Katowice Interdisciplinary and Comparative Studies

This newly launched series creates the opportunity for those scholars who, on the one hand, wish to see literary works in the unceasing dialogue with other arts and, on the other, want to rethink literary theory in terms of its embededness in the reflection which involves notions crucial for the shape of contemporary human community such as democracy, justice, friendship, hospitality, home, passions, and many others. Thus we invite essays on a wide range of topics which include studies of individual texts placing them in a rich web of comparative references not turning away from the body-politic, interpretations of texts and images as important ways towards the formation of cultural identity, explorations of the dialogue between the word and the image with the complicated transpositions taking place in the process, as well as in-depth investigations of particular notions in their historical and multicultural contexts. The analyses undertaken by the authors in this series will make a serious contribution to a better understanding of the notions and processes constituting our being together. This newly launched series creates the opportunity for those scholars who, on the one hand, wish to see literary works in the unceasing dialogue with other arts and, on the other, want to rethink literary theory in terms of its embededness in the reflection which involves notions crucial for the shape of contemporary human community such as democracy, justice, friendship, hospitality, home, passions, and many others. Thus we invite essays on a wide range of topics which include studies of individual texts placing them in a rich web of comparative references not turning away from the body-politic, interpretations of texts and images as important ways towards the formation of cultural identity, explorations of the dialogue between the word and the image with the complicated transpositions taking place in the process, as well as in-depth investigations of particular notions in their historical and multicultural contexts. The analyses undertaken by the authors in this series will make a serious contribution to a better understanding of the notions and processes constituting our being together.

5 publications

History and Philosophy of Science

ISSN: 2376-6336

This series invites book proposals that include innovative strategies for pursuing history and philosophy of science. Especially welcome are scholarly works using non-analytic philosophical perspectives to successfully bring to bear on our understanding of how scientific practices are related to the humanities and the social sciences. The series also welcomes exploration of the sciences in relation to gender, culture, society, and the intellectual and social contexts that illuminate the places, the structures of origination, and the patterns of development over generations. Approaches may include focused analyses of thinkers from unorthodox perspectives that can shed new light on the history and philosophy of science, such as Montaigne, Bruno, Galileo, Newton, Pascal, Emerson, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Jung, Freud. Proposals aimed at probing the philosophical intersections between the sciences and other societal practices that can be configured as heretic are also encouraged. These might include the emergence of the psychoanalytic movements in the twentieth century, how the fine arts have impinged on the historical processes that gave rise to the sciences over the last few centuries, how in turn the intellectual frameworks inaugurated by the sciences have been imported into the avant-garde movements that paralleled the advent of industrialized societies, and finally how contemporary scientific domains of knowledge reverberate in ’deviant’ social and artistic practices.

9 publications

New Visions of the Cosmopolitan

ISSN: 1664-3380

New Visions of the Cosmopolitan explores how the forces of contemporary social change release a cosmopolitan energy that dilutes the relevance of the nation-state. The ‘transnational turn’ creates tendencies toward greater world openness. A more pluralist, multi-perspectivist late modernity requires a cosmopolitan research framework capable of illustrating how world histories and futures are intricately connected under these new conditions. This series offers a body of work exploring how cosmopolitan ideas, emerging from encounters between local and global currents, generate impulses towards social, cultural, legal, political and economic transformation. The series invites contributions that focalize this contemporary situation using theories, perspectives and methodologies drawn from multiple disciplines. Of particular, although not exclusive, interest are proposals exploring: transnational visions of justice and solidarity; cosmopolitan publics; researching cosmopolitan worlds; cosmopolitan memory; the cosmopolitics of contemporary global capitalism; borders of the cosmopolitan; cosmopolitanism in the non-western world; security, war and peace in a cosmopolitan age; multiple modernities; divergence and convergence; political culture and multi-level governance. This peer-reviewed series publishes monographs and edited collections.

6 publications

Histories of Religious Pluralism

ISSN: 2632-3257

This new book series will show that a critical understanding of religious pluralism in the past is of vital significance to debates about identity, diversity, and co-existence in the present. Studies will focus on using a historical perspective to address one of three key themes in the period between 1500 and 2000 CE: intra-religious pluralism; inter-religious pluralism; or, religion, secularism, and the nation state. Within this frame of reference, constructive contrasts between a wide range of foci, approaches, and viewpoints will be keenly encouraged. The series will champion established lines of research in political, social, cultural, and gendered histories of religious pluralism – e.g. studies on liberty, persecution, and toleration – whilst also encouraging novel ways of transcending a scholarly discourse which is dominated by ideologies and methodologies derived from the social sciences – e.g. by studies on the theological and literary dimensions of conflict, cohesion, and community. The series will embrace scholarship on subjects from any part of the world. European and extra-European perspectives that complement traditional Anglo-American thinking are particularly welcome. As the ‘global turn’ continues to energize new types of enquiry, the series will also seek to advance studies of indigenous and displaced religious groups. With this scope there is a reflexive acknowledgement that the rationale for and defining concepts of the series are grounded in a ‘western’ intellectual tradition; however, this should serve as a challenge to prospective authors to pioneer new dialogues between ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ approaches and foci, or even surpass the dichotomy altogether. An emphasis will be given to promoting the best research of early career scholars from around the world, whilst also giving more established academics the opportunity to develop their multimedia policy-orientated work – e.g. podcasts, blogs, talks, press briefings, reports for thinktanks, governments, and public agencies etc. – into a book that would engage peers and students alike. In association with Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies

3 publications

Many Voices

The literature of the Americas has a variety of cultural elements present under the general term "American." The canonical English mainstream of North America and the corresponding Spanish/Portuguese mainstream of South America have nevertheless reflected the arrival, assimilation, and marginality of numerous groups. Their experiences are both unique and representative of universal conditions of cultural contact and conflict. In both the United States and Canada, there are works which represent diverse aspects of the Black, Irish, Italian, Hispanic or Latino, Franco, German, Jewish, Portuguese, Greek, Slavic, and Asian communities, among others, as writers give both creative and testimonial form to the realities, both past and present of groups arriving subsequent to the original colonial period. In Latin America, some of these same groups are represented in the fiction written in Spanish and Portuguese. While this series focuses on specific ethnic groups and/or individual representatives, the fictional and poetic texts therein may address a range of issues, among them race relations, language and bilingualism, nationalism, colonialism, gender, class, cultural conflict, identity and maintenance, the context of multiculturalism. Critical approaches may include ethnocriticism, historical analyses, others, as well as structural critiques of these sorts of texts which by the very nature of their multiple focus become the aesthetic model for their content: a sort of border, mixed-blood, metis linguistic mode that in turn requires a double vision of its readers and critics. The literature of the Americas has a variety of cultural elements present under the general term "American." The canonical English mainstream of North America and the corresponding Spanish/Portuguese mainstream of South America have nevertheless reflected the arrival, assimilation, and marginality of numerous groups. Their experiences are both unique and representative of universal conditions of cultural contact and conflict. In both the United States and Canada, there are works which represent diverse aspects of the Black, Irish, Italian, Hispanic or Latino, Franco, German, Jewish, Portuguese, Greek, Slavic, and Asian communities, among others, as writers give both creative and testimonial form to the realities, both past and present of groups arriving subsequent to the original colonial period. In Latin America, some of these same groups are represented in the fiction written in Spanish and Portuguese. While this series focuses on specific ethnic groups and/or individual representatives, the fictional and poetic texts therein may address a range of issues, among them race relations, language and bilingualism, nationalism, colonialism, gender, class, cultural conflict, identity and maintenance, the context of multiculturalism. Critical approaches may include ethnocriticism, historical analyses, others, as well as structural critiques of these sorts of texts which by the very nature of their multiple focus become the aesthetic model for their content: a sort of border, mixed-blood, metis linguistic mode that in turn requires a double vision of its readers and critics. The literature of the Americas has a variety of cultural elements present under the general term "American." The canonical English mainstream of North America and the corresponding Spanish/Portuguese mainstream of South America have nevertheless reflected the arrival, assimilation, and marginality of numerous groups. Their experiences are both unique and representative of universal conditions of cultural contact and conflict. In both the United States and Canada, there are works which represent diverse aspects of the Black, Irish, Italian, Hispanic or Latino, Franco, German, Jewish, Portuguese, Greek, Slavic, and Asian communities, among others, as writers give both creative and testimonial form to the realities, both past and present of groups arriving subsequent to the original colonial period. In Latin America, some of these same groups are represented in the fiction written in Spanish and Portuguese. While this series focuses on specific ethnic groups and/or individual representatives, the fictional and poetic texts therein may address a range of issues, among them race relations, language and bilingualism, nationalism, colonialism, gender, class, cultural conflict, identity and maintenance, the context of multiculturalism. Critical approaches may include ethnocriticism, historical analyses, others, as well as structural critiques of these sorts of texts which by the very nature of their multiple focus become the aesthetic model for their content: a sort of border, mixed-blood, metis linguistic mode that in turn requires a double vision of its readers and critics.

5 publications

Studies in Communication, Culture, Race, and Religion

Studies in Communication, Culture, Race, and Religion examines how communication and cultural frameworks help shape our understanding of race and religion—and in turn, how foregrounding race and religion shapes our understanding of how we communicate and interpret culture. Grounded in communication methodology and theory, books in this series also contribute to our understanding of how communication helps shape culture and how culture shapes how we communicate. Using both historical and contemporary perspectives, studies in this series demonstrate how media and culture are intertwined with race and religion. Since these subjects are interdisciplinary, this peer-reviewed book series invites proposals for monographs and edited volumes from scholars across all academic disciplines using varied communication methodologies and theories. This series provides space for emerging, junior, and senior scholars engaged in research that studies the intersection of communication, culture, race, and religion to publish exciting and groundbreaking work.

11 publications