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Game of Drones
Drohnen sind unbemannte Flugobjekte, deren Größen so unterschiedlich sind wie ihr Aussehen und ihre Nutzung. Eingesetzt werden sie für unterschiedlichste zivile Zwecke: u.a. um schwer zugängliche Gebiete zu erreichen, zur Kontrolle von Grenzen, Überwachung, Datensammlung sowie in der Landwirtschaft und im Dienstleistungssektor. Sie liefern Künstler*innen, Fotograf*innen und Filmemacher*innen eindrucksvolle Aufnahmen und haben die Bildästhetik der Gegenwart revolutioniert. Drohnen gelten aber auch als die wichtigste Kriegstechnologie seit der Erfindung der Atombombe. Gegenwärtig sind Drohnen noch keine autonom operierenden Systeme, in Kombination mit Künstlicher Intelligenz können s...
We Are All Astronauts
"We are all astronauts", the American architect and thinker Richard Buckminster Fuller wrote in 1968 in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, where he compared Earth to a spaceship, provided only with exhaustible resources while flying through space. These words show the presence the phenomenon of the astronaut and the cosmonaut had in the public mind from the second half of the twentieth century on: Buckminster Fuller was able to drive his point home by asking his audience to identify with one of the most prominent figures in the public sphere then: the space traveler. At the same time, Buckminster Fuller's words themselves seem to have played a significant role in further shaping the space-exploring human as a symbol and an image of humankind in general. The twelve contributions in this book by authors from the fields of literature, music, politics, history, the visual arts, film, computer games, comics, social sciences, and media theory track the development, changes and dynamics of this symbol by analyzing the various images of the astronaut and the cosmonaut as constructed throughout the different decades of space exploration, from its beginning to the present day.
Migration and State Power
The current situation in Europe seems to emphasize that our modern society is still not ready to accept migration as an important part of human history. Instead of welcoming immigrants and refugees with open arms, state power is trying to restrict asylum for those who are in need. The reasons, why people leave their home countries are different: human trafficking, prosecution, war, or just the hope for a better future. Despite the ethical and moral perspective and the duty of a modern democratic state to support those in need, restrictions and limitations of civil rights often seem to be the sole answer. While the members of the European Union are accusing each other, a solution for the prob...
Multispecies Futures
In light of the dramatic growth and rapid institutionalization of human-animal studies in recent years, it is somewhat surprising that only a small number of publications have proposed practical and theoretical approaches to teaching in this inter- and transdisciplinary field. Featuring eleven original pedagogical interventions from the social sciences and the humanities as well as an epilogue from ecofeminist critic Greta Gaard, the present volume addresses this gap and responds to the demand by both educators and students for pedagogies appropriate for dealing with environmental crises. The theoretical and practical contributions collected here describe new ways of teaching human-animal st...
Stereotypes and Violence
Stereotypes are dangerous, especially when they are used by demagogues. Slogans, which remind the historian of darker times in human history, however, reappear again in a growing number. As companions of the rise of right wing forces in Europe they make up ground in more and more regions and gain momentum in the political debate. It consequently seems to be more than important to focus on and closer analyze the interrelationship between stereo types and violence in modern societies. The fourth volume of Global Humanities tries to achieve such a broader analysis and provides reading in the fields of history, political science, gender and media studies. The authors show and emphasize in which ...
The War in Our Backyard
The War in Our Backyard is a novel study of the German press' textual and visual coverage of the wars in Bosnia (1992–1995) and Kosovo (1998–1999). Key moments from both wars have been selected and analysed using a broad range of publications reaching from far-right to far-left and including broadsheets, a tabloid and a news magazine. Two sections with parallel chapters form the core of the book: the first part dealing with the war in Bosnia and the second with Kosovo. Each section contains one chapter on the initial phase of the conflict, one chapter on an important atrocity – namely the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia and the Račak incident in Kosovo – and, lastly, a chapter each on...
Ethical Militancy
In recent years, much research has been dedicated to the relationship between politics and aesthetics and, in particular, to the political power of aesthetics. This book makes a claim for what comes before any political decision is made and action taken; for what precedes the need for the subject to take a specific stance and adopt a particular (political) attitude. It interprets the "in-between space of aesthetics" (Erika Fischer-Lichte), where production and reception have traditionally met, as a topos within which "action itself is called into question" (Joseph Vogl). This is a space where aesthetics and ethics converge to trouble affirmations and beliefs, and to challenge the subject. By...
Livestock and Literature
This book explores the past and current traces that cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals used by humans have left in Anglophone literary fiction. In times of accelerated global warming, an acute pandemic, and breakthroughs in bioengineering practices, discussions on how to rethink the relationships to these animals have become as heated as perhaps never before. Livestock and Literature examines what literature has to contribute to these debates. In particular, it draws on counter-narratives to so-called livestock animals’ commodification in selected science- and speculative fiction (SF) works from the twenty-first century. These texts imagine ‘what if’ scenarios where "livestock" pr...
Catastrophe & Spectacle
From epidemics in the 17th century and the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 to Guernica in World War II, the essays in this volume trace the development of the catastrophic imagination, relying heavily on pictorial media and different forms of staging. Catastrophe in its modern sense seems to be inextricably linked to its spectacular representation, be it on the stage, on screen or in popular amusement parks. But the modern relationship between catastrophe and spectacle is also increasingly confronting us with the unimaginable side of catastrophe, particularly with regard to the Holocaust and in more recent times to the daily experience of refugees. The essays in this volume elucidate images of the catastrophes that have inspired them by providing a textual commentary that makes it possible to reconsider how the spectacular and the catastrophic are interrelated. Thus, the essays not only deal with the emergence of the modern spectacular imagination of catastrophe in terms of the history of both discourse and media, they also present themselves as a critique of catastrophe, one based on close readings of the scenes and images in question.
American Beasts
In American history, animals are everywhere. They are a ubiquitous presence in myriad historical, literary, biographical, scientific and other documents and narratives of the American past – a past that, just like the present, was shaped by a multiplicity of relations between humans and other creatures ranging from coexistence and conviviality to hostility, subjugation and extermination. While such quintessentially American species as the bison, the mustang or the grizzly continue to roam the discursive, imaginary and, now to a much lesser degree, the geographical spaces of the nation, the less iconic creatures of civilization – the various species of domesticated working and companion a...
