Anti-semitism in Europe (1879-1914): Lines of inquiry, conception and objectives of the research seminar at the center for anti-semitism research

As current controversies about anti-Semitism in Europe show, anti-Jewish sentiments and views are not limited to single nations but represent a European-wide phenomenon. The paper presents a research seminar at the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technical University Berlin regarding the emergence and the development of anti-Semitism in Europe from 1879, when the term itself was first coined, up to the First World War, i.e. the formative phase of anti-Semitism as a social and political movement. This seminar consists of eleven individual research projects regarding different European countries and regions. The paper describes the leading questions of this research seminar, presents its main objectives and intentions, determines the underlying term of anti Semitism, and gives an overview of the individual studies

Kan poesien redde? Lyrikkens rolle hos Czesław Miłosz og i hans norske gjendiktning ved Paal Brekke

The purpose of the paper is to compare the original verse by Czesław Miłosz and its translated version by Paal Brekke. To discuss the images of the poetry and the poet in Campo di Fiori and Tilegnelse the comparative translation theory is applied and the poets' literary background brought into focus. In the next step such issues as the translator's figure and his influence on the target text are addressed. The paper presents that Brekke's literary work alters Miłosz's original poetics

Photoliterary Memoryscape of Tomas Espedal: Mitt privatliv (2014) – a Starting Point in a Journey to One’s Past

Photography is inextricably coupled with temporal conditions. It is rooted in the past while concurrently referring to the recipient’s present and future. This article sheds light on the connection between photography, literature, and memory in Tomas Espedal’s photo book Mitt privatliv (2014; My private life). The central perspective of this paper is devoted to the link between the lyrical subject’s autobiographical memory and the individual memory of the reader. My goal is to analyze how the reader finds their point of view while confronted with the lyrical subject’s memoryscape from aesthetic, anthropological, and cognitive perspectives. Firstly, I discuss the form of Espedal’s Mitt privatliv and the book’s potential liberatic character. Secondly, in reference to François Soulages and John Berger, I show how the correlation between texts and photography affects memory functioning in a photobook. Finally, I ocus on the mechanisms of autobiographical memory, or, more precisely, how the subject’s and recipient’s memories relate to the book’s physicality, structure, and the interplay between the word and photography. Looking through the lenses of Paul Ricoeur, Aleida Assmann, and the social-communicative functions of memory, it turns out that Mitt privatliv is not just a created and closed story of a single subject; it is a story that stimulates the reader’s memory and thus impacts their understanding and constitution of their “self” in both individual and collective contexts

Bioactive coatings

From traditional approaches of employing bulk materials to the new generation of bioactive coated implants, the design of such medical tools is being directed towards the implementation bioactive compounds to allow the direct bonding of living tissues and osteoconduction. However, the development of an optimal bioactive implant for tissue regeneration has not been achieved. The research for novel materials is hindered by the biocompatibility and bioactivity of the compound as well as their mechanical properties. To improve the bioactivity of the implants, the increase of surface area of the implant as well as the use of resorbable compounds is being studied with promising results. Among all different materials and composite employed, the common materials include calcium phosphates and resorbable bioglasses inspired in natural scaffold composition of bones and teeth. In some cases, this material is being used as a coating and combined with further treatments and functional coatings which may reinforce its bioresponsive properties, and in some cases, it can provide additional properties such as antimicrobial activity. In addition, a specific class of bioactive coatings based on biodegradable polymers has also been developed. These coatings temporally aim at accelerating wound healing and forming new tissue at the material-tissue interface around implanted devices or protecting those implants against biomaterial-associated infections. Bioactive, degradable coatings can be generated both from natural and synthetic polymers. Common strategies, reviewed here, are based on natural polymers like proteins, polysaccharides, or glycosaminoglycanes to improve their bioactivity either by chemical functionalization of the biopolymer itself (e.g. introduction of bioactive groups) or by immobilization of bioactive components (e.g. cell adhesion peptides). Degradable or at least water-soluble synthetic polymers as polylactones or polyethylene glycols have been used for long time to create carrier materials for bioactive agents. As exemplary illustrated, those polymers are also used creating either substrate-adhering nanofilms or hydrogel-based thick coatings with high bioactivity to stimulate cell adhesion or avoid microbial adhesion. This chapter aims to summarize all recent approaches in the development of various bioactive coating materials, as well as the coating techniques and further treatment, functionalization and surface modification