Böcker utgivna av Verlag Peter Lang

This study of Edgar Reitz¿s 1984 film saga Heimat explores the cultural contexts of the Heimat tradition and examines the political debate surrounding the film¿s reception. Responses were largely supportive but some critics were disturbed by an apparent tendency to induce a sense of uncritical nostalgia in viewers. Reitz, by contrast, had wanted to make a film which would help people confront their memories of the Third Reich. The author tests hostile critiques not only against the film¿s elliptical narrative but also against Reitz¿s filmic techniques. She examines the interplay of realism and authenticity, and shows how Reitz dramatizes the confrontation between modernity and rural communities, while consciously alluding to the problematic and much-derided Heimat genre.

Mechthild of Magdeburg¿s singular book Das Fließende Licht der Gottheit (¿The Flowing Light of the Godhead¿) must be accounted one of the most significant texts in German that we have from the thirteenth century. As a piece of first-rate imaginative writing in the vernacular it is a highly rewarding text for those interested in medieval literature and women¿s writing. It is also of considerable interest to historians and theologians as a document of female spirituality. This introduction to Mechthild¿s extraordinary account of her revelations and of her relationship with God and with her contemporaries makes Mechthild¿s book more accessible to the English speaker. It takes as its central focus the multi-voiced nature of Mechthild¿s writings, suggesting ways of reading her work through an analysis of key voices in the text: (i) the social-historical voice of Mechthild as beguine and nun (ii) the authorial voice (iii) the voice of the mystic and prophet with particular reference to the influence of the Psalter and the Song of Songs (iv) the temporal voice of the visionary at the intersection of Mechthild¿s personal story with the master story of Christian salvation.

Contemporary cultural practices have blurred and eroded traditional disciplinary boundaries of art and its discourses, and the ways in which they are taught. They have called into question the ideological premises and cultural assumptions on which traditional academic subjects were founded and which have underwritten the segregation between practice, pragmatic and speculative thought. The Scottish Theoros ¿ Forum for Interdisciplinary Debate was jointly initiated by the Department of Philosophy and the School of Fine Art at the University of Dundee to create a space for dialogue between and across the various disciplines that are concerned with the study of visual arts: practice, aesthetics, theory, history and criticism. Theoros has initiated a series of international conferences bringing together professionals who are engaged in the research and teaching of art from different disciplinary perspectives. This volume contains selected contributions to the first Scottish Theoros conference on ¿Aesthetics, Historicity and Practice¿, held in Dundee in 1998. Historicity marks the temporal nature of our existence and experience. It forms a central aspect in the making of and reflection on art. Here historicity is explored as a common ground for the integration of practice, critical thought and historical enquiry in the spaces of higher education and professional engagement.

Public education has received increasing criticism since the beginning of the nineties. Four major areas of concern can be discerned: the technical backwardness of the schools, the disappearance of political legitimization, financial limitations and the conservative school development. Worldwide, educational systems are being reorganized and developed beyond the traditional forms. These efforts are accompanied by increasingly complicated and complex research which assumes an international form. The international symposium Futures of Education, which took place in Zurich from 28 to 30 March 2000, was dedicated to these questions. The lectures held at the symposium were concerned with the relationship between research and development and above all, encouraged discussion and brought new ideas into play.

The present volume contains 14 articles on the notion of Intercultural Understanding, both inside and outside the foreign language class-room. Since this area is highly controversial in language teaching in general and in German as a Foreign Language in particular, the editors have tried to unfold as comprehensive a picture as possible with regard to the diversity of the present debate. Thus the contributions range from very personal accounts of experiencing otherness and practical considerations concerning the implementation of adequate measures in language curricula to psychological and philosophical questions about the possibility or impossibility to achieve Intercultural Understanding.

The book consists of 16 case-studies on issues relating to memory, the majority of which stem from a conference in April 2005 at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Public memory is tackled from a variety of angles and various disciplines, ranging across the humanities, the social sciences and the exact sciences. First and foremost the reader will obtain a comprehensive overview of the results of scholarship published in recent years about public memory. Second, the book provides a profound insight into how public memory works within societies of different nature and at different junctures of their histories. The volume begins by offering a glimpse into individual memory, and then goes on to discuss religious societies, ethnic groups, secular groups, institutions and larger segments of society, ultimately reaching the nation state. The authors, each in his or her own discipline, have addressed the complexities involved in the creation of public memory, the media that promote and preserve it within groups and societies, and finally the nature of memory and how it «behaves» during changing circumstances and changing regimes.