59 research outputs found
On Making Fiction: Frankenstein and the Life of Stories
Fiction is generally understood to be a fascinating, yet somehow deficient affair, merely derivative of reality. What if we could, instead, come up with an affirmative approach that takes stories seriously in their capacity to bring forth a substance of their own? Iconic texts such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its numerous adaptations stubbornly resist our attempts to classify them as mere representations of reality. The author shows how these texts insist that we take them seriously as agents and interlocutors in our world- and culture-making activities. Drawing on this analysis, she develops a theory of narrative fiction as a generative practice
Where the nation would dwell the Hellenization of Southern Macedonia, 1913- 1940
Defence date: 9 December 2019Examining Board:
Prof. Pieter Judson, European University Institute;
Prof. Lucy Riall, European University Institute;
Prof. Marco Armiero, KTH Royal Institute of Technology;
Prof. Socrates Petmezas, University of CreteThis thesis constitutes an attempt to construct a complete narrative that would explain the incorporation of southern Macedonia to the Greek state as an integral part of the country. The initial research proposal of this thesis was to investigate how the Greek state apparatus used the Macedonian environment as a blank canvas upon which it constructed cultural or national landscapes. This would presumably showcase the Hellenic character of Macedonia in the eyes of the local Macedonian peasantry and the threatening aspirations of the surrounding states. As it is argued here however, the impact that the cultural landscape campaign had was minimal. Instead -this thesis asserts- the Greek state apparatus needed to disintegrate the established systems of agricultural production and shift the paradigm toward the commodification of production in order secure its rule over Macedonia. In an attempt to achieve that, several Societies with ties to state officials sought to convince the peasants of southern Macedonia to maximize their production, especially from 1913 to 1922 but to no avail. The population exchange between Greece and the Republic of Turkey changed everything. One of the focal points of this thesis is the argument that in the post-1923 era, the Greek state used the hundreds of thousands of refugees that resettled in southern Macedonia both as colonists as well as a workforce willing to produce cheap surpluses. It is suggested here that this overwhelming influx alienated the local Macedonians from their land and therefore destroyed their economic ecosystems at the same time corroding the social coherence of their communities. Furthermore, this thesis also explores the infrastructural changes that the Greek state introduced in Macedonia to ensure the consolidation of the incoming refugee communities. For that reason several chapters in this work are dedicated to topics such as the agricultural cooperative movement, the anti-malarial policies and the development of urban planning for the new refugee settlements
Writing in Water / Ins Wasser schreiben: Studies in the Epistemology of Metaphor / Studien zur Epistemologie der Metapher
The book contains a collection of historical and systematic studies on metaphors and related topics, in German and English, that were first drafted as initial elaborations of the author's research project on the historical and systematic philosophy of language at the University of Tübingen in two periods (1992–1994 and 1996–1999). About half of the essays have been published before in some form but for this edition they have been improved upon or revised to fit better with the book as a whole. The groundwork for this collection was laid in the mid-1990s by the first review paper, written in Croatian, devoted to the topic.
The papers collected in this volume are only in German and English. Grouped in sections, they do not represent different language versions of the same text but provide individual elaborations of interrelated topics in German or in English. Each begins with different problems of both historical and systematic nature and each ends, hopefully, by contributing new points to their respective topic. As a result, every chapter can be read either as an alternative to the paper it is paired with in the respective section or as a supplement to other texts.The book contains a collection of historical and systematic studies on metaphors and related topics, in German and English, that were first drafted as initial elaborations of the author's research project on the historical and systematic philosophy of language at the University of Tübingen in two periods (1992–1994 and 1996–1999). About half of the essays have been published before in some form but for this edition they have been improved upon or revised to fit better with the book as a whole. The groundwork for this collection was laid in the mid-1990s by the first review paper, written in Croatian, devoted to the topic.
The papers collected in this volume are only in German and English. Grouped in sections, they do not represent different language versions of the same text but provide individual elaborations of interrelated topics in German or in English. Each begins with different problems of both historical and systematic nature and each ends, hopefully, by contributing new points to their respective topic. As a result, every chapter can be read either as an alternative to the paper it is paired with in the respective section or as a supplement to other texts
Cyprus: The Island still divided between Turkey and Greece's influences.
openThe Cyprus problem represents one of the few still open conflicts within the European borders. At the same time, it corresponds to the only island divided into two different parties in which the capital, Nicosia, is known to be “the last divided capital” in Europe. This situation has seen only tiny improvements since the escalation of this issue, at the beginning of the 1960s. But the problem does not find its origin uniquely within the island’s border, rather it is the result of the foreign policy preferences and practices that external countries, neighbours and not, implemented towards the island: starting from the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, to the modern relations between Greece and Turkey. And despite the official independence of the island from the United Kingdom obtained in 1960, Cyprus is located at the heart of one of the most unstable and precarious region, the MENA area, in which every country influences the actions of all the others, more than it happens in other regions. For Cyprus, these persuasive and affecting decisions come mainly from other two countries, Greece and Turkey, whose relationship has presented many complications since the establishment of the two independent nations. The rivalry between them, however, has not seen any improvements and, today, it can still be judged as one of the factors responsible for the non-resolution of the Cyprus problem. This primordial antagonism, nevertheless, is difficult to be solved in the first place as it is composed of many intersecting aspects, from the oldest struggle for supremacy in the Aegean to the most recent rivalry for the control of energy resources, each of which contributes to the non-resolution of the Cyprus problem.The Cyprus problem represents one of the few still open conflicts within the European borders. At the same time, it corresponds to the only island divided into two different parties in which the capital, Nicosia, is known to be “the last divided capital” in Europe. This situation has seen only tiny improvements since the escalation of this issue, at the beginning of the 1960s. But the problem does not find its origin uniquely within the island’s border, rather it is the result of the foreign policy preferences and practices that external countries, neighbours and not, implemented towards the island: starting from the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, to the modern relations between Greece and Turkey. And despite the official independence of the island from the United Kingdom obtained in 1960, Cyprus is located at the heart of one of the most unstable and precarious region, the MENA area, in which every country influences the actions of all the others, more than it happens in other regions. For Cyprus, these persuasive and affecting decisions come mainly from other two countries, Greece and Turkey, whose relationship has presented many complications since the establishment of the two independent nations. The rivalry between them, however, has not seen any improvements and, today, it can still be judged as one of the factors responsible for the non-resolution of the Cyprus problem. This primordial antagonism, nevertheless, is difficult to be solved in the first place as it is composed of many intersecting aspects, from the oldest struggle for supremacy in the Aegean to the most recent rivalry for the control of energy resources, each of which contributes to the non-resolution of the Cyprus problem
Early Childhood Science Education: Research Trends in Learning and Teaching
This volume consists of a collection of articles that touch on very different research aspects within a broad scientific field known in recent years as Early Childhood Science Education. The field has gradually emerged from the interaction between three distinct scientific areas of theory and research: Early Childhood Education, Psychology, which is oriented towards the study of learning, and Science Education. At the center of the progress in this field are efforts to initiate children aged 4-8 years in the Physical and Biological Sciences. A wide range of research themes have developed around this main axis: children's mental representations of phenomena of the natural world and scientific concepts, the study of the implementation and effectiveness of specific teaching activities related to curricula or activities focusing on the specific characteristics of teaching processes such as reasoning, explanation, communication, interaction or argumentation, the issue of teachers' relevance to the teaching of science, the use of pecialized teaching materials, the emergence of the issue of scientific skills, the highly contemporary issue of the differentiation and inclusion of children in the world of science, important socio-scientific issues, the role of family-related factors etc. Within this context, this collective book aims to reflect contemporary research trends in the field of Early Childhood Science Education
Digital 3D Technologies for Humanities Research and Education: An Overview
Digital 3D modelling and visualization technologies have been widely applied to support research in the humanities since the 1980s. Since technological backgrounds, project opportunities, and methodological considerations for application are widely discussed in the literature, one of the next tasks is to validate these techniques within a wider scientific community and establish them in the culture of academic disciplines. This article resulted from a postdoctoral thesis and is intended to provide a comprehensive overview on the use of digital 3D technologies in the humanities with regards to (1) scenarios, user communities, and epistemic challenges; (2) technologies, UX design, and workflows; and (3) framework conditions as legislation, infrastructures, and teaching programs. Although the results are of relevance for 3D modelling in all humanities disciplines, the focus of our studies is on modelling of past architectural and cultural landscape objects via interpretative 3D reconstruction methods
Critical by Design? Genealogies, Practices, Positions
In its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blind spots of the discipline, and expand understandings of what critical design practices could be. With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, "Critical by Design?" aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique
West side stories : the Greek Gastarbeiter’s migration to the Federal Republic of Germany and their return to the homeland (1960-1989)
Defence date: 31 January 2022Examining Board: Professor Laura Lee Downs, (EUI); Professor Corinna Unger, (EUI); Professor Emerita Efi Avdela, (University of Crete); Professor Lauren Stokes, (Northwestern University)This doctoral thesis is a social history of the Greek migrant workers in West Germany, with an emphasis on the role of the sending country in all the stages of their migration journey. It examines the different ways the Greek migrants’ transnational bonds were formed, expressed and preserved in their daily life in West Germany in the period 1960-1989. Heated debates about the desirability of emigration and return, confrontations and divisions in the realms of the Greek migrant community in West Germany, manipulation efforts and failed initiatives of the sending state are at the centre of my investigation. Starting from the postwar reconstruction period, I set the background of the political and social transformations in Greece and West Germany, which made up the push and pull factors of the Gastarbeiter system. In the three Cold War decades, the Greek Gastarbeiter were present in West Germany and continuities and ruptures in policymaking and social attitudes determined their fate. In a nutshell, this research project seeks to answer the following questions: who were the Greek Gastarbeiter? What did the Greek state do for them? How was their agency expressed? The Greek Gastarbeiter might have been “birds of passage”, but their imprint in the evolving realities of postwar Greece was indelible
Critical by Design?
In its constructive and speculative nature, design has the critical potential to reshape prevalent socio-material realities. At the same time, design is inevitably normative, if not often violent, as it stabilises the past, normalises the present, and precludes just and sustainable futures. The contributions rethink concepts of critique that influence the field of design, question inherent blind spots of the discipline, and expand understandings of what critical design practices could be. With contributions from design theory, practice and education, art theory, philosophy, and informatics, »Critical by Design?« aims to question and unpack the ambivalent tensions between design and critique
Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction
In the present as in the past, the dead have been deployed to promote visions of identity, as well as ostensibly wider human values. Through a series of case studies from ancient Egypt through prehistoric, historic, and present-day Europe, this book discusses what is constant and what is locally and historically specific in our ways of interacting with the remains of the dead, their objects, and monuments. Postmortem interaction encompasses not only funerary rituals and intergenerational engagement with forebears, but also concerns encounters with the dead who died centuries and millennia ago. Drawing from a variety of disciplines such as archaeology, bioarchaeology, literary studies, ancient Egyptian philology, and sociocultural anthropology, this volume provides an interdisciplinary account of the ways in which the dead are able to transcend temporal distances and engender social relationships. Until quite recently, literary sciences and archaeology were generally regarded as incommensurable in their aims, methodologies, and source material. Although archaeologists and literary critics have been increasingly willing to borrow concepts and terminology from the other discipline, this book is one examples of a genuinely collaborative endeavor. This is an open access book
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