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Muhammad al-Tabari’s History, written about 300 years after the establishment of Islam, is one of the religion’s most important commentaries. It offers important insights into the early development of Islam, not so much for its history as for the ways it was interpreted and understood. Through application of modern historiographical analysis and scriptural exegesis, the book explores the space between factual history and interpretive history, or histoire. The focus is especially on the ways in which al-Tabari himself understood and interpreted Qur’anic evidence, employing it not so much for literal as for political purposes. In this sense, his work is best understood not as a reliable history in the modern sense but as a politically-inspired commentary. Granted that his work has often been relied on for Islam’s historical claims, this book offers important new insights into the ways in which power and politics were shaping interpretations in its first three hundred years.

This book analyses early Christian texts on prayer. These texts provide a rich perspective on the formation of Christian identity in the early church. The primary sources investigated are the four earliest known treatises on prayer in Christian history, written by Clement, Origen, Tertullian and Cyprian in the beginning of the third century. Prayer and identity have both individual and collective expressions, and theological treatises reveal an interplay between these phenomena. The book examines the relational character of Christian prayer: how prayer establishes a relationship between the individual and God; how other social relations are reinforced by prayer in direct and indirect ways; and how individual Christians are connected to their own self in prayer.

For decades, the focus of Metaphor Studies laid on Conceptual Metaphor and its role in the human conceptual system. This study, however, focuses on metaphor in communication. Its aim is to shed light on how commenters in online debates discuss EU-related topics via Scenario Negotiation, expressing and negotiating their points of view via Metaphorical Scenarios. The study offers a review of current metaphor theory and practical approaches and proposes an Integrated Model of Scenario Negotiation. The results are based on context-sensitive, qualitative analysis of data which stem from a corpus of online debates from the Guardian’s Comment is free section. The discussion illustrates the genre-specific conceptual-communicative functions of Scenario Negotiation in naturally occurring discourse.

The third volume of «Studies on Balkan and Near Eastern Social Sciences» is a collection of empirical and theoretical research papers in the social sciences regarding the Balkans and the Near East written by researchers from several different universities and institutions. The book addresses economic, financial, political, sociological, international relations, health, cultural, and feminist issues in the region of the Balkan and Near East. The book is aimed at educators, researchers, and students interested in the Balkan and Near Eastern countries.

A manifesto for the systems-thinking-informed approach to incident and accident investigation, this accessible text is aimed at experts and generalists. A Glossary of Terms explains key concepts.

The premise is both unoriginal and original. Unoriginal, because it stands on the shoulders of systems-thinking pioneers – Barry Turner, Bruno Latour, Charles Perrow, Erik Hollnagel, Diane Vaughan and other luminaries. Original, because it is populist: The Systems-thinking for Safety series shows how theoretical insights can help make the world a safer place. Potentially, the series as a whole, and this manifesto text, have agency.

True to its mission to affect change, the book uses case studies to demonstrate how systems-thinking can help stakeholders learn from incidents, accidents and near-misses. The case studies of, for example, the Piper Alpha and Deepwater Horizon offshore disasters, the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the United States Navy collisions and the Grenfell Tower fire, demonstrate the universal applicability of systems-thinking. The manifesto argues that the systems-thinking informed approach to incident, accident and near-miss investigation, while resource intensive and effortful, produces tangible safety benefits and, by ensuring that «right is done», delivers justice and closure.

What if the human species were to get in touch with another intelligent species, thus far unknown?

This question is the impetus for a vast, exciting catalogue of science fiction and fantasy stories. They serve as hypothetical answers in narrative form but can also be regarded as cognitive exercises by which we investigate the nature and destiny of humanity. In other words, any creature and any story produced in response to this question requires an assessment of our notion of the human and a redefinition of our position and role in the world.

This volume aims at mapping and analysing the very rich catalogue of non-human figures which inhabit our contemporary imagery, with particular regard to science fiction literature and film. It is suggested that monsters, clones, zombies, aliens, artificial beings, cyborgs and mutants can function as ideological tools intended to confirm the role of humankind (and Western civilization) as the only possible standard of intelligent and ethical life. But they can also become cognitive instruments devised to question or criticize our vision of and behaviour toward the world, other species and ourselves. This privileged critical perspective – and the point of arrival of the book – is the category of the posthuman, which is regarded as the symbol of a possibly revolutionary vision of humanity, a wish and an invitation to embrace a new, more humble way of being and living.

Le sujet du livre est le processus de la lecture du manuscrit médiéval enluminé. L’objectif principal est d’analyser, en détail, les fonctions possibles de l’illustration ainsi que les différentes formes de la relation que celle-ci entretient avec le texte. Au terme de cette analyse il sera possible de déterminer de quelle façon l’image peut influer sur la réception de l’œuvre littéraire par le lecteur. L’objet de recherche central est l’exemplaire du Roman de la Rose de Guillaume de Lorris et de Jean de Meun conservé à la Bibliothèque des Princes Czartoryski à Cracovie, sous la cote Czart. 2920, contenant de nombreuses miniatures originales qui en font un objet d’analyse particulièrement intéressant.

Person zu sein: Was bedeutet das für die Ethik der Zukunft und für unsere Moral heute im Umgang mit uns selbst und im mit einander?

Diese Frage wirft sich aus einem aktuellen Problem auf

− Aus der Digitalisierung aller Lebensbereiche und damit zunehmender Depersonalisierung;

− Aus modernen Technologien und damit verbundenen Ideologien, die immer tiefer in unseren Umgang mit einander und mit uns je selbst eindringen;

− Aus philosophischen Konzepten, die an Hirnforschung und Künstlicher Intelligenz orientiert das Personsein manchen menschlichen Wesen aberkennen und manchen Rechenmaschinen zuerkennen.

Das Buch entfaltet die Antwort auf die in seinem Titel aufgeworfene Frage historisch und systematisch: aus praktischer Vernunft, die sich an den Verstand wendet, das heißt, aus der raison du cœur.