sustainability informs the universal principles used in domestic and international law. It calls for the acceptance of sustainability as a recognized legal principle which could be applied to the entire legal system rather than just environmental law and regardless of its international or domestic levels. To this end, the book makes a contribution to a theory of global law by discussing whether, as a universally shared concern, environmental protection and the principle of sustainability should contribute to the 'greening' of the fundamental principles of law and governance. The book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of environmental law and governance.
Originally published in German in 1988, The Apocalypse in Germany is now available for the first time in English. A fitting subject for the dawn of the new millennium, the apocalypse has intrigued humanity for the last two thousand years, serving as both a fascinating vision of redemption and a profound threat. A cross-disciplinary study, The Apocalypse in Germany analyzes fundamental aspects of the apocalypse as a religious, political, and aesthetic phenomenon. Author Klaus Vondung draws from religious, philosophical, and political texts, as well as works of art and literature. Using classic Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts as symbolic and historical paradigms, Vondung determines the structural characteristics and the typical images of the apocalyptic worldview. He clarifies the relationship between apocalyptic visions and utopian speculations and explores the question of whether modern apocalypses can be viewed as secularizations of the Judeo-Christian models. Examining sources from the eighteenth century to the present, Vondung considers the origins of German nationalism, World War I, National Socialism, and the apocalyptic tendencies in Marxism as well as German literature--from the fin de siècle to postmodernism. His analysis of the existential dimension of the apocalypse explores the circumstances under which particular individuals become apocalyptic visionaries and explains why the apocalyptic tradition is so prevalent in Germany. The Apocalypse in Germany offers an interdisciplinary perspective that will appeal to a broad audience. This book will also be of value to readers with an interest in German studies, as it clarifies the riddles of Germany's turbulent history and examines the profile of German culture, particularly in the past century.
This book, written by a prominent German political scientist and specialist for political theory and comparative government, analyses right-wing populism as a topical theme of postmodern party systems in Europe and the United States.
Klaus Mollenhauer’s Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing is internationally regarded as one of the most important German contributions to educational and curriculum theory in the 20th century. Appearing here in English for the first time, the book draws on Mollenhauer’s concern for social justice and his profound awareness of the pedagogical tension between the inheritance of the past and the promise of the future. The book focuses on the idea of Bildung, in which philosophy and education come together to see upbringing and maturation as being much more about holistic experience than skill development. This translation includes a detailed introduction from Norm Friesen, the book’s translator and editor. This introduction contextualizes the original publication and discusses its application to education today. Although Mollenhauer’s work focused on content and culture, particularly from a German perspective, this book draws on philosophy and sociology to offer internationally relevant responses to the challenge of communicating cultural values and understandings to new generations. Forgotten Connections will be of value to students, researchers and practitioners working in the fields of education and culture, curriculum studies, and in educational and social foundations.
This book is addressed to both research scientists at universities and technical institutes and to engineers in the metal forming industry. It is based upon the author's experience as head of the Materials Science Department of the In stitut fUr Umformtechnik at the University of Stuttgart. The book deals with materials testing for the special demands of the metal for ming industry. The general methods of materials testing, as far as they are not directly related to metal forming, are not considered in detail since many books are available on this subject. Emphasis is put on the determination of processing properties of metallic materials in metal forming, i. e. the forming behavior. This includes the evaluation of stress-strain curves by tensile, up setting or torsion tests as well as determining the limits of formability. Among these subjects, special emphasis has been laid upon recent developments in the field of compression and torsion testing. The transferability of test results is discussed. Some testing methods for the functional properties of workpieces in the final state after metal forming are described. Finally, methods of testing tool materials for bulk metal forming are treated. Testing methods for surface properties and tribological parameters have not been included. The emphasis is put on the deformation of the specimens. Prob lems related to the testing machines and measuring techniques as well as the use of computers are only considered in very few cases deemed necessary.
Since the appearance of its first edition in Germany in 1979, A History of German Literature has established itself as a classic work used by students and anyone interested in German literature. The volume chronologically traces the development of German literature from the Middle Ages to the present day. Throughout this chronology, literary developments are set in a social and political context. This includes a final chapter, written for this latest edition, on the consequences of the reunification of Germany in 1990. Thoroughly interdiscipinary in method, the work also reflects recent developments in literary criticism and history. Highly readable and stimulating, A History of German Literature succeeds in making the literature of the past as immediate and engaging as the works of the present. It is both a scholary study and an invaluable reference work for students.
Few scientific communities have been more thoroughly studied than 20th-century German physicists. Yet their behaviour and patterns of thinking immediately after the war remains puzzling. During the first five post war years they suspended their internecine battles and a strange solidarity emerged. Former enemies were suddenly willing to exonerate each other blindly and even morally upright physicists began to write tirades against the 'denazification mischief' or the 'export of scientists'. Personal idiosyncrasies melded into a strangely uniform pattern of rejection or resistance to the Allied occupiers, with attendant repressed feelings and self-pity. Politics was once again perceived as remote, dirty business. It was feared that the least concession of guilt would bring down even more severe sanctions on their discipline. Using tools from the history of mentality, such as analysis of serial publications, these tendencies are examined. The perspective of emigré physicists, as reflected in their private letters and reports, embellish this portrait.
This book of a renowned political scientist and specialist in political theory fundamentally challenges the new fashion of post-democracy by offering an outlook on ‘neo-democracy’. The political periods are similar to epochs in modern art, where ‘neo’ succeeded Post-impressionism and Post-expressionism. This book reviews the topical debate on postdemocracy and scenarios of decline in democratic theory without the alternative of dictatorship. It discusses criticism of politics in the old and new media and a new culture of protest. It addresses new forms of participation and the dangers of populism and right-wing extremism. It proposes institutional reforms of democracy, of the parliamentary system and the party state, in negotiations of coalition-building, in governmental declarations and for the policy output. The book concludes with a debate of normative models of democracy from ‘Post-democracy’ to ‘Neo-democracy’, models of justice and theories of democratic reform.
Almost a billion people all over the earth suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Many of them are starving while the world's population continues to grow dramatically. The population in the industrialized nations, whose hunger is still abundantly satisfied, must struggle with the costs of heavily subsidized overproduction of food. Still, the worldwide lack of food will also pose a threatening problem to them.
Offering an overview on health and healthy living from classical Antiquity through to the mid-19th century, when scientific medicine began to gain ascendancy, this book shows that despite the diversity of notions of 'healthy' and 'ill', directions on healthy living remain surprisingly constant throughout the centuries.
Klaus von Beyme is a distinguished German political scientist and recipient of the Mattei Dogan Award of Political Science (2012). In honour of his 80th birthday this book addresses political culture, cultural policy, art and politics. The first part on transformation theory analyses: “Historical Memories in Political Theories”, “Historical Memory in Nation-Building and the Building of Ethnic Subsystems”, “The Concept of Totalitarianism – A Reassessment After the Breakdown of Soviet Rule”, “Political Culture – A Concept from Ideological Refutation to Acceptance in the Soviet Social Sciences”, “Institutions and Political Culture in Post-Soviet Russia” and “Political and Economic Consolidation in Eastern Europe. Evidence from Empirical Data”. The second part on cultural policies addresses “Why is There No Political Science of the Arts?”, “Historical Memory and the Arts in the Era of the Avantgardes: Archaisme and Passéisme as a ‘passéisme of the future’”, and “Capital-building in Post-war Germany”.
This book investigates how sustainability informs the universal principles used in domestic and international law. It calls for the acceptance of sustainability as a recognized legal principle which could be applied to the entire legal system rather than just environmental law and regardless of its international or domestic levels. To this end, the book makes a contribution to a theory of global law by discussing whether, as a universally shared concern, environmental protection and the principle of sustainability should contribute to the 'greening' of the fundamental principles of law and governance. The book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of environmental law and governance.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.