De Gruyter Brill on the Wire
Episodes
Precariously Positioned: How Africa Must Balance Development with a Climate-Friendly Outlook
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In addition to battling poverty, malnutrition, and disease, African countries today find themselves also having to fend off the numerous perils of cli...
Prop to Prerequisite: How Manikins have Been Used Over Time
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Miniature ivory anatomical models or “manikins” were first created in the late 17th century, but their history as props for man-midwives, or even ...
Jewish Architecture: A Stage for Jewish Liturgy
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jewish religious architecture is central to the Jewish religion. Across the centuries, Jewish temples and synagogues have been treated as symbols of h...
Elleni Centime Zeleke, "Ethiopia in Theory: Revolution and Knowledge Production, 1964-2016" (Haymarket Books, 2020)
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Between the years 1964 and 1974, Ethiopian post-secondary students studying at home, in Europe, and in North America produced a number of journals whe...
Morality in Nature: What Honeybees and Flowers Can Tell Us about its Origin
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Is morality solely a human creation? Or can we find evidence of morality in other parts of nature? Honeybees and flowers have co-evolved to form a mut...
Learning from Rwanda: How 100 Days of Mass Killing Finally Led to International Reform (Part 2)
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rwanda witnessed a 100-day mass genocide back in 1994, when the ethnic Hutu government and its supporters led a campaign that left around 800,000 peop...
Jonathan Robinson, "Rights at the Margins: Historical, Legal and Philosophical Perspectives" (Brill, 2020)
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The essays in Rights at the Margins: Historical, Legal and Philosophical Perspectives (Brill) explore the ways rights were available to those in the m...
Learning from Rwanda: How 100 Days of Mass Killing Finally Led to International Reform (Part 1)
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rwanda witnessed a 100-day mass genocide back in 1994, when the ethnic Hutu government and its supporters led a campaign that left around 800,000 peop...
Martin Gansten, "The Jewel of Annual Astrology: A Translation of Balabhadra's Hāyanaratna" (Brill, 2020)
28 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We speak with Martin Gansten on his groundbreaking edition and translation of Balabhadra's Hāyanaratna (1649), the first-ever scholarly volume on S...
N. Detering and I. Walser-Bürgler, "Contesting Europe: Comparative Perspectives on Early Modern Discourses on Europe, 1400–1800" (Brill, 2019)
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While the term ‘Europe’ was used sporadically in ancient and medieval times, it proliferated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and ga...
The Joker: How a “Typical Hoodlum” Character of the ‘40s Attained Cult Status Today
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From the time of his introduction in the Detective Comics in 1940s, the Joker is a character that has both fascinated and repelled the collective psyc...
Philip Reid, "The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600-1800" (Brill, 2020)
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
To the average landlubber, the merchant ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1800 seem little different from their counterparts two centuries befo...
Recording Global Diplomacy: Contextualizing Perspectives
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1999, the Organization of African Unity cited dissatisfaction with the solely “global” approach that the UN had applied in their International ...
How Neoliberalization Has Increased Social, Economic, and Political Adversities (Part 2)
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The current neoliberal era has seen a paradigm shift in terms of economic liberalization, such as policies on privatization, deregulation, and glo...
How Neoliberalization Has Increased Social, Economic, and Political Adversities (Part 1)
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The current neoliberal era has seen a paradigm shift in terms of economic liberalization, such as policies on privatization, deregulation, and glo...
Controlling the Scientific Narrative: Randomized Controlled Trials and The Manipulation of “Control”
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Modern science uses the “randomized controlled trial”—whereby people are randomly allocated either the drug or a placebo—as a gold standard to...
Massimo Modonesi, "The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action" (Haymarket, 2019)
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be a political subject? This is one of the key questions asked by Massimo Modonesi in The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and ...
Dealing with COVID-19: The Perils of Using Previous Crises as a Reference Point
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has received unprecedented media coverage in the past 3 months. A large part of this coverage includes comparisons of the...
What Laws Lie in the Shadow of the Acquittal?
06 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In German law, a person strongly suspected of having committed a crime can be placed in pretrial detention; but a certain percentage of such people ...
Elizabeth A. Cecil, "Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape" (Brill, 2020)
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth A. Cecil's Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the Śaiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India (Brill, 2020) weaves t...
Justice to Man’s Best Friend: The Ethics of Commercial Dog Breeding
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Selective breeding of dogs currently helps meet the high demand for purebred dogs, but there are concerns about the ethicality of this practice. In th...
Emotions of a Defence Lawyer: Management Strategies and Role in the Construction of Justice
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Defence lawyers in adversarial legal systems are obligated to remain loyal to their clients, irrespective of the client or the crime. In such cases, l...
Tweeting the Word of God: Evangelism from a "Digital Pulpit"
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Technological advancement through the 20th century has allowed religious leaders to broaden their reach, first through print, then televangelism, and ...
Andrew Milner, "Again, Dangerous Visions: Essays in Cultural Materialism" (Brill/Haymarket, 2018)
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Again, Dangerous Visions: Essays in Cultural Materialism (Brill/Haymarket, 2018) brings together twenty-six essays charting the development of Andrew ...
How the Yoruba Live: Islamic Teachings Shape an Inter-religious Modern World
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over decades, the Yoruba community of southwest Nigeria has thrived as an inter-religious community, balancing Christianity, Islam, and the ways of a ...
Intractable Syria: What Does and Does Not Lead to an Unmanageable Crisis
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The most intractable conflict in recent times is the Syrian Civil War: it has caused prolonged tensions, severe destruction, and devastating consequen...
Jaap Doedens, "The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4: Analysis and History of Exegesis" (Brill, 2019)
25 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Who were the ‘sons of God’ in the book of Genesis—and what did they do? The elusive text of Genesis 6:1-4, with its references to ‘sons of God...
Using Discretion in Response to Political Crises: A Lesson for Diplomats
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 2011 uprisings in Arab countries put their diplomats under scrutiny: they faced unprecedented political situations that could not be resolved thro...
Misguided Bias: How Revisionism May Have Distorted the History of Arabic Literature
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Revisionism, a form of literary criticism, is an integral part of scholarly research, and revisionists often find themselves challenging the orthodox ...
In the Aftermath of the Rohingya Genocide: Our Failure to Protect
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the post-Holocaust UN convention to ensure the protection of minority communities globally, the International community has failed to notice t...
Global Governance “As It Was, Is and Ought to Be”
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Governing the world—A critical look at the current state of global governance. We live in a time of profound global crises. So, who exactly is respo...
Diplomacy in Brexit: Is Britain Left Out in the Cold? (Part 1)
10 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The new political sciences journal Diplomatica, published by Brill, explores the theme of diplomacy in international relations with special focus on ...
Girls Are Also People of the Holy Qur’an
10 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jun Akiba, Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, discusses Muslim girls’ education in Ottoman Istanbul during the late ...
Diplomacy in Brexit: Is Britain Left Out in the Cold? (Part 2)
10 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The new political sciences journal Diplomatica, published by Brill, explores the theme of diplomacy in international relations with special focus on ...
Identity Crisis: The Self-Portrait of a Thirteen-Year-Old Van Gogh
10 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The person in the photograph of a thirteen-year-old Vincent Van Gogh What did the influential Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh actually look like? Popul...
Jason Read, "The Politics of Transindividuality" (Haymarket Books, 2017)
26 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Many major political questions today revolve around questions of human nature; what sort of people we are and what sort of people we're capable of bei...
Erin Schoneveld, "Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde" (Brill, 2018)
06 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Befitting an art history book, Erin Schoneveld’s Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde (B...
Ricardo Cubas Ramacciotti, "The Politics of Religion and the Rise of Social Catholicism in Peru (1884-1935)" (Brill, 2018)
23 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In The Politics of Religion and the Rise of Social Catholicism in Peru (1884-1935): Faith, Workers, and Race Before Liberation Theology (Brill, 2018),...
Lorenzo Andolfatto, "Hundred Days’ Literature: Chinese Utopian Fiction at the End of Empire, 1902–1910" (Brill, 2019)
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In Hundred Days’ Literature, Chinese Utopian Fiction at the End of Empire, 1902–1910 (Brill, 2019), Lorenzo Andolfatto explores the landscape of e...
David Woodbridge, "Missionary Primitivism and Chinese Modernity: The Brethren in Twentieth-Century China" (Brill, 2019)
17 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on new archival resources, and opening up an entirely new research agenda in the field, David Woodbridge has written an outstanding new book. ...
Todd L. Patterson, "The Plot-structure of Genesis" (Brill, 2018)
23 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Does Genesis function merely as the beginning of the Bible’s larger story, or can Genesis be read as its own book? Does Genesis have its own plot th...
Pedith Pui Chan, “The Making of a Modern Art World: Institutionalization and Legitimization of Guohua in Republican Shanghai” (Brill, 2017)
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Making of a Modern Art World: Institutionalization and Legitimization of Gouhua in Republican Shanghai (Brill, 2017) investigates the production a...
Dániel Margócsy, et al., “The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions” (Brill, 2018)
11 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions (Brill, 2018) is a masterful...
Michelle C. Wang, “Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang” (Brill, 2018)
05 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Michelle C. Wang’s new book Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang (Brill, 2018) joins a growing body of schola...
Hala Auji, “Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut” (Brill, 2016)
05 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Middle Eastern history, the printing press has been both over- and under-assigned significance as an agent of social change. Hala Auji’s Printin...
Nicholas G. Piotrowski, “Matthew’s New David at the End of Exile: A Social-Rhetorical Study of Scriptural Quotations” (Brill, 2016)
26 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew’s gospel employs more than half of its Old Testament citations within the gospel’s prologue (Matt. 1-4). Although these texts lead Matthew...
Susan Smith-Peter, “Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia” (Brill, 2017)
15 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Brill, 2017), Susan Smith Peter discusses the origi...
Ferenc Laczo, “Hungarian Jews in the Age of Genocide: An Intellectual History, 1929-1948” (Brill, 2016)
15 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For non-specialists, the Holocaust in Hungary is a history both familiar and murky. Many Americans have read memoirs like Elie Wiesel’s Night and Ju...
Aisha Geissinger, “Gender and the Construction of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qur’an Commentary (Brill, 2015)
12 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Aisha Geissinger’s monograph, Gender and the Construction of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qur’an Commentary (Brill,...
Bard Kartveit, “Dilemmas of Attachment: Identity and Belonging among Palestinian Christians” (Brill, 2014)
18 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Bard Kartveit‘s Dilemmas of Attachment: Identity and Belonging among Palestinian Christians (Brill, 2014) is an outstanding book, which carefully de...
Pi-Ching Hsu, “Feng Menglong’s ‘Treasury of Laughs’: A Seventeenth-Century Anthology of Traditional Chinese Humour” (Brill, 2015)
08 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Treasury of Laughs was compiled by Feng Menglong in the 1610s. It includes more than 700 humorous skits and jokes from elite and popular sources, ...
Patrick Bowen, “A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Vol 1: White American Muslims before 1975” (Brill, 2015)
12 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the current political moment there is widespread anti-Muslim rhetoric and it would be easy to conclude that a large portion of white Americans see ...
Agnieszka Helman-Wazny, “The Archaeology of Tibetan Books” (Brill, 2014)
21 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Archaeology of Tibetan Books (Brill, 2014), Agnieszka Helman-Wazny explores the varieties of artistic expression, materials, and tools that have sh...
Joshua S. Mostow, “Courtly Visions: The Ise Stories and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation” (Brill, 2014)
10 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In pre-modern Japan, Ise monogatari (also known as the Ise Stories or Tales of Ise) was considered to be one of the three most important works of lite...
Joshua Fogel, “Japanese Historiography and the Gold Seal of 57 C.E.: Relic, Text, Object, Fake” (Brill, 2013)
21 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua A. Fogel‘s new book is a carefully researched and wonderfully thoughtful exploration of the transformations of an artifact as read through th...
Carlos Montemayor, “Minding Time: A Philosophical and Theoretical Approach to the Psychology of Time” (Brill, 2012)
15 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The philosophy of time has a variety of subtopics that are of great general as well as philosophical interest, such as the nature of time, the possibi...
Cosima Bruno, “Between the Lines: Yang Lian’s Poetry through Translation” (Brill, 2012)
26 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Cosima Bruno‘s new book asks us to consider a deceptively simple question: what is the relationship between a poem and its translation? In the cours...
Carl S. Yamamoto, “Vision and Violence: Lama Zhang and the Politics of Charisma in Twelfth-Century Tibet” (Brill, 2012)
24 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Lama Zhang, the controversial central figure in Carl S. Yamamoto‘s new book may or may not have participated in animal sacrifice, sneezed out a snak...
Qiliang He, “Gilded Voices: Economics, Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949” (Brill, 2012)
27 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Using the example of pingtan storytelling to reexamine the history of cultural reform in the People’s Republic of China, Qiliang He‘s new book int...
Jason Clower, “The Unlikely Buddhologist: Tiantai Buddhism in Mou Zongsan’s New Confucianism” (Brill, 2010)
10 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The 20th-century Chinese philosopher Mou Zongsan is relatively little known in the West, but has been greatly influential in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mai...
Ricardo Duchesne, “The Uniqueness of Western Civilization” (Brill, 2011)
13 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
One of the standard assumptions of modern Western social science (history included) is that material conditions drive historical development. All of t...