Babel of the Atlantic
Babel of the Atlantic

Author: Bethany Wiggin

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2019-04-24

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0271083980

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Despite shifting trends in the study of Oceanic Atlantic history, the colonial Atlantic world as it is described by historians today continues to be a largely English-only space; even when other language communities are examined, they, too, are considered to be monolingual and discrete. Babel of the Atlantic pushes back against this monolingual fallacy by documenting multilingualism, translation, and fluid movement across linguistic borders. Focusing on Philadelphia and surrounding areas that include Germantown, Bethlehem, and the so-called Indian country to the west, this volume demonstrates the importance of viewing inhabitants not as members of isolated language communities, whether English, German, Lenape, Mohican, or others, but as creators of a vibrant zone of mixed languages and shifting politics. Organized around four themes—religion, education, race and abolitionism, and material culture and architecture—and drawing from archives such as almanacs, newspapers, and the material world, the chapters in this volume show how polyglot, tolerant, and multilingual spaces encouraged diverse peoples to coexist. Contributors examine subjects such as the multicultural Moravian communities in colonial Pennsylvania, the Charity School movement of the 1750s, and the activities of Quaker abolitionists, showing how educational and religious movements addressed and embraced cultural and linguistic variety. Drawing early American scholarship beyond the normative narrative of monolingualism, this volume will be invaluable to historians and sociolinguists whose work focuses on Pennsylvania and colonial, revolutionary, and antebellum America. In addition to the editor, the contributors include Craig Atwood, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Katherine Faull, Wolfgang Flügel, Katharine Gerbner, Maruice Jackson, Lisa Minardi, Jürgen Overhoff, and Birte Pfleger.

Ideological Battlegrounds – Constructions of Us and Them Before and After 9/11
Ideological Battlegrounds – Constructions of Us and Them Before and After 9/11

Author: Anna Gonerko-Frej

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2017-01-06

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1443862614

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Volume 2 of Ideological Battlegrounds – Constructions of Us and Them Before and After 9/11 continues and complements the discussion of the event undertaken in the first part of the two-volume publication (2014). This time, the focus is put on language and discourse. The contributions here volume explore the construction of “Us” and “Them” in a variety of pre- and post-9/11 texts, mainly from the perspectives of (political) discourse analysis and translation studies. The book shows how language in use reflects and retells the tragic event and how it (re-)constructs its actors, bringing us closer to understanding the roots and long-term consequences of 9/11. The volume is by no means exhaustive of the topic, but demonstrates its complexity and continuing relevance for today’s world.

Reflections on America
Reflections on America

Author: Claus Offe

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-11-05

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13: 074569456X

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At a time when so many cracks have emerged within the imagined community of ‘the West', this important new book, by one of the leading social scientists in Europe, examines the intellectual history of comparing Europe and the United States. Claus Offe considers the perspectives adopted by three of Europe’s greatest social scientists – Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber and Theodor W. Adorno – in their comparative writings on Europe. While traveling, studying and working in the US, all three constantly looked back to their European origins, trying to decipher from their American experience what the future may hold for Europe, be it for better or worse. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat, observed the functioning of American democracy with a mix of admiration, envy and deep concerns about the fate of liberty in the ‘democratic age'. Max Weber, the German sociologist, reported enthusiastically about the youthful energy he found in the United States, which, however, he saw as gradually succumbing to the stifling tendencies of European bureaucratization. Theodor W. Adorno, the critical theorist and refugee from Nazi Germany, observed with a sense of despair the workings of the American ‘culture industry’ which he equated to the totalitarian experience of Europe, only to switch to a much more favorable picture upon his return to Germany. Europe and the US are conventionally assumed to share the same trajectory and develop according to some common pattern of ‘occidental rationalism', with the observed differences resulting from mere lags and relative advances on one side or the other. In this insightful book, Offe questions the relevance of this paradigm to transatlantic relations today.

Padua and Venice
Padua and Venice

Author: Brigit Blass-Simmen

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-11-20

Total Pages: 651

ISBN-13: 3110465183

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Venice and Padua are neighboring cities with a topographical and geopolitical distinction. Venice is a port city in the Venetian Lagoon, which opened up towards Byzantium and the East. Padua on the mainland was founded in Roman times and is a university city, a place of Humanism and research into antiquity. The contributions analyze works of art as aesthetic formulations of their places of origin, which however also have an effect on and expand their surroundings. International experts investigate how these two different concepts stimulated each other in the Early Modern Age, and how the exchange worked.

Religion and Modernity
Religion and Modernity

Author: Detlef Pollack

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-12-08

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 019252173X

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This is not a book that provides a new integrated theory of religious change in modern societies, but rather one that develops theoretical elements that contribute to the understanding of some contemporary religious developments. Most of the approaches in sociology of religion are prone to emphasise either processes of religious decline or of religious upswing. For example, secularization theory usually includes a couple of relevant factors--such as functional differentiation, economic affluence or social equality--in order to account for religious change. However, the result of such a theory's empirical analyses seems to be certain in advance, namely that the social relevance of religion is decreasing. In contrast, the religious market model devised by sociologists of religion in the US is inclined to detect everywhere processes of religious upsurge. Religion and Modernity: An International Comparison avoids a purely theoretically based perspective on religious changes. For this reason, Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta do not begin with theoretical propositions but with questions. The authors raise the question of how the social significance of religion in its various facets has changed in modern societies, and explain what factors and conditions have contributed to these changes.

Safeguarding German-American Relations in the New Century
Safeguarding German-American Relations in the New Century

Author: Hermann Kurthen

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9780739115992

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American-German relations are in transition. A number of explanations have been given for this fact: some focusing on the personalities of politicians, some on political and attitudinal disparities, still others pointing to disagreements about foreign policy objectives since the end of the Cold War and 9/11. This volume, written by American and German scholarly experts, while not denying the relevance and validity of such explanations of the transatlantic estrangement, address the extent, resilience, and the causes of misconceptions, misunderstandings, and confrontations in the transatlantic relationship as well as highlighting commonalities and enduring ties between the U.S. and Germany. The chapters analyze domestic and foreign policies, political cultures, and compare trends in business relations, migration, culture, education, journalism, law, and religion. The authors contend that differences in political cultures, societal priorities, and national interests are inevitable, perhaps even desirable and not necessarily an obstacle to a continuous and mutually beneficial exchange or even the development of a special relationship. But first of all they need to be acknowledged, then understood, and finally dealt with in an atmosphere of mutual trust recognizing common ground. The book ends with suggestions about how to deal with different interpretations and perceptions in order to reclaim a strategic partnership for progressive changes in an increasingly multipolar world.

Religion and Politics in the United States and Germany
Religion and Politics in the United States and Germany

Author: Dagmar Pruin

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 3825896226

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Current interest in the relation of religion and politics is intense in both the US and Germany. Yet observers are regularly struck by fundamental divergences between approaches to and conceptualisations of this field on either side of the Atlantic. This volume, containing contributions by German and US authors from various disciplinary backgrounds, seeks to offer some clarification by elucidating traditional and newly emerging differences between, but also common challenges to, these societies in issues such as pluralism of values, religious education, the role of religious minorities, the relation of religion and elite formation, and religious aspects of voting patterns.

The Religious Right and US Middle East Policy
The Religious Right and US Middle East Policy

Author: Josef Braml

Publisher: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research

Published:

Total Pages: 13

ISBN-13: 9948007328

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The Christian Right in the USA has developed considerable financial and organizational clout over the years. With George W. Bush's victory in 2000, for the first time, a Republican presidential victory rested on a religious, conservative, southern-centered coalition led by a bloc of white Protestant fundamentalists and Evangelical Christians. The election results in November 2004 confirmed this trend. In the U.S. system of checks and balances, networks have a central role in the legislative process. About one-third of the circles on both sides of the Capitol consist of Congressional staffers and about two-thirds of external, grassroots organizations, interest groups and think tanks. Thus, the Christian Right is an "issue network" or "advocacy coalition," comprising different individuals and organizations with common worldviews and interests. National security issues provide a sustainable platform for different conservative elites and voters, as well as a glue to strengthen the cohesion of a broader Republican majority. Karl Rove, Republican strategist and confidant of the President, is trying hard to establish a permanent Republican majority. Assuming that the fight against terror will continue for a long time, it is probable that Republican campaign strategists and above all the Christian Right will continue their efforts to keep "existential" issues of national security, as well as moral and religious concerns, high on the political agenda. The issue network of the Christian Right is increasingly concerned with security and foreign policy issues, especially when Israel's security is at stake. Both the Christian Right and neo-conservatives want to strengthen U.S. military ability and use this unrivaled power to create a world in which both the U.S. and Israel can feel secure against forces portrayed as "evil." They can also count on support from pro-Israeli PACs, especially the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). This situation has markedly reduced the American President's room for maneuver on Middle East policy.