Böcker utgivna av Walter de Gruyter

Das Handbuch präsentiert theoretische, empirische und praxisrelevante Erkenntnisse aus den Teildisziplinen der Gebiete Fach- und Berufssprache. Die in den Kapiteln behandelten Themen und Konzepte aus den Bereichen DaF und DaZ geben einen breiten Überblick über Terminologie und theoretische Grundlagen. Zentrale Begriffe werden zusätzlich praxisorientiert beleuchtet und in den fachlichen Diskurs eingeordnet.

Wenn Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) Texte generieren kann, was sagt das darüber, was ein Text ist? Worin unterscheiden sich von Menschen geschriebene und mittels KI generierte Texte? Welche Erwartungen, Befürchtungen und Hoffnungen hegen Wissenschaften, wenn in ihren Diskursen KI-generierte Texte rezipiert werden und Anerkennung finden, deren Urheberschaft und Originalität nicht mehr eindeutig definierbar sind? Wie verändert sich die Arbeit mit Quellen und welche Konsequenzen ergeben sich daraus für die Kriterien wissenschaftlicher Textarbeit und das Verständnis von Wissenschaft insgesamt? Welche Chancen, Grenzen und Risiken besitzen KI-Textgeneratoren aus Sicht von Technikethik und Technikfolgenabschätzung? Und welche Kriterien sind für einen ethisch bewussten Umgang mit KI-Textgeneratoren im Bildungskontext anzulegen? Diese und ähnliche Fragen verdeutlichen die Komplexität und Tragweite der Herausforderung, die der stetig wachsende und zunehmend selbstverständliche Einsatz von KI-Textgeneratoren für das zukünftige Arbeiten mit und an Texten mit sich bringt. Hierbei kristallisieren sich Problematiken heraus, die sich an ein breites Spektrum von Disziplinen wenden, deren spezifischen Diskurse in diesem Band beleuchtet werden. Der Tagungsband geht zurück auf die im August 2023 gehaltene Tagung KI - Text und Geltung. Wie verändern KI-Textgeneratoren wissenschaftliche Diskurse? Einen Zusammenschnitt der Tagung finden Sie hier: https://zevedi.de/themen/ki-text#video-ger (optional mit englischem Untertitel).

The post-pandemic world has witnessed seismic shifts in the business environment. Businesses, large and small, are tackling digital transformation; we face irregular economic recovery, a rising cost of living, the energy transition impasse and uneven wealth distribution. Add to this an increased call for action on diversity and inclusion amidst a backdrop that is, in some countries, resentful of privilege, geopolitical power alignment, and democratic vs. autocratic leadership. The leaders of today and tomorrow must evolve. Notwithstanding the hard skills they need in a workforce transformed by technology, what soft skills must they acquire in a world of continuous uncertainty and change? Relational Skills Development for Next-Generation Leaders is a practical compilation of crucial relational skills for post-graduate students, future executives, and mentors in the corporate world. Packed with modern research, frameworks and scenarios, the author draws upon over twenty years of experience leading teams and projects with global transformational impact in the blue-chip luxury fashion industry to show executives how to observe, reflect, develop, practice and improve their leadership skills to succeed in the future.

Micro and nano devices are an integral part of modern technology. To address the requirements of the state-of-the-art technology, topics are selected from both chip-based and flexible electronics. A wide range of carbon materials including graphene, carbon nanotube, glass-like carbon, porous carbon, carbon black, graphite, carbon nanofiber, laser-patterned carbon and heteroatom containing carbon are covered. This goal is to elucidate fundamental carbon material science along with compatible micro- and nanofabrication techniques. Real-life example of sensors, energy storage and generation devices, MEMS, NEMS and implantable bioelectronics enable visualization of the outcome of described processes. Students will also benefit from the attractive aspects of carbon science explained in simple terms. Hybridization, allotrope classification and microstructural models are presented with a whole new outlook. Discussions on less-studied, hypothetical and undiscovered carbon forms render the contents futuristic and highly appealing.

Toxic work culture is driving away 1 in 5 employees at an annual cost of US $44.6 billion to American organizations. Yet ironically, toxic leaders often achieve stellar financial profits, continue to get promoted and remain in their leadership roles. In Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses - Organizational Guardrails to Keep High Performers on Track, employment law attorney Teresa A. Daniel JD, PhD, draws upon numerous studies and interviews to show the real, devastating impact of toxic workplace culture and why leaders must care. This book discusses what signs to look out for in a toxic workplace, factors that promote toxic behavior, types of leaders and how they impact their organization, the role of HR in managing employee wellbeing, and what to look out for in exceptional leaders. With evidence-based strategies for building stronger workplace culture, including tools to help organizations develop better leaders and managers, it makes a compelling case for eradicating toxic leaders as a priority. Toxic Leaders and Tough Bosses is for organizational leaders, mid-level managers, supervisors, HR practitioners and anyone else invested in implementing new, tried and tested ideas to improve their organization's culture to create and sustain its optimum success.

This monograph offers the most complete study of the literary and environmentalist work of Mexican author Homero Aridjis-currently one of the most representative and prolific writers worldwide. This comprehensive examination of his intellectual trajectory includes poetry, novels, plays, essays as well as writings dedicated to the environmental struggle, which is, together with his literary work, Aridjis' other essential facet.

The art, fashion and wine industries are currently at various stages in their efforts to embrace and transition towards sustainability. While sustainability commitments are a necessary condition for progress, they are not sufficient. Instead, there is a need for sweeping transformative change that includes giving serious consideration to indigenous worldviews without recolonizing them. Sustainability in Art, Fashion and Wine includes findings from recent research and contributes to a new understanding of familiar concepts such as sustainability, (de)colonization and corporate responsibility in the art, fashion and wine industries by adopting critical lenses and incorporating them with innovative perspectives on circular business models and digitalization. It endeavors to present remedies for effectively combating climate change and promoting social good. While discussing specific issues such as sub-contracted labor, safe working conditions, living wages, environmental degradation, mismanaged waste, and more, the book argues that recognizing the significant role western colonization has played - and continues to play - in the developing world in our current conception of capitalism is itself unsustainable. To understand the true meaning of sustainability - to fully recognize the looming deadlines we face in combating the climate crisis and instituting sustainability as a new normal - the acceptance of a new conception of capitalism, one antithetical to colonization and exploitation, is required. Contributors to this book address these issues by applying a critical studies approach to their respective chapters, allowing the book to set out what real sustainability could and should look like in the art, fashion and wine industries.

When the author began working on phosphors based on rare-earth elements, he lacked an introductory textbook that explained the fundamental chemistry, basic optical properties, and magnetic characteristics of lanthanide elements. This book provides a concise overview of the rare-earth elements and is divided into two parts. In the first part, the reader receives an overview of solid-state chemistry and fundamental physical properties of these elements. Key topics of the first part include the separation chemistry of lanthanides, their chemical behaviour and physical properties. Then relevant compound classes are illustrated, crystal structures are systematically explained. The second part focuses on the optical and magnetic properties on relevant examples, also discussing many applications. Students and researchers new to the topic of "Rare-Earth Elements" receive a comprehensive introduction to understand basic optical and magnetic properties and incentives for deeper studies.

In jüngster Zeit mehren sich die Anstrengungen, in der Rezeption post- und dekolonialer Theorien Gelerntes für das Nachdenken über Religion und Theologie fruchtbar zu machen - und sie lohnen sich: Theolog:innen aus dem globalen Süden liefern wichtige Impulse zur theologischen Reflexion und Dekonstruktion von Eurozentrismus, Macht und Selbstverständlichkeiten. Diese aufzunehmen, ist auch für die in Europa kontextualisierte Theologie ein Gewinn. Dies gilt umso mehr, wo sie als Selbstkritik notwendig ist, denn wenn Kirchen und Theologie Machtasymmetrien oder Rassismus kritisch hinterfragen, stellt sich die Anfrage an eigene Praxen umso dringender. Der Band versammelt Texte aus der Systematische Theologie, der Exegese, der Religionspädagogik und der Erziehungswissenschaft sowie der Christentumsgeschichte, ergänzt um wichtige Stimmen aus der kirchlichen Praxis und die der studentischen Perspektive der Initiative "Decolonize Theology".

Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolves around creating and utilizing intelligent machines through science and engineering. This book delves into the theory and practical applications of computer science methods that incorporate AI across many domains. It covers techniques such as Machine Learning (ML), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Deep Learning (DL), and Large Language Models (LLM) to tackle complex issues and overcome various challenges.

In the millennial transition the prefix 'post' had come to signify more and more not just the realisation of a 'coming after' but also of the impossibility of not seeing the present as still very much working through the wounds of the past. Yet with the appearance of pseudo-concepts such as 'post-truth' after an equally imaginary 'death of History', the logic of the 'post', itself always already under questioning, may appear to have outlived its usefulness. How to make sense of postcolonial theory in Europe in the present? One way might be to renew its significance as world conflicts have entered a new 'post-imperial phase' with the return of ideologies of empire in various parts of the world. The essays in this volume address those questions at both a conceptual, theoretical level, and through the analysis of specific case studies. In the Introduction Paulo de Medeiros and Sandra Ponzanesi review the main questions outlined above in relation to the current debates in the Humanities from their respective disciplinary perspectives. The volume is organised in four sections, each containing four chapters. Even though all the chapters present a reflection on Postcolonial Theory and Crisis, some focus more specifically on aspects of the crisis in a global perspective such as humanitarian crisis and the role of mediatization of conflicts, to issues related to human rights, refugees, migrancy, environmental crisis to questions of memory and postmemory as well as the critique of art and utopian thought.

Die dritte, vollständig überarbeitete Auflage des bewährten Studienbuches wurde um elf Einträge erweitert: Abduktion (Schluss auf die beste Erklärung), Clusterdefinition, Experimentelle Philosophie, Explikation, Kontextdefinition, Kriterien, Methode, Naturalistischer Fehlschluss, Neologismus, notwendig und hinreichend - mengentheoretisch und Stipulative Definition. Zudem enthält der Band einen wertvollen Anhang mit einem philosophischen Kanon, den wichtigsten logischen Regeln und einem umfangreichen Register, das neben den deutschen auch alle wichtigen englischen Fachbegriffe umfasst. Wer philosophieren will, muss, methodisch betrachtet, vor allem drei Dinge tun: analysieren, argumentieren und interpretieren. Jede Person - ob Anfänger/in, Schüler/in, Student/in oder fortgeschrittene/r Wissenschaftler/in - kann mit diesem Buch lernen, Begriffe zu analysieren, Argumente zu verstehen, zu bewerten und zu entwickeln. Im Unterschied zu anderen Einführungsbüchern kommt auch die Interpretation zu ihrem vollen Recht. Mit diesem Buch können die Methoden der Philosophie praxisnah gelernt und geübt werden. Es präsentiert deshalb so etwas wie einen methodischen Werkzeugkasten, der sich ausgezeichnet für die Schule, die Universität und auch das Selbststudium eignet.

Die Hauptthese dieses Buches ist es, Krankheit und Gesundheit mit Nietzsche auf zwei verschiedenen Ebenen zu denken, nämlich als Ereignisse des Willens zur Macht in einem zirkulär-relationalen Modell, in dem sie sich gegenseitig behaupten, sowie die Metaebene der Konzeptualisierung anzuerkennen. Es behandelt die Schwierigkeit des begrifflichen Denkens, diese Ereignisse einzuholen, und diskutiert kritisch Modellbildungen, die darauf hinauslaufen, dass Krankheit zu überwinden und als lineares singuläres Ereignis zu verstehen sei. In Nietzsches Spätwerk wird die Figur des "dionysischen Künstlers" als Idealisierung der Gesundheit gemäß seiner interpretierenden Sichtweise der Welt dargestellt. Die Relevanz des Buches liegt darin, eine Analyse der Begriffe von Gesundheit und Krankheit (tragischer und schlechter Pessimismus) in direkter Beziehung zu leiblichen Vorgängen vorzulegen, die sich von metaphysisch-dialektischen Voraussetzungen befreit. Zu diesem Zweck widmet die Untersuchung sich einer intertextuellen Lektüre der fünf Vorreden, die Nietzsche 1886/87 zu seinen früheren Schriften verfasste, und verknüpft sie mit der Interpretation des Nachlasses und weiterer Veröffentlichungen aus seiner letzten Schaffensphase.

Die ,Unterscheidung der Geister' macht es sich zur Aufgabe, die Seelenregungen des Menschen sowie vermeintliche Gnadenerfahrungen auf ihren göttlichen, teuflischen oder natürlichen Ursprung hin zu überprüfen. Obgleich sie bereits in der frühchristlichen Wüstenväterspiritualität präsent ist, gewinnt sie im abendländischen Denken erst seit dem 12. Jahrhundert zunehmend an Relevanz. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit erfährt sie im Kontext der spätmittelalterlichen Ordensreformbewegungen. Vor allem im 15. Jahrhundert entsteht ein ebenso komplexes wie systematisches Unterscheidungsschrifttum, das mittels einer Fülle psychologischer, dogmatischer und moralischer Kriterien zur Evaluation des inneren wie äußeren Menschen anleitet. Der vorliegende Band bietet eine ausführlich kommentierte Edition von sieben volkssprachlichen Traktaten aus dem Kontext der Melker Observanz. Im Zentrum steht die ,Probate spiritus'-Kompilation, eine freie Übertragung der wirkmächtigen Schrift ,De quattuor instinctibus' des Erfurter Augustinereremiten Heinrich von Friemar. Die weiteren Traktate greifen die hier behandelten Aspekte in je unterschiedlicher Weise auf und vermitteln so einen Eindruck von der Spannbreite des spätmittelalterlichen Unterscheidungsdiskurses

Kräfte entziehen sich der Wahrnehmung. Umgekehrt wird Wahrnehmung ( aisthesis ) seit der Antike als Kraft ( dynamis ) bestimmt. Das Nachdenken über Wahrnehmung tariert die Spannung zwischen Wahrheitsfähigkeit und Täuschungsanfälligkeit, passiver Impression und aktiver Imagination, verborgener Ursache und wahrnehmbarer Wirkung aus. Ästhetisch kodierte Wahrnehmungseinstellungen wie Reiz, Überwältigung, Aufmerksamkeit oder Zerstreuung geben außerdem Anlass, über ästhetische Kraftvorstellungen nachzudenken. Die Beiträge fragen aus mehreren Fachperspektiven, wie sich Konzeptualisierungen der Sinneskräfte zur problematischen Wahrnehmbarkeit von Kräften verhalten, wie künstlerische Verfahren an Perzeptionsmodelle angepasst werden und welche Rolle sie bei der Ausbildung und Veränderung von Wahrnehmungskonventionen spielen.

Die Publikation widmet sich dem Wandel von Männlichkeit(en), den Bildende Künstler:innen seit den 1970er Jahren und aktuell mehr denn je verhandeln. Die vielfältigen künstlerischen Prozesse, in denen die Vorstellung von Männlichkeit als scheinbar universale, unumstößliche Konstante sukzessiv durch die Annahme einer Pluralität von Männlichkeiten abgelöst wird, beleuchten die kunst- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Beiträge des Bandes in vier Sektionen: Postphallische Männlichkeit, Queering Masculinities, Optimierte Männlichkeit(en) und Verletzlichkeit. Ausgehend von der Prämisse, dass Männerkörper keinen intrinsischen Wesenskern besitzen, sondern sozial konstruiert und somit transformierbar sind, werden Visionen zukünftiger Männlichkeit(en) diskutiert und greifbar gemacht.

Donald Trump's campaign and presidency represented a radical departure from political norms that are often classified by media and researchers as 'populist'. Instead, this book theorizes Trump's campaign and presidency with reference to Mikhail Bakhtin's "carnival" - a medieval festival of transgression, ridicule, and renewal. In this book, Lisa Gaufman and Bharath Ganesh provide a closer insight into the Trump Carnival, developing interdisciplinary perspectives on populism, misogyny, misinformation, and far-right vernacular culture. Building on the idea of the carnivalesque, this book focuses on the laughing culture of the Trump campaigns and presidency that vilified minorities, disparaged women, and ultimately emboldened the far right. Bringing Bakhtin into dialogue with key developments in contemporary politics, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the Trump phenomenon, American politics, and populism.

The book examines the category Number from a variety of linguistic perspectives. Typological aspects of co-plurals and singulatives are introduced and number marking is analysed for three individual languages: Kamas (Samoyedic), Welsh (Celtic) and Wagi (Beria, Saharan). For each language, the focus lies on a different aspect of number marking: In the Wagi dialect of Beria, different tonal patterns are discovered. The extinct Kamas language is analysed in terms of language contact with Russian. Number categories can also serve as a measure of loanword integration, as the study about spoken Welsh shows. The combination of articles in this volume illustrates the potential of number marking and offers insights that contribute our understanding of how grammatical number is applied and categorised in languages.

This book is about recurrent functions of applicative morphology not included in typologically-oriented definitions. Based on substantial cross-linguistic evidence, it challenges received wisdom on applicatives in several ways. First, in many of the surveyed languages, applicatives are the sole means to introduce a non-Actor semantic role into a clause. When there is an alternative way of expression, the applicative counterpart often has no valence-increasing effect on the targeted root. Second, applicative morphology can introduce constituents which are not syntactic objects and/or co-occur with obliques. Third, functions such as conveying aspectual nuances to the predicate (intensity, repetition, habituality) or its arguments (partitive P, highly individuated P), narrow-focusing constituents, and functioning as category-changing devices are attested in geographically distant and genetically unrelated languages. Further, this volume reveals that spatial-related morphology is prone to developing applicative functions in disparate languages and phyla. Finally, several contributions discuss the diachrony of applicative constructions and their (non-syntactic) attested functions, including a case of applicatives-in-the-making.

The notion of light verb constructions has been traditionally related to the 'insignificance' of the verb, which is described as a grammatical item only codifying TAM system and ϕ-features, whereas the whole predicative content is thought to be conveyed by the noun. This book deals with the light verb constructions as instances of complex verbs, intended as multi-predicational but monoclausal structures. This allows to deepen the actual verb lightness, the effective noun predicativity, as well as their effect on the cohesion of the construction. The papers in this volume reflect on the concrete contribution of noun and verb to the event and argument structure, and on the relevance of semantically different noun classes for the verb selection. From different theoretical approaches, data of a great variety of languages are investigated, such as Indo-European languages - both modern (Germanic, Slavic, Romance and Iranian languages) and ancient (Latin and Ancient Greek) - but also Mandarin Chinese, and different polysynthetic languages (e.g. Ket, Nivkh, Murrinh-Patha, Kiowa, Bininj Gun-wok, Ainu). The range of topics, languages and perspectives presented in this book make it of great interest to both theoretical and applied linguists.

Pulling together the threads of forty years of research on oblique subjects in the Germanic languages, this book introduces a novel approach to grammatical relations, based on a definition of subject as the first argument of the argument structure. New data are presented from Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Norse-Icelandic, Old Swedish and Old Danish, as well as from Icelandic, Faroese and German. This includes alternating Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat predicates, where either argument, the dative or the nominative, takes on subject behavior. The subject concept is modeled with the formalism of Construction Grammar, both synchronically and for the purpose of reconstructing grammatical relations for Proto-Germanic.

The second issue of the yearbook History of Intellectual Culture (HIC) dedicates a thematic section to modes of publication. This volume addresses recent advances in publication studies and stresses the cultural formation of knowledge. By exploring and analyzing layers of presenting, sharing, and circulating knowledge, we invite readers to critically engage with questions of media uses and publishing practices and structures, both historically and in our contemporary digital age. The articles in this volume attest to the great variety of publication modes and perspectives, from the potential and limits of digitizing newspapers such as the New York Times to questions of positionality in building and using Wikipedia, from translation policies and female participation to the genre of university histories.

With the "discursive turn" has come a distrust - a complete rejection by some - of theories that seek deeper reasons for surface phenomena. Rong Chen argues that this distrust, with its accompanying overemphasis on specificity and fluidity of linguistic meaning and social values, is unwarranted and unhelpful. Drawing on insights from social theories and various strands of pragmatics, he proposes a motivation model of pragmatics (MMP), contending that language use can be adequately, coherently, and elegantly studied via the motivation behind it in its varied and dynamic contexts. The model, with its well-laid out components, is then applied to (im)politeness research, cross-cultural pragmatics, diachronic pragmatics, discourse and genre analysis, conversation analysis, identity construction, and the study of metaphor, sarcasm, parody, and lying. MMP is thus a framework aimed at accounting for fluidity with stable notions, specificity with general principles, and differences with similar underlying factors. As such, the book should appeal to students of pragmatics, (im)politeness, conversation analysis, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, communication, sociology, and psychology.

The studies in this volume show how multilingual learners use language play in second language acquisition to internalize sets of 'voices' (rather than decontextualized linguistic systems), namely complexes of linguistic and non-linguistic features incorporating the personalities of significant others. In sociocultural terms, these internalized heteroglossic voices become tools that learners can adapt and use playfully to enact chosen roles, stances, and identities in subsequent oral interactions. Different chapters explore these sociocultural constructs using different approaches, including variationist sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, translanguaging, and positioning theory.

Language education at all levels benefits from research in a multitude of ways. Conversely, educational practices and experiences offer fertile ground for research into language learning, teaching and assessment. This book views research in language education as a reciprocal venture that should benefit all participants equally. Practice is shaped by theory, which in turn is illuminated and refined by practice. The book brings together studies from different fields of language education in nine countries on four continents: Cameroon, Canada, Finland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan and Sweden. The authors report on research that depends on the active involvement of teachers, teacher educators and learners of different ages and various backgrounds. The book focuses on projects designed to address challenges in the classroom and on the role of learners as collaborative agents in the research process as well as collaborative research in professional development and the role of collaborative research in the development of national policy.

The Handbook consists of four major sections. Each section is introduced by a main article: Theories of Emotion - General Aspects Perspectives in Communication Theory, Semiotics, and Linguistics Perspectives on Language and Emotion in Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary and Applied Perspectives The first section presents interdisciplinary emotion theories relevant for the field of language and communication research, including the history of emotion research. The second section focuses on the full range of emotion-related aspects in linguistics, semiotics, and communication theories. The next section focuses on cultural studies and language and emotion; emotions in arts and literature, as well as research on emotion in literary studies; and media and emotion. The final section covers different domains, social practices, and applications, such as society, policy, diplomacy, economics and business communication, religion and emotional language, the domain of affective computing in human-machine interaction, and language and emotion research for language education. Overall, this Handbook represents a comprehensive overview in a rich, diverse compendium never before published in this particular domain.

The years 1900 to 1954 marked the transformation from an exotic, colonized "Far East" to a more autonomous, prominent "Asia Pacific". This anthology examines the grand strategies of great powers as they vied for influence and ultimately hegemony in the region. At the turn of the twentieth century, the main contestants included the venerable British Empire and the aspiring Japan and United States. The unwieldy leviathan of China, the European imperial holdings in Southeast Asia, and the expanses of the western Pacific emerged as battlegrounds in literal and geopolitical terms. Other less powerful nations, such as India, Burma, Australia, and French Indochina, also exercised agency in crafting grand strategies to further their interests and in their interactions with those great powers. Among the many factors affecting all nations invested in the Asia Pacific were such traditional elements as economics, military power, and diplomacy, as well as fluid traits like ideology, culture, and personality. The era saw the decline of British and European influence in the Asia Pacific, the rise and fall of Japanese imperialism, the emergence of American primacy, the ongoing struggle for independence in Southeast Asia, and China's resurrection as a contender for hegemony. Great powers shifted and so too did their grand strategies.

The primary goal of this book is to reach a better understanding of how the digital revolution has affected language and discourse practices in the field of law. It also explores the complex nature of the techniques and discursive strategies which emerge in the relationship between the different stakeholders (including non-experts) thanks to technological advances. By adopting a discourse analytical perspective which combines both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the book explores the hybridity of new genres and communicative processes. It provides an interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns, as well as any solutions already adopted in their professional areas. Their insights converge in a truly multidisciplinary effort to devise and build advanced networks of knowledge to facilitate the interpretation of data in the field of legal linguistics - with a specific focus on digitalisation processes which concern contemporary legal discourse. The book is meant for scholars interested in the evolution of the interconnection between language and law in digital environments. It also addresses law and linguistics students, ideally with some training in language analysis and particular interest in new media and genres. All necessary linguistic or legal technicalities are, however, approached while bearing in mind a wide range of potential backgrounds and levels of education. 　

Digging Politics explores uses of the ancient past in east-central Europe spanning the fascist, communist and post-communist period. Contributions range from East Germany to Poland to Romania to the Balkans. The volume addresses two central questions: Why then and why there. Without arguing for an east-central European exceptionalism, Digging Politics uncovers transnational phenomena across the region that have characterized political wrangling over ancient pasts. Contributions include the biographies of famous archaeologists during the Cold War, the wrought history of organizational politics of archaeology in Romania and the Balkans, politically charged Cold War exhibitions of the Thracians, the historical re-enactment of supposed ancient Central tribes in Hungary, and the virtual archaeology of Game of Thrones in Croatia. Digging Politics charts the extraordinary story of ancient pasts in modern east-central Europe.

Town twinning refers to the postwar phenomenon of administrative exchange between analogous municipalities. Cold War-related research has mostly interpreted it as an instrument to pursue European integration, or to solidify détente "from below". However, municipalities were not only administrative, neutral actors, but also bearers of political content. This is particularly visible in the case of Italian towns located in the Western bloc, guided by socialist-oriented administrations, and their "twin" counterparts in the German Democratic Republic. This volume explores the connections initiated by such towns in the 1960s-1970s, focusing on socialist-specific conceptions which fueled the policies implemented by "red" municipalities, in managing local economies and social policies, but also in maintaining a lively and interconnected transnational microsociability among grassroots activists. Despite the increasing ideological divergences between Eastern and Western communists, and between Italian democratic communists and the more dogmatic and repressive, strictly pro-Soviet ones in the GDR, communication continued to flourish on the local level. The book explores what still linked the two worlds together, the "bright side of socialism" in this case, a common symbolism related to the past, practical exchanges in the present dimension, and a shared future imagination and conception of the town on the basis of a socialist horizon, built around welfare and services for citizens and workers.