Volume 16 (2019), Edition 1

Critique in the humanities and the social sciences has recently been under attack and has even been declared to be defunct. Considering reports of its death to be exaggerated but, at the same time, that one should never let a good crisis go to...

In recent years, authors from the Palestinian diaspora have increasingly published literary texts exploring Palestine as their homeland and a place of yearning. Among them are writers who fled in 1947-48 and those born in exile. Although their...

The world of politics rarely concerns itself with what should be according to theories. The world is not ideal. Anyone who bemoans this fact risks merely complaining. If one simply accepts bad realities, one quickly becomes a fellow traveller. A...

The paper firstly discusses Marcel Mauss’s model of gift-giving, which is the decisive point of reference for theories of reciprocity in the social sciences. The discussion establishes that gift and reciprocity must be distinguished more clearly...

To whom do we show solidarity? Sociology, as well as political common sense, offer an astonishingly broad spectrum of answers to this question. Irrespective of the scope of solidarity, the concept implies certain types of relationships on which...

Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) addresses the issues of migration, flight and assistance by exploring the reality on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. The paper takes the film as a starting point to reflect on forms of...

The admission of Vietnamese boat people to the Federal Republic of Germany in the late 1970s and the admission of Syrian, Afghan and other refugees around 2015 exhibit remarkable parallels: civil society, politicians and the media initially...

The sudden emergence of the yellow vests movement, its rapid expansion, its endurance and its popularity have surprised and bewildered politicians and commentators alike. Initially viewed as merely a reaction to an increase in fuel tax, it soon...

The aim of this essay is to outline, at a remove of over sixty years, the enormous impact of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s famous book Tristes Tropiqes on the humanities. It shows that its impact rests on the surprising idea of presenting a moral defense...

In 1945, the Allies defined their occupation policy towards Japan and Germany, including a ban on propagating National Socialism and militarism in Germany, and on »ultranationalism« and militarism in Japan. Masao Maruyama explained how nationalism...