front cover of Observing Protest from a Place
Observing Protest from a Place
The World Social Forum in Dakar (2011)
Johanna Siméant, Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, and Isabelle Sommier
Amsterdam University Press, 2015
Social movements throughout the world have been central to history, politics, society, and culture. Observing Protest froma Place examines the impact of one such campaign, the global justice movement, as seen from the southern hemisphere. Drawing upon a collective survey from the 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar, the essays explore a number of vital issues, including the methodological problems of studying international activist gatherings and how scholars can overcome those challenges. Bydemonstrating the importance of the global justice movement and the role of nongovernmental organizations for participantsin the southern hemisphere, this volume is an important addition to the literature on community action.
[more]

logo for Amsterdam University Press
Ocean Governance and Conflict in the East and South China Sea
Negotiating Natural Resources, Institutions and Power
Christian Schultheiss
Amsterdam University Press

front cover of Odd Couples
Odd Couples
A History of Gay Marriage in Scandinavia
Jens Rydström
Amsterdam University Press, 2011

The concept of marriage as a union of a man and a woman was fundamentally challenged by the introduction of registered partnership in Denmark in 1989. Odd Couples is the first comprehensive history of registered partnership and gay marriage in Scandinavia. It traces the origins of laws which initially were extremely controversial—inside and outside the gay community—but have now gained broad popular and political support, as well as the positive effects and risks involved in state recognition of lesbian and gay couples.  Through a comparison of how these laws have been received and practiced in all of the Scandinavian countries, including Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the author presents a nuanced study of a fascinating political process that began in the 1960s and continues to change the way we understand family, sexuality and nation.

[more]

front cover of Of Reynaert the Fox
Of Reynaert the Fox
Text and Facing Translation of the Middle Dutch Beast Epic
Edited by André Bouwman and Bart Besamusca
Amsterdam University Press, 2009

An entertaining reworking of the most popular branch of the Old French tale of Reynard the Fox, the mid-thirteenth century Dutch epic Van den vos Reynaerde is one of the earliest long literary works in the Dutch vernacular. Sly Reynaert and a cast of other comical woodland characters find themselves again and again caught up in escapades that often provide a satirical commentary on human society.

            
This charmingly volume is the first bilingual edition of the tale, featuring facing pages with an English translation by Thea Summerfield, making the undisputed masterpiece of medieval Dutch literature accessible to a wide international audience. Accompanying the critical text and parallel translation are an introduction, interpretative notes, an index of names, a complete glossary, and a short introduction to Middle Dutch.

[more]

front cover of Old English Ecotheology
Old English Ecotheology
The Exeter Book
Courtney Barajas
Amsterdam University Press, 2021
This book examines the impact of environmental crises on early medieval English theology and poetry. Like their modern counterparts, theologians at the turn of the first millennium understood the interconnectedness of the Earth community, and affirmed the independent subjectivity of other-than-humans. The author argues for the existence of a specific Old English ecotheology, and demonstrates the influence of that theology on contemporaneous poetry. Taking the Exeter Book as a microcosm of the poetic corpus, she explores the impact of early medieval apocalypticism and environmental anxiety on Old English wisdom poems, riddles, elegies, and saints’ lives.
[more]

front cover of Olonkho
Olonkho
Nurgun Botur the Swift
Platon Oyunski
Amsterdam University Press, 2015
Olonkho is the general name for the entire Yakut heroic epic that consists of many long legends – one of the longest being ‘Nurgun Botur the Swift’ consisting of some 36,000 lines of verse, published here. Like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Finnish Kalevala, the Buryat Geser, and the Kirghiz Manas, the Yakut Olonkho is an epic of a very ancient origin dating back to the period – possibly as early as the eighth or ninth centuries – when the ancestors of the present-day Yakut peoples lived on their former homeland and closely communicated with the Turkic and Mongolian peoples living in the Altay and Sayan regions. As with all Olonkho stories the hero – in this story Nurgun Botur the Swift – and his tribe are heaven-born, hence his people are referred to as ‘Aiyy kin’ (the deity’s relatives). Naturally, too, on account of his vital role (in saving his people from destruction and oblivion by evil, many-legged, fire-breathing, one-armed, one legged Cyclops-type monsters – the Devil’s relatives representing all possible sins), he is depicted not only as strong, but also a handsome, remarkably athletic and incredibly brave and well-built man ‘as swift as an arrow’, but also with an uncontrollable temper when required.
[more]

front cover of On Building Peace
On Building Peace
Rescuing the Nation-state and Saving the United Nations
Michael von der Schulenburg
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
Only 25 years after the end of the Cold War, the Western-dominated global order is fading and our hopes that liberal democracy would spread and bring world peace are evaporating. While the West is increasingly preoccupied with its internal problems, threats to global peace have fundamentally changed: wars among nation-states and their alliances, once the dominant scourge of humankind, have almost disappeared and are replaced by a triple threat from intra-state armed conflicts, the failing of nation-states and the rise of belligerent non-state actors. The global peace we felt within our reach in 1991, is escaping us. On Building Peace seeks the answers that the UN Charter can no longer provide. Once meant as a guarantor for peace, the Charter was never designed to deal with intra-state conflicts and today its core principles are eroded. The book makes two rather simple, but possibly unpopular suggestions for preserving future peace: first, we must rescue the nation-state, not despite but because of globalization, and second, we must not further undermine the United Nations, but expand its Charter for dealing collectively with this triple threat.The struggle for survival in a world of limited resources and environmental degradation will deepen intra-state conflicts. We must prevent slipping back into a new round of Cold War-type confrontations and focus on finding collective solutions for building peace. For the sake of billions of people of future generations, we cannot get this wrong.
[more]

front cover of On Latin Adverbs
On Latin Adverbs
Harm Pinkster
Amsterdam University Press, 2006
This study deals with a number of aspects of the words which are usually called adverbs in Latin. It contains on the one hand a critical discussion of their treatment in Latin grammatical studies -- the characteristics attributed to them, their relationship to other words -- and on the other hand a discussion of the conditions that have to be met in order to achieve a better (sub)classification -- general problems of classification as well as criteria for affecting such classification -- and a better description of the functions of adverbs in larger constructions. The study contains, therefore, both language-specific sections and more general ones. The author wrote the passages specifically dealing with Latin in such a way that they are clear enough to the non-Latinist, the more general passages in such a way that they are understandable for Latinists who are not acquainted with recent developments in linguistics.
[more]

front cover of On Rules
On Rules
Gherardo Colombo
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
Justice is simultaneously a practical and an ideal concept: when we think of justice, we refer to its day-to-day administration, involving police, lawyers, judges, and politicians—but we also refer to a larger ideal, a set of basic values that guide our attempts to live together and balance competing interests, obligations, and freedoms. If we lose sight of the practical, the ideal will fail—but if we forget the ideal, the practical becomes pointless.

On Rules is the culmination of decades of thinking about and working within the law as both an ideal and a realm of practical action. Gherardo Colombo brings to his rich philosophical analysis of the culture of justice thirty years of experience in the Italian judiciary, which saw him head up numerous important and sensitive commissions and inquiries. His exploration of the concept and application of rules of justice is powerful and clear: if we don’t root our experience in a fundamental respect for rules, we cannot have a functioning, just society.
 
[more]

logo for Amsterdam University Press
On Rules
Gherardo Colombo
Amsterdam University Press, 2015
Justice is simultaneously a practical and an ideal concept: when we think of justice, we refer to its day-to-day administration, involving police, lawyers, judges, and politicians-but we also refer to a larger ideal, a set of basic values that guide our attempts to live together and balance competing interests, obligations, and freedoms. If we lose sight of the practical, the ideal will fail-but if we forget the ideal, the practical becomes pointless.On Rules is the culmination of decades of thinking about and working within the law as both ideal and realm of practical action. Gherardo Colombo brings to his rich philosophical analysis of the culture of justice thirty years of experience in the Italian judiciary, which saw him head up numerous important and sensitive commissions and inquiries. His exploration of the concept and application of rules of justice is powerful and clear: if we don't root our experience in a fundamental respect for rules, we cannot have a functioning, just society.
[more]

front cover of One Word - Yak Kaleme
One Word - Yak Kaleme
19th Century Persian Treatise Introducing Western Codified Law
Sen McGlinn
Amsterdam University Press, 2010
One Word – Yak Kaleme was one of the first treatises in the Middle East to demonstrate that Islam is compatible with the introduction of modern western forms of government, and specifically that the principles of the sharia can be incorporated in a codified law comparable to that found in European countries. This was a daring argument in the late 19th century, when it was extremely difficult to convince the rulers and religious class that a civil code of law was needed: would it not diminish the status of the ruler, and would it not be an admission that the religious law, the sharia, was deficient? The author, Mirza Yu¯suf Kha¯n Mustashar al-Dawla (d. 1895), was a liberal-minded bureaucrat campaigning for reform of the absolutist system and the creation of one based on European principles of government. He held several posts abroad including St Petersburg (1854-62), and Paris (1867-71), as well as carrying out administrative duties in Iran itself. In One Word he argues that the principles underlying constitutional government can be found in Islamic sources, particularly in the Quran and traditions of the Prophet. Unlike some Oriental travellers to Europe at that time, he observed that European dominance was not derived from a few technological advances, but primarily from the organisation of society, on the basis of codified law. One Word was a significant text in the lead-up to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, but its message is relevant today.
[more]

front cover of Open Content Licensing
Open Content Licensing
From Theory to Practice
Edited by Lucie Guibault and Christina Angelopoulos
Amsterdam University Press, 2011

Although open content licenses only account for a fraction of all copyright licenses currently enforced in the world, their introduction has had profound effects on the use and dissemination of information. This book explores the theoretical underpinnings of these licenses and offers insight on the practical advantages and inconveniences of their use. The essays collected here include an objective study of the principles of open content from the perspective of European intellectual property law as well as novel examinations of their possible implementation in different areas of the cultural or information industry.

[more]

front cover of Open Data and the Knowledge Society
Open Data and the Knowledge Society
Bridgette Wessels, Rachel Finn, Thordis Sveinsdottir, and Kush Wadhwa
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
While there is a lot of talk about how we now live in a knowledge society, the reality has been less impressive: We have yet to truly transition to a knowledge society-in part, this book argues, because discussion mostly focuses on a knowledge economy and information society rather than on ways to mobilise to create an actual knowledge society. That all may change, however, with the rise of open data and big data. This book considers the role of the open data movement in fostering transformation, showing that at the heart of any successful mobilisation will be an emerging open data ecosystem and new ways for societal actors to effectively produce and use data.
[more]

front cover of Orchestrating Public Opinion
Orchestrating Public Opinion
How Music Persuades in Television Political Ads for US Presidential Campaigns, 1952-2016
Paul Christiansen
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
Analysis of political advertising tends to give music short shrift - which flies in the face of what we know about the power of music to set a mood, affect feelings, and influence our perceptions. This book is the first to offer a detailed exploration of the role of music in US presidential campaign advertising, from Eisenhower to the present, showing that in many cases music isn't simply one element in the presentation of an ad's message - it's the dominant factor, more important than images, words, or narration.
[more]

front cover of Order, Materiality, and Urban Space in the Early Modern Kingdom of Sweden
Order, Materiality, and Urban Space in the Early Modern Kingdom of Sweden
Riitta Laitinen
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
Our corporeality and immersion in the material world make us inherently spatial beings, and the fact that we all share everyday experiences in the global physical environment means that community is also spatial by nature. This book explores the relationship between the seventeenth-century townspeople of Turku, Sweden, and their urban surroundings. Riitta Laitinen offers a novel account of civil and social order in this early modern town, highlighting the central importance of materiality and spatiality and breaking down the dichotomy of public versus private life that has dominated traditional studies of the time period.
[more]

front cover of The Origins of the Exhibition Space (1450-1750)
The Origins of the Exhibition Space (1450-1750)
Pamela Bianchi
Amsterdam University Press, 2023
Before the first purpose-designed exhibition spaces and painting exhibitions emerged, showing art was mainly related to the habit of dressing up spaces for political commemorations, religious festivals, and marketing strategies. Palaces, cloisters, façades, squares, and shops became temporary and privileged venues for art display, where sociability was performed, and the idea of exhibition developed. >cite>What were those places and events? What aesthetic, cultural, social and political discourses intersected with the early idea of exhibition space? How did displaying art shape a new vocabulary within these events, and conversely, how have these occasions conditioned exhibiting practices? This book traces the origins of the exhibition space by studying its visual and written imagery in the early modern period. It reconsiders events and habits that contributed to shaping the imagery of the exhibition space, and to defining exhibition-making practices, exploring micro-histories and long-term changes.
[more]

front cover of Ornament and Monstrosity in Early Modern Art
Ornament and Monstrosity in Early Modern Art
Chris Askholt Hammeken
Amsterdam University Press, 2019
Early modern art features a remarkable fascination with ornament, both as decorative device and compositional strategy, across artistic media and genres.Interestingly, the inventive, elegant manifestations of ornament in the art of the period often include layers of disquieting paradoxes, creating tensions - monstrosities even - that manifest themselves in a variety of ways. In some cases, dichotomies (between order and chaos, artificiality and nature, rational logic and imaginative creativity, etc.) may emerge. Elsewhere, a sense of agitation undermines structures of statuesque control or erupts into wild, unruly displays of constant genesis.The monstrosity of ornament is brought into play through strategies of hybridity and metamorphosis, or by the handling of scale, proportion, and space in ambiguous and discomforting ways that break with the laws of physical reality. An interest in strange exaggeration and curious artifice allows for such colossal ornamental attitude to thrive within early modern art.
[more]

logo for Amsterdam University Press
Ostrannenie
On "Strangeness" and the Moving Image. The History, Reception, and Relevance of a Concept
Annie van den Oever
Amsterdam University Press

front cover of Otherworld Women in Early Irish Literature
Otherworld Women in Early Irish Literature
Heather Key
Amsterdam University Press, 2023
In early Ireland, there were many names for what scholars have dubbed the ‘Otherworld’: the Plain of Delights, the Land of Youth, the Land of Promise, and more. Many of the myths and legends from this period involve an encounter between a hero and a woman from this Otherworld, with sufficient frequency to form a distinct theme within the literature. This book examines the particularities and consequences of these otherworldly encounters, attending in particular to the question of gender and the social dynamics at work. Five stories purportedly from the lost book Cín Dromma Snechta receive detailed analysis, alongside material from other sources, in order to reconstruct the mindset of the early Irish who told these stories about the Otherworld and their views about women in general.
[more]

front cover of Our Nanotechnology Future
Our Nanotechnology Future
Joseph B. Natowitz and Christian Ngô
Amsterdam University Press, 2017
This book explores nanotechnology, a rapidly evolving and growing field with applications in a large number of areas. The concepts and physics are highlighted through topics such as nanoscience, quantum effects, nanostructures, and new forms of carbon. Applications and potential health and safety implications of nanomaterials are discussed for healthcare, food production, electronics, defence and more. Accessible and timely, this introduction to nanotechnology will interest students, teachers, politicians, and everyone else eager to learn more about this dynamic field.
[more]

front cover of Our Strange Body
Our Strange Body
Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Medical Interventions
Jenny Slatman
Amsterdam University Press, 2014
The ever increasing ability of medical technology to reshape the human body in fundamental ways - from organ and tissue transplants to reconstructive surgery and prosthetics - is something now largely taken for granted. But for a philosopher, such interventions raise fundamental and fascinating questions about our sense of individual identity and its relationship to the physical body. Drawing on and engaging with philosophers from across the centuries, Jenny Slatman here develops a novel argument: that our own body always entails a strange dimension, a strangeness that enables us to incorporate radical physical changes.
[more]

front cover of Outlawry, Liminality, and Sanctity in the Literature of the Early Medieval North Atlantic
Outlawry, Liminality, and Sanctity in the Literature of the Early Medieval North Atlantic
Jeremy DeAngelo
Amsterdam University Press, 2018
In reality, medieval outlaws were dangerous, desperate individuals. In the fiction of the Middle Ages, however, the possibilities afforded by their position on societies’ margins granted them the ability to fill a number of transitory, transgressive roles: young adventurer, freedom fighter, and even saint. Outlawry, Liminality, and Sanctity in the Literature of the Early Medieval North Atlantic examines the development of the literary outlaw in the early Middle Ages, when traditions drawn from Anglo-Saxon England, early Christian Ireland, and Viking Age Iceland informed a generous view of itinerant criminality and facilitated the application of outlaw tropes to moral questions of conduct in both secular and religious life. Taken together, the traditions of the North Atlantic archipelago reveal a world of interconnected cultures with an expansive view of movement across boundaries both literal and conceptual, capable of finding value in unlikely places and countenancing the challenges presented by such discoveries.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter