Böcker utgivna av ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon

This wide-ranging collection of academic essays examines the various undertakings by modern intellectuals and ideologues in the process of propaganda and political debate. Matthew Feldman calls attention to the substantial role played in post-Great War Europe and the US by religions¿both familiar monotheisms like Christianity and secular ¿political faiths¿¿over the last century of upheaval and revolutionary change. While the first part considers Ezra Pound as a case study in fascist ¿conversion¿ in Mussolini¿s Italy, leading to extensive propaganda, the second half examines other fascist ideologues like Martin Heidegger to fascist murderer Anders Behring Breivik, before turning to other leading ideologies in modern Europe and the US, communism and liberalism, covering key figures from Thomas Merton and Albert Camus to the Russian Constructionists and Samuel Beckett, with especial focus on the subjects of modern warfare, political terrorism, and genocide, ranging from Stalinist gulags to the war in Iraq. With thought-provoking discussion of the interplay between belief and modern politics as understood by familiar intellectual voices, this volume will be of interest to scholars and general readers alike.

Helmut Meier's study of pro- and anti-slavery texts from 1784-1825 focuses on understanding the distinct image of Africans in the British debate on the slave trade and slavery as such. Starting from the premise that, at the threshold from the early to the late modern period, the distinct image of Africans as slaves was instrumental in universalizing a Eurocentric concept of capitalist wage labor both at the colonial centres and margins, Meier argues that, by portraying African slaves as suffering wretches, especially anti-slavery texts created colonial Others in an indistinct zone between inclusion and exclusion from humanity. The discourse on slavery thus constructs African slaves as mimetic Others which could subsequently become the objects of a discourse of colonial reform and 'betterment'.

The theory of capital structure is one of the most exciting and complex topics in corporate finance. After many years of debate it is still extremely difficult to provide a conclusive answer to the question which capital structure maximises the value of a company and what factors determine the optimal mix of debt and equity capital.This book provides a comprehensive introduction to capital structure theory and investigates its practical relevance in the German market. The main objectives are to explore the link between capital structure theory and corporate practice and to test determinants of capital structure choice empirically.The book has been written for students, researchers, and academics, but also for practitioners seeking empirical evidence of capital structure theory and an empirical model that can be used to estimate the optimal level of debt for an individual company in relation to an existing industry optimum.

Die deutschen Besatzer und ihre einheimischen Helfer ermordeten zwischen 1941 und 1944 in Ostgalizien mehr als eine halbe Million Juden. Lemberg, die größte Stadt dieser multiethnischen und geschichtsreichen Region, veränderte in Folge der Shoah vollkommen ihr Gesicht - ebenso wie Buczacz, Tarnopil und viele andere Orte, in denen Juden mit Ukrainern und Polen zusammengelebt hatten. Nur wenige Juden haben die dreijährige deutsche Besatzungszeit überlebt, darunter auch Eliyahu Yones, der Autor dieser Monographie, der sich erst nach Jahrzehnten dazu entschloss, sich mit der Verfolgung und Vernichtung der Lemberger und ostgalizischen Juden wissenschaftlich auseinanderzusetzen sowie mit ihrem Leben unter der sowjetischen Besatzung. Yones wertete eine nahezu unüberschaubare Anzahl von Quellen und Publikationen in deutscher, englischer, hebräischer, jiddischer, polnischer, ukrainischer und russischer Sprache aus. Es gibt bislang kaum Veröffentlichungen, in denen man ein vergleichbares Maß an Informationen über das vielfältige kulturelle Leben der galizischen Juden, über die zionistischen Bewegungen in der sowjetischen Besatzungszeit oder über die Organisationen jüdischer Jugend in Ostgalizien findet. Ebenso geben seine Analysen der Arbeitslager, des Lebens in den Ghettos und auch der Deportationen in das Vernichtungslager Belzec bislang ungekannte, durch ihren Detailreichtum erschütternde Einblicke in das Leben und Leiden der ostgalizischen Juden. Yones' Buch verbindet erlebte mit erforschter Geschichte und leistet so einen Beitrag zur integrierten Geschichtsschreibung, die sowohl die Dokumente der Täter als auch der Opfer ernst nimmt, kritisch auswertet und zusammenführt.

Ob-scene Spaces in Australian Narrative is an exhaustive survey of Australian literature proposing itself as a journey through time and space. With a careful selection of texts which recount Australian history from the early days of white colonization to the present, this study endeavours to cast light on the process of socio-topographic construction that the settlers imposed upon the continent.As suggested by the title, the textual inquiry conducted in this book is driven by the stimulating ambiguity that lies between physical space and its discursive construction. A selection of canonical and non-canonical texts by authors ranging from Henry Lawson to Christos Tsiolkas aims to reveal the relationship between the space of the city (the scene) and the outback (the ob-scene space beyond the metropolitan area) and its role in the process of spatial construction that, through the last two centuries, has shaped Australia.Pablo Armellino's distinctive approach to Australian literature makes Ob-scene Spaces in Australian Narrative a very interesting work. Using a carefully selected range of novels, linked together using social and literary theory, it recounts the history of colonization in Australia in a particularly approachable manner. Through the analysis of each text the reader seamlessly learns about the expansion of the frontier, the creation of an ob-scene space beyond it and the use the Discourse makes of this mechanism. These characteristics would appeal to both an academic audience, which would appreciate the detailed text analysis, and a general audience, which would enjoy the historical and thematic aspect of the book.- Professor Carmen Concilio and Professor Pietro Deandrea, Facoltà di Lingue, Università di Torino

The theoretical basis of this book is the assumption that stereotyping is a phenomenon which manifests itself primarily through language. It is further based on the observation that slang provides a large number of expressions that imply particular stereotypes.The focus lies on investigating the nature of both stereotyping and slang, illustrating the subject by a survey that analyses how certain national stereotypes are expressed in selected slang terms.

During the last few years, the German higher education landscape has witnessed an increase in the delegation of decision power from the state to the universities. In order to adapt to this new situation, universities are more and more looking at management structures, decision-making systems, and governance mechanisms as fundamental performance drivers. The objective of this dissertation is to provide an economic insight into the inner workings of universities in Germany, thus answering the question of how they should organize themselves in order to persist in times of economic, organizational, and competitive challenges. Special focus lies on the analysis of the role of faculty in participative university decision-making and its positive and negative effects on the university. Based on theoretical and empirical analysis, the dissertation outlines policy recommendations that may help to overcome the problems inherent in today's university management and governance structures in Germany.

Margaret Atwood's novels are photographs of her characters' lives: while words only ever describe her protagonists' blurred visions of their pasts, their 'true' stories are told in subtexts which run parallel or even contrary to the main story line and which depict the unseen, the buried, the 'untrue'. Replete with intertextual references, her fiction illuminates that and why "[w]hat isn't there has a presence, like the absence of light" (The Blind Assassin). She plays with our conventional modes of perception to make us aware of the way we frame reality in our minds. Andrea Strolz discusses in her book the interrelation between metafictional and intertextual features in two of Atwood's novels that share many similarities, even though written in different decades. She examines how Atwood weaves intertextual references into her fiction, how she facilitates a reader's recognition of the intertexts, and she shows that Atwood's narrator-protagonists also reflect on our age as one of intertextuality.

The necessity of a religious dialogue between Christians and Muslims these days has come to mind very often for a lot of reasons - especially in the process of globalization. What happened on September 11, 2001 and its consequences have reinforced the necessity. Not only a religion but also its followers, numbering more than a billion people, run the risk of falling into disrepute thereby.Islamic teaching according to the latest religion coming from Abraham confirms the previous religions. Islam is the only religion after Christ which recognizes in Jesus not only the Word of God, but also sees in Jesus a sign of God's love and mercy. The following verse is a witness to the importance of the Jewish and the Christian belief from the Islamic view."Say ye: "We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to Ibrahim, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub, and the Tribes, and that given to Musa and 'Isa, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord: we make no difference between one and another of them: and we bow to God (in Islam)." [2:136] The diversity in God's offer is a wealth which we absolutely must recognize today.

These proceedings of the symposium 'The Rhetoric of Sociopolitical Power and Representations of Victim-hood in Contemporary Literature,' conducted by the Department of American Culture and Literature at Haliç University, Istanbul, on 13-15 April 2005 contain discussions of power and victimization as represented in contemporary literatures in light of the leading questions and issues in contemporary literary criticism, the emphasis being on writing from the Anglophone world.The authors treated include Angela Carter, Colm Toibin, Alan Hollinghurst, Tony Harrison, Henry James, David Mamet, Anne Sexton, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Terry Tempest Williams, Margaret Atwood, Derek Walcott, J. M. Coetzee, Jean Anouilh, Thomas Mann, Ricardo Piglia, Luisa Valenzuela, Naguib Mahfouz, Kemal Yalç¿n, Orhan Pamuk, Kobo Abe.

This book includes contributions by African, East and West European, Asian and North American scholars which deal with and compare ideological and non-ideological approaches to the analysis of literary, artistic as well as popular works (popular music) mostly by American authors. Most of the essays deal with a way various aspects of American identity are depicted, represented, treated, ideologized and aestheticized in different literary genres, forms of art and media. The contributions offer multidisciplinary, cross-cultural and comparative perspectives and represent a diversity of scholarly voices ranging from the general discussion on the relationship between ideology and art (Anton Pokrivcák), ideology and multiculturalism (Cristina Garrigós). They also give the analysis of poetry (Pokrivcák, Obododima Oha), postmodern fiction (Pi-Hua Ni, Cristina Garrigós), drama (Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, Csaba Csapó) as well as the comparative analysis of the depiction of the identity of North American Indians in such different media as literature and film (Michal Peprník). In addition to this, the book includes the analysis of Black rap music (Wojciech Kallas).

This book offers far-reaching insights into perceptions of conflict in South Africa. Claude-Hélène Mayer's approach is remarkable, because she imparts the recollections of numerous people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The author captures the essence of about one-hundred interviews reflecting disparate attitudes towards social changes in the post-apartheid Republic of South Africa. Unexpected statements - for example, with respect to the continued existence of internalized apartheid - are carefully analyzed and hermeneutically understood. At the beginning of the research, presumptions might have raised expectations for the similarity between the narrative interviews. However, it becomes clear during the reading of this work that each interview was itself unique and each created a unique situation between the interviewer and the interviewee, inviting the reader to listen again and again to the spoken and analyzed words. The thorough, months-long field stays, from 1999 until 2004, emphasize the researcher's exhaustive effort better to understand the perspective of the interviewees. In addition to the book's research-related merits, its data can increase the cultural competence of those readers who are interested in information on specific predominant-cultural standards in present day South Africa. Readers can more fully appreciate how the people in South Africa live a special, dynamic form of their unmatched "unity in diversity."