The subsequent chapters of the book deal with selected questions from Jeanette Winterson s fiction, such as gender issues, love and eroticism, language and time, constituting areas within which Winterson s characters seek their identity. As they contest and repudiate cliches, stereotypes and patterns, their journey of self-discovery is accomplished through transgression. The book analyzes how the subversion of phallogocentric narrative and scenarios entails the reenvisaging of relations between the genders and reconceptualization of female desire. The author attempts to determine the...

Halliday has claimed that neither spoken nor written language is more complex than the other per se, but that the two mediums show different degrees of complexity on different levels. He argues that written language uses more lexical items within the clause whereas spoken language uses more clauses within the clause complex. Thus, written language should use more complex noun phrases and spoken language should use more complex clause complexes. The aim of the study was to conduct a corpus-based study to analyse spoken and written language samples with regard to differences in complexity on...

The German pension system was the first formal pension system in the world, designed by Bismarck nearly 120 years ago. It has been very successful in providing high and reliable pension levels at reasonable contribution rates. While the generosity of the German pension system is considered a great social achievement, negative incentive effects of past reforms in the 1970s and 1980s and population aging are threatening the very core of the system. This has led to fundamental pension reforms since 1992. Based on a detailed simulation model of the German pension system, this book provides a...

The question about the first Americans New World roots is seldom given attention, although there have been approaches to finding answers. These initiatives were neglected due to the dominance of ideas of external origins. In 1493 all lands west of the Azores were declared Spanish possessions according to the Bula Intercaetera. When on fictitious maps and in the literature of the 16th century America was described as identical to or as part of Asia, connected by huge fictitious land connections, both Asia and America were considered Spanish territories. Such conjectures furthermore...

Crossmedia and transmedia are keywords of increasing importance for media professionals and scholars alike. Although these phenomena are older than sometimes argued, the affordances of digital networked media have radically enriched the nature of -crossmedia strategies- of media industries. As such crossmedia is an emergent practice that arises as one of the core sources of complexity and innovation for late modern cultures. This edited volume includes chapters by authors from three continents who approach the phenomenon from different disciplinary angles: semiotics, cultural studies, media...

This book focuses on ambiguity in Troilus and Criseyde, one of Geoffrey Chaucer s (1343?-1400) representative works. It examines systematically how and why ambiguity is likely to arise. After reviewing previous scholarship on ambiguity in Chaucer, the author proposes a new theoretical framework, -double prism structure-, incorporating the most recent findings in the area of semantics, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics together with medieval rhetoric and allegory. Using this framework the book examines ambiguity due to textual domains, interpersonal domains and linguistic domains....

Der erste Teil des Bandes versammelt drei Beitrage, die unterschiedliche Bezuge zu Afrika herstellen. Der Roman Im Kongo des Schweizer Autors Urs Widmer wird als alternative Lesart zu Hegels Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte vorgestellt, das Stuck Peggy Picket sieht das Gesicht Gottes von Roland Schimmelpfennig als problematisches Verhaltnis zwischen westlicher und afrikanischer Welt diagnostiziert, wahrend sich der dritte Beitrag mit unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen des Rechts in Grimmschen und afrikanischen Marchen befasst. Der zweite Teil prasentiert...

Is constitutional jurisprudence on socio-economic rights a threat to democracies? How powerful are constitutional courts in this field? Is it possible to restrain judicial activism in socio-economic adjudication? Through reference to constitutional dialogue theory, this book shows constitutional adjudication in socio-economic matters through the lenses of constitutional pluralism and intra-institutional deliberation. The experiences of nascent Central-Eastern European democracies which have undergone democratic changes in early 90ies of the 20th century are particularly interesting as a case...

It is hard to find another two concepts which would be more significant in the European integration discourse than -democracy- and -solidarity- and at the same time more ambiguous in the political practice of integration. Currently European integration discourse is being organized around the concept of democracy. Analyzing European integration discourse the author argues that the situation is quite paradoxical because in order to secure democracy in the EU, European integration discourse must be organized not around the concept of democracy but around the concept of solidarity. The book...

Although the Polish immigrant movement in Germany has existed for more than 150 years, this fact is not reflected in the shape or standing of contemporary organisations. The history of Polish associations in Germany is an example that demonstrates, on the one hand, growth and expansion, and on the other, the weakening and decay of an immigrant organisation movement. -Polish Organisations in Germany: Their Present Status and Needs- is intended to fill, to a certain extent, the gaps in the sociological literature on Polish organisations in Germany. It aims at describing the situations in which...