Bøker utgitt av ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon

This book aims to explain the reasons behind Russia''s international conduct in the post-Soviet era, examining Russian foreign policy discourse with a particular focus on the major foreign policy schools of Atlanticism, Eurasianism, derzhavniki, realpolitik, geopolitics, neo-Marxism, radical nationalism, and post-positivism. The Russian post-Soviet threat perceptions and national security doctrines are studied. The author critically assesses the evolution of Russian foreign policy decision-making over the last 25 years and analyzes the roles of various governmental agencies, interest groups and subnational actors. Concluding that a foreign policy consensus is gradually emerging in contemporary Russia, Sergunin argues that the Russian foreign policy discourse aims not only at the formulation of an international strategy but also at the search for a new national identity.Alexander Sergunin argues that Russia''s current domestic situation, defined by numerous socio-economic, inter-ethnic, demographic, environmental, and other problems, dictates the need to abandon superpower ambitions and to rather set modest foreign policy goals.

Serbia is still widely thought of as an unfinished state, whose people struggle to establish a compelling identity narrative in answer to the question ''who are we?''. While existing literature has over-analyzed Serbian nationalism, the Serbian public sphere remains largely ignored. This engaging and timely book fills this gap by giving context to the persistent and overwhelming dialogue between opposing factions on the identity spectrum in Serbia. Russell-Omaljev''s focus on elite discourses provides a fresh perspective on this contentious subject. It offers an original understanding of the competing arguments surrounding ''First'' and ''Other'' Serbia and of the contested visions of Serbian national identity and broader European identity.By closely examining the identity vocabulary of Serbian elites and the opposing ways in which these elites view the use of labels such as ''anti-Serbian'', ''patriot'', and ''traitor'', this book provides a vital lesson in post-conflict nation-building and raises important questions about the symbolic representations of political and cultural identities. A much-needed and compelling intervention in the Serbian identity discourse, Russell-Omaljev''s work is a must-read for any researcher on the Western Balkans.

The voice traverses Beckett''s work in its entirety, defining its space and its structure. Emanating from an indeterminate source situated outside the narrators and characters, while permeating the very words they utter, it proves to be incessant. It can alternatively be violently intrusive, or embody a calming presence. Literary creation will be charged with transforming the mortification it inflicts into a vivifying relationship to language. In the exploration undertaken here, Lacanian psychoanalysis offers the means to approach the voice''s multiple and fundamentally paradoxical facets with regards to language that founds the subject''s vital relation to existence. Far from seeking to impose a rigid and purely abstract framework, this study aims to highlight the singularity and complexity of Beckett''s work, and to outline a potentially vast field of investigation

This book ventures a critical gaze at the image of the European Union beyond the crisis. Keeping in mind that crises constitute organic parts of all systems, the volume attempts to apprehend the EU''s losses, gains, challenges, and opportunities deriving from the crisis and assesses what constitutes a viable and integrated exit from the current predicament. Moreover, through dealing with the EU as an everlasting process rather than a completed edifice, the collection aims at charting the conceptual weaknesses which resulted in a crisis so acute and long-lasting and at opening a discourse on the future and the required reconceptualization of the EU.The project is based on three large and interconnected thematic pillars that relate to the European Union after the crisis:- Facets of parliamentarism in the EU in the context of the crisis,- Political cohesion and institutional integration,- Perceptions, images, stereotypes, and their impact on the process of social and political integration of the EU.

This monograph discloses the estate-based social structure of contemporary Russia by way of outlining the principles of the USSR''s peculiar estate system, and explaining the new social estates of post-Soviet Russia. Simon Kordonsky distinguishes and describes in particular the currently existing Russian service and support estates. He introduces the notions of a resource-based state and resource-based economy as the political and economic foundations for Russian society''s estate structure. His study demonstrates, moreover, how the method of inventing and institutionalizing threats plays a dominant role in the mode of distribution of scarce resources in such a social system. The book shows fundamental differences between resource- as well as threat-based economies, on the one side, and traditional risk-based economies, on the other, and discloses what this means for Russia''s future.

Womit identifizierten sich Bürger der Sowjetunion? Wie grenzten sie sich voneinander ab? Destabilisierten Massenaufläufe die sowjetische Ordnung? Wie entstanden informelle Gruppierungen in einer Gesellschaft uniformer Konformität? Welchen Einfluss nahmen neue Medien und mediale Vernetzung auf die Entwicklung der multinationalen sowjetischen Gesellschaft? Was blieb, als nach dem Zusammenbruch der sowjetische Rahmen fiel?Manfred Zeller schreibt am Beispiel der Fans sowjetischer Fußballmannschaften aus Moskau (Spartak, Dynamo, ZSKA) und Kiew (Dynamo) eine Geschichte von Gemeinschaft und Gegnerschaft im poststalinistischen Vielvölkerreich. Er untersucht, zu welchen Gruppen sich sowjetische Bürger zusammenschlossen und gegen wen sie sich wandten. Seine Monographie handelt von komplexen Loyalitäten in der multinationalen Sowjetunion - und von der Hassliebe zwischen Kiew und Moskau.Zeller leistet einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Erforschung der sowjetischen Populärkultur nach Stalins Tod sowie zur aktuellen Debatte um Antagonismen im postsowjetischen Raum. „Moskau gegen Kiew" war zu sowjetischer Zeit noch keine Frage von Krieg und Frieden, jedoch war es im Fußball damals schon eine Frage von Sieg und Niederlage sowie eines Gefühls von ""Wir gegen die"" im komplexen multinationalen Setting der Region.

In this timely book, the authors provide a detailed analysis of Russia''s national interests in the Arctic region. They assess Russia''s domestic discourse on the High North''s role in the system of national priorities as well as of Moscow''s bi- and multilateral relations with major regional players, energy, environmental, socio-cultural, and military policies in the Arctic. In contrast to the internationally wide-spread stereotype of Russia as a revisionist power in the High North, this book argues that Moscow tries to pursue a double-sided strategy in the region. On the one hand, Russia aims at defending her legitimate economic interests in the region. On the other hand, Moscow is open to co-operation with foreign partners that are willing to partake in exploiting the Arctic natural resources. The general conclusion is that in the foreseeable future Moscow''s strategy in the region will be predictable and pragmatic rather than aggressive or spontaneous. The authors argue that in order to consolidate the soft power pattern of Russia''s behavior a proper international environment in the Arctic should be created by common efforts. Other regional players should demonstrate their responsibility and willingness to solve existing and potential problems on the basis of international law.

Witchcraft is very much alive in today''s post-communist societies. Stemming from ancient rural traditions and influenced by modern New Age concepts, it has kept its function as a vibrant cultural code to combat the adversities of everyday life. Intricately linked to the Orthodox church and its rituals, the magic discourse serves as a recourse for those in distress, a mechanism to counter-balance misfortune and, sometimes, a powerful medium for acts of aggression.In this fascinating book, Alexandra Tataran skillfully re-contextualizes the vast and heterogenuous discourse on contemporary witchcraft. She shows how magic, divination, and religious rituals are adapted to the complex mechanisms of modern mentalities and urban living in the specific historical and social context of post-communist countries. Based on years of first-hand fieldwork, Tataran offers fascinating insights into the experience of individuals deeming themselves bewitched and argues that the practice can also teach us a lot about particular forms of adapting traditions and resorting to pre-existing cultural models.

The 12 contributions to this book amply demonstrate the richness, vitality, and complexity of the multifaceted literary and cultural traffic between Britain and India in the colonial period.

This volume addresses a problem of high controversy: Relating the Holocaust to poetic and aesthetic phenomena has often been seen as a taboo, as only authentic testimonies, documents, or at least ''unliterary'', prosaic approaches were considered appropriate for dealing with the topic. However, from the very beginning of Holocaust literature and culture, there were tendencies towards literarization, poetization, and ornamentalization. Nowadays, aesthetic approaches-also in provocative, taboo-breaking ways-are more and more regarded as important instruments to evoke the attention required for keeping the cataclysm in the collective memory.The contributions of the volume using examples predominantly from Polish, Czech, and German Holocaust literature and culture focus on selected aspects of this complex of problems, such as: poetry of concentration camp detainees; lyrical poetry about the Holocaust; poetical tendencies in narrative literature and drama; ''ornamental prose'' about the Holocaust; devices and functions of aestheticization in Holocaust literature and culture.

It is a hard psychological fact that the desire for pleasure is the ultimate factor in most of human decision-making. But as dominant as the pleasure principle has been in the cultural development of mankind, its impact has so far never been fully acknowledged. In the hands of a powerful minority that controls global capital flows, pleasure has been turned into the most profitable item for sale, preying on the consumerist desires it helped to create.Re-evaluating the very notion of ''pleasure'' and assessing its often sinister influence on the course of our civilization, The Pursuit of Pleasure unveils how the determinants of human behavior are now in the hands of global marketers whose sole aim is the maximization of profit, not the personal development of their customers. This powerful book shows how the overcoming of the pleasure principle through the management of pleasure can be the foundation of a new humanist culture in which people are conscious and aware of their choices.

That we live in a world ruled and confused by cultural diversities has become common sense. It was the social sciences that gave birth to a new theoretical paradigm, the creation of cultural theories. Since then, social science theorizing applies to any social phenomenon across the world exploring cultural diversities in any social practice-except in regard to the social sciences and how they practice the creation of knowledge. How academics in the social sciences across the world create knowledge is no topic for cultural theories. Social science theorizing seemingly assumes that creating knowledge does not know such diversities. Kazumi Okamoto presents the development of an analytical instrument that helps study ''academic culture'', analyze ''academic practices'' of how social sciences create and distribute knowledge, and the influence the ''academic environment'' has on their knowledge productions. Applying this theoretical tool to the academe in Japan, she further presents a case study about how social scientists in Japan interpret academic practices and how they are affected by their academic environment. Studying the academic culture in the case of Japan, she reveals that not only the academic practices and the academic environment of the academe in Japan show much less diversities than cultural theories tend to presuppose, but that the assumption that creating social science knowledge does not know cultural diversities is an error as well.