National Science Foundation

Roy and Zhores Medvedev, two identical twins with a unique fate, not only lived through a whole century of history, from Stalin to Putin, they wrote and made history. Their research on Stalinism, the first to come out of the Soviet Union in the 1960s-1970s, turned them into famous dissidents overnight, but their criticism of the regime always remained loyal to Soviet power. The story of their lives provides a snapshot into the history of Soviet dissent,...

Illuminating the complex processes of China's uneven urbanization through the lens of the transition from village commons to public goods, this book is set in three urbanized villages in Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Xi'an, which have experienced similar demographic explosions and dramatic changes to their landscapes, the livelihoods of its inhabitants, and the power structures governing their residents. Graduated provision is the delivery of public goods...

How have digital technologies affected the truth claim of photography? What has been the artistic response to the technological and societal transformations the digital revolution has brought about?Claus Gunti explores the widespread implications of the digital in the work of renowned photographers of the Düsseldorf School, Thomas Ruff, Andreas Gursky and Jörg Sasse, stretching from ties to conceptual art to the development of a globalized visual...

Told from the perspective of the dancers, Processing Choreography: Thinking with William Forsythe's Duo is an ethnography reconstructing the dancers' activity within William Forsythe's Duo project, written legibly for readers in dance studies, the social sciences, and dance practice. Considering how the choreography of Duo emerges through practice and changes over two decades of history (1996-2018), Elizabeth Waterhouse offers a nuanced picture of...

Die palliative Pflege hat den Auftrag, den religiösen und spirituellen Bedürfnissen von Sterbenden entgegenzukommen. Doch welche Form kann religiöse Betreuung in einem Umfeld, das von naturwissenschaftlicher Medizin bestimmt wird, annehmen? Welche Rolle spielt dabei die Spiritual Care? Und findet alternative Spiritualität im Krankenhaus vielleicht eher Platz als konfessionell gebundene Religiosität? Mirjam Mezger geht diesen Fragen nach und liefert...

Vielen Menschen nutzen täglich Pornographie. Doch was erregt, erregt auch Anstoß - aktuell vor allem im Rahmen zweier Debatten: der sogenannten Pornographisierung der Gesellschaft und der Popularisierung von alternativen Pornographien. Nathan Schocher zeigt, dass diese Debatten in einem transgressiven Charakter der Pornographie wurzeln. In der Auseinandersetzung mit den philosophischen Konzepten von Foucault und Bataille sowie feministischer Pornographie-Kritik...

How did the Swiss organ donation crisis come about? Despite reforms and advertising campaigns, from the late '80s, Swiss transplant medicine began to lament an increasing mistrust in organ donation and falling donor numbers. Simon Hofmann throws light on the role of doctors, nurses, family members and donees, but also of the media, politicians and the pharmaceutical industry. In doing so, he draws out the relations between hospital practices, public...

The history of dance as the history of the body: how choreographies sketch out new modes of writing the history of dance, and how they expand the archive of dance in the process. Wer schreibt die Tanzgeschichte und aufgrund von welchen Annahmen und Interessen? Wie findet Erinnerung Eingang in historiografische Prozesse und welche Rolle spielt dabei der Körper? Diese Fragen prägen seit den 1990er-Jahren die europäische Tanzszene und bilden Anlass...

Anarchic clockmakers as alternative globalizers: a book about the attempt to establish a new world order. Warum bekannten sich Uhrenmacher im Tal von Saint-Imier in der Schweiz zum Anarchismus? Erklärungen liefert die Perspektive der 'modernen Globalisierung': Wie die Weltwirtschaft ging auch der Anarchismus aus globalen Kommunikations-, Transport-, Finanz- und Migrationsflüssen der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts hervor - allerdings als Alternative...

Amnesty International's (AI) focus on civil and political rights has marked their work with a gender bias from the outset. In the first comprehensive look at AI's work on women's rights, Miriam Ganzfried illustrates the development of their activities regarding women's rights issues over twenty years. Through interviews with staff members and activists and unprecedented access to archive material from the Swiss and the German AI sections, she shows...