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Throughout history, much has been written on why wars and crises occur and why human beings kill each other or are often so ready to do so. While some blame human nature, state structures or the anarchic order within the international system, others hold prejudices and the "othering" or dehumanizing of those different from us as being responsible. The region in which we live has particularly suffered a great deal from these violent processes. Nationalist ideologies, most of which were defined in opposition to one another, alienated "others," abstracted them from their humanity, and made them subject to various kinds of tyranny. Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks and many others had their share in thi...
A groundbreaking history of the Big Questions that dominated the nineteenth century In the early nineteenth century, a new age began: the age of questions. In the Eastern and Belgian questions, as much as in the slavery, worker, social, woman, and Jewish questions, contemporaries saw not interrogatives to be answered but problems to be solved. Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Hugo, Karl Marx, Frederick Douglass, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and Adolf Hitler were among the many who put their pens to the task. The Age of Questions asks how the question form arose, what trajectory it followed, and why it provoked such feverish excitement for over a century. Was there a family resemblance bet...
The past may be approached from a variety of directions. A myth reunites people around certain values and projects and pushes them in one direction or another. The present volume brings together a range of case studies of myth making and myth breaking in east Europe from the nineteenth century to the present day. In particular, it focuses on the complex process through which memories are transformed into myths. This problematic interplay between memory and myth-making is analyzed in conjunction with the role of myths in the political and social life of the region. The essays include cases of forging myths about national pre-history, about the endorsement of nation building by means of historiography, and above all, about communist and post-communist mythologies. The studies shed new light on the creation of local and national identities, as well as the legitimization of ideologies through myth-making. Together, the contributions show that myths were often instrumental in the vast projects of social and political mobilization during a period which has witnessed, among others, two world wars and the harsh oppression of the communist regimes. ÿ
This book examines the discourse on ‘primitive thinking’ in early twentieth century Germany. It explores texts from the social sciences, writings on art and language and – most centrally – literary works by Robert Musil, Walter Benjamin, Gottfried Benn and Robert Müller, focusing on three figurations of alterity prominent in European primitivism: indigenous cultures, children, and the mentally ill.
Building on the work of a new generation of historians, this volume presents twelve papers from all parts of the former Ottoman space, from the Middle East to the Balkans, showing new approaches to Ottoman provincial history.
The articles collected here trace the intellectual journey of Christian Giordano, head of the Social Anthropology Institute at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. The reader will be transported to places Giordano has explored, loved, or merely visited, from Sicily to Malaysia, from Switzerland to Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Each article illustrates a facet of his work. The journey starts with biographical sketches and continues through different fields of Political Anthropology (Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Ethnicity, Rural Studies, Trust, Postcolonial Studies, Honour). It ends with reflections on the use and abuse of Anthropology.
In southeast Europe, more than 20 years of rapid change under the combined impact of transformation, globalization, and EU integration have deeply affected the structures of everyday life and have produced a variety of (post-)modern lifestyles. This book's contributions focus on the changing practices and patterns of everyday life. The concepts of multiple modernities and post-modernity appear to be particularly appropriate for a region in which everyday life is marked by often sharp contrasts: the coexistence of modern and traditional labor relations and legal concepts * the return to traditional religions and the adherence to new religious forms * the enthusiasm for modern communication technologies * the reliance on national identification. Understanding these paths to (post-)modernity is relevant for those generally interested in processes of socio-cultural change, but particularly for those interested in the Balkans. (Series: Ethnologia Balkanica - Vol. 16)
The historiography of early photography has scarcely examined Islamic countries in the Near and Middle East, although the new technique was adopted very quickly there by the 1840s. Which regional, local, and global aspects can be made evident? What role did autochthonous image and art traditions have, and which specific functions did photography meet since its introduction? This collective volume deals with examples from Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and the Arab lands and with the question of local specifics, or an „indigenous lens." The contributions broach the issues of regional histories of photography, local photographers, specific themes and practices, and historical collections in these countries. They offer, for the first time in book form, a cross-section through a developing field of the history of photography.
In the 1890s, conflict erupted on the Ottoman island of Crete. At the heart of the Crete Question, as it came to be known around the world, were clashing claims of sovereignty between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The island was of tremendous geostrategic value, boasting one of the deepest natural harbors in the Mediterranean, and the conflict quickly gained international dimensions with an unprecedented collective military intervention by six European powers. Island and Empire shows how events in Crete ultimately transformed the Middle East. Uğur Zekeriya Peçe narrates a connected history of international intervention, mass displacement, and popular mobilization. The conflict drove a wed...
The transcultural approach to Japanese art history embraced by the contributors to this volume centers on the dynamic aesthetic, artistic, and conceptual negotiations across cultural, temporal, and spatial boundaries. It not only acknowledges material objects, people, and technologies as agents, but also intangible practices such as knowledge and concepts as vital agencies of interaction in transcultural processes. With its premise on connectivity, trans-territoriality, networks, and their transformative potential, this research destabilizes categorical configurations such as “center vs. periphery” and “high vs. low,” calling into question the classical canon of Japanese art history.