University Of Erfurt Research Articles

Study protocol of the planetary health action survey PACE: a serial cross-sectional survey to assess the readiness to act against climate change

IntroductionClimate change is a paramount global health threat with multifaceted implications. Societal change is required to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, as well as help people adapt to...

The Prisca Theologia in the Early Reformation Debates

The paradigm of the prisca theologia, developed by Marsilio Ficino in the second half of the fifteenth century, had a huge influence throughout the early modern period. Its influence on the Reformation debates, however, has not yet been investigated. In the present article, I make an initial contribution to filling this gap. In the first part, I show that theprisca theologia was widely disseminated in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century, including at the University of Erfurt where Martin Luther was educated. In the second half, I focus on two figures central to the Reformation debates: Johann Eck and Martin Luther. As I show, Eck had an ambivalent attitude towards theprisca theologia: on the one hand, he aimed to reconcile the scholastic tradition with the ancient doctrines of theprisci theologi; on the other hand, he distanced himself from the Hermetic and magical implications of theprisca theologia. Luther, meanwhile, developed an anti-paradigm to Ficino’s prisca theologia: he argued that the improper mixing of black and white magic was born in Persia and then developed in Egypt and Greece.

The case for robust academic research on corporate governance

Corporate Governance: An International ReviewVolume 31, Issue 3 p. 400-404 EDITORIAL The case for robust academic research on corporate governance Konstantinos Stathopoulos, Corresponding Author Konstantinos Stathopoulos [email protected] The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Correspondence Konstantinos Stathopoulos, The University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorTill Talaulicar, Till Talaulicar University of Erfurt, Erfurt, GermanySearch for more papers by this author Konstantinos Stathopoulos, Corresponding Author Konstantinos Stathopoulos [email protected] The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Correspondence Konstantinos Stathopoulos, The University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorTill Talaulicar, Till Talaulicar University of Erfurt, Erfurt, GermanySearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 May 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12531Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL REFERENCES Bhagat, S., & Hubbard, G. (2022). Rule of law and purpose of the corporation. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 30(1), 10– 26. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12374 Castañer, X., Goranova, M., Hermes, N., Kavadis, N., & Zattoni, A. (2022). Ownership and corporate governance across institutional contexts. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 30(6), 638– 655. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12491 Chen, V. Z., Hobdari, B., Kellermanns, F., & Sluhan, A. (2022). For love or money? Family versus financial blockholders in international acquisitions. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 30(2), 140– 160. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12392 Chen, X., Torsin, W., & Tsang, A. (2022). International differences in the CEO gender pay gap. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 30(5), 516– 541. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12421 Hudson, K., & Morgan, R. (2022). Ideological homophily in board composition and interlock networks: Do liberal directors inhibit viewpoint diversity? Corporate Governance: An International Review, 30(3), 272– 289. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12406 Ponomareva, Y., Federo, R., Aguilera, R., & Collin, S.-O. (2022). The cost of conformity to good governance: Board design and compensation. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 30(4), 399– 420. https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12408 Volume31, Issue3May 2023Pages 400-404 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Teaching the Art of Memory

Abstract The contribution deals with mnemonic teaching at the University of Erfurt, a practice which emerged as part of the early humanist approach to rhetoric. Thus, the ‘Memoriaʼ, too, found its way into the lecture schedule. The focus is on Jacobus Publicius, who produced a memory doctrine and taught in Erfurt temporarily. The outlines of his teaching appear in a studentʼs transcript, giving first-hand information and providing a valuable insight into the mnemonic teaching practice, which is otherwise poorly accessible to researchers.

An interview with Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Prof. Dr. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner combines two essential attributes: He is one of the brilliant minds of our times, and his specialization is on one of the most relevant discussions on philosophy, Trans/Post/Metahumanism. He received his BA from King’s College/University of London (1997), his MA by thesis from the University of Durham, UK (1998), and his Dr. Phil. from the University of Jena, Germany (2009). In recent years, he taught at the University of Jena (Germany), University of Erfurt (Germany), University of Klagenfurt (Austria), Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul (South Korea) and University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany).

Review: The Sultan’s Feast: A Fifteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook, by Ibn Mubārak Shāh; edited, translated, and introduced by Daniel L. Newman

If you ever wondered what tastes and flavors characterized a medieval Middle Eastern meal, Daniel L. Newman, Chair of Arabic Studies at the University of Durham, and a specialist in the Arabic language and culture, will guide you well through Ibn Mubārak Shāh’s cookery book, in both the book’s original language, Arabic, and in its fluent, vivid translation into English.This ambitious endeavor undertaken by Newman contributes to a growing interest in historical Arabic cookery in recent years. This manual is one of nine titles written in Arabic between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. Until now, it was the last one not translated into a European language; it was edited previously by Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Shāghūl (2007), who did not provide a translation, so the text remained inaccessible to non-Arabic readers.Written in fifteenth-century Egypt, this cookbook’s edition and translation by Newman are based on the unique manuscript existing today, conserved at the Gotha Research Library at the University of Erfurt, Germany (MS Orient A. 1344), which is in fact a copy of the original text, seemingly now lost. The Book of Flowers in the Garden of Elegant Foods (Kitāb Zahr al-ḥadīqa fī al-aṭʿima al-anīqa), this cookery book’s original title copied the lion’s share of its recipes from another cookbook dated to the fourteenth century, Kanz al-fawāʾid fī tanwīʿ al-mawāʾid, recently translated by Nawal Nasrallah (2018) under the title Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table: A Fourteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook. Zahr al-ḥadīqa is in fact an abridged version of Kanz al-fawāʾid. With great care, Newman proposes a detailed table comparing both texts, Kanz versus Zahr, chapter by chapter (xlviii–xlix).In his introduction, Newman portrays the main traits of the medieval Arabic culinary tradition. He first outlines the nine cookery books written in Arabic from both the eastern and the western parts of the medieval Islamic world. During his work, he found a further tenth cookery manual, which is undergoing a study and edition by Newman; its discovery is of great importance to the study of Arabic cookbooks and its future publication is keenly awaited. Trying to capture the essence of the Arab medieval cuisine in a short introduction is not an easy task. Nevertheless, Newman’s presentation of the topic, using various relevant sources, is comprehensive and full of valuable information.The core of the book, comprised of two parts, features Newman’s efforts to both translate and edit the original text. Newman’s fluent and meticulous translation is directing the interested reader to find equivalents in other cookbooks or sources, and mainly in Kanz. His editing of the text in Arabic, included on the verso pages, was anticipated because the text’s first edition contained some misreading of words and terms. The original text did not enumerate the recipes, and Newman’s choice to number them in this edition certainly eases navigation.The Book of Flowers is divided into 19 chapters, though not all originally enumerated. The author, Ibn Mubārak Shāh, an Egyptian scholar, chose recipes for the dishes he most preferred and organized them in a similar way to that of the anonymous Kanz: bread making, various ragout-style dishes, omelets, fish dishes, sweets, counterfeit (vegetarian) dishes, condiments, sauces, dairy dishes, pickles, and cold dishes. In addition to these, he found it appropriate to include, in the fashion of his times, cooking tips important for the cook to know—tricks for storing fruit, instructions on the preparation of toothpicks, formulas for perfumes, recipes for pills to sweeten the breath—in a total of 332 culinary and nonculinary recipes.This book is an essential primary source in Arabic cookery studies, thus Newman’s excellent publication contributes enormously to the field. Although it is a historic cookbook, and often its recipes do not include measures and quantities, amateur cooks and historical cooking enthusiasts could also enjoy testing and concocting this book’s dishes. It is a long-awaited addition to the field, and as the author himself promises (xvi, j), it nearly completes the mission of editing and translating the cookery literature existing today in Arabic.

Citizenship and religion in the first-millennium bce Mediterranean: from Etruria to Iberia

This short contribution summarises an impending research project that will be carried as part of the 2021–22 Distinguished Fellowship programme at the Max-Weber-Kolleg (University of Erfurt) within the research cluster Religion and Urbanity. The aim of the project is to contribute to a comparative understanding of first-millennium bce Mediterranean urbanism by focusing on citizenship, through the investigation of the archaeological record of ritual contexts in two selected regions: southern Tyrrhenian Etruria and southeastern Iberia. The project builds on recent research on comparative urbanism and the role of religion in urban life, from Greek history to interdisciplinary studies on religion. The particular focus will be to understand whether, and the extent to which, religion provided the conceptual and material space for expressing membership to the urban community or, in one word, citizenship.

Herd immunity communication counters detrimental effects of selective vaccination mandates: Experimental evidence

BackgroundLow vaccine uptake results in regular outbreaks of severe diseases, such as measles. Selective mandates, e.g. making measles vaccination mandatory (as currently implemented in Germany), could offer a viable solution to the problem. However, prior research has shown that making only some vaccinations mandatory, while leaving the rest to voluntary decisions, can result in psychological reactance (anger) and decreased uptake of voluntary vaccines. Since communicating the concept of herd immunity has been shown to increase willingness to vaccinate, this study assessed whether it can buffer such reactance effects. MethodsA total of N = 576 participants completed a preregistered 2 (policy: selective mandate vs. voluntary decision) × 2 (communication: herd immunity explained yes vs. no) factorial online experiment (AsPredicted #26007). In a first scenario, the concept of herd immunity was either introduced or not and vaccination either mandatory or voluntary, depending on condition. The dependent variable was the intention to vaccinate in the second scenario, where vaccination was always voluntary. Additionally, we explored the mediating role of anger between policies and intentions. FindingsHerd immunity communication generally increased vaccination intentions; selective mandates had no overall effect on intentions, and there was no interaction of the factors. However, selective mandates led to increased anger when herd immunity was not explained, leading in turn to lower subsequent vaccination intentions. InterpretationExplaining herd immunity can counter potential detrimental effects of selective mandates by preventing anger (reactance). FundingThis study was funded by the University of Erfurt and the German Research Foundation (BE-3979/11–1).

Sample study protocol for adapting and translating the 5C scale to assess the psychological antecedents of vaccination

IntroductionPublished in 2018, the 5C scale is psychometrically validated to assess five psychological antecedents of vaccination (confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation and collective responsibility). The original version offers a validated English...

An Interview with Hartmut Rosa

Hartmut Rosa is Professor of Sociology and Social Theory at Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena and Director of the Max-Weber-Kolleg at the University of Erfurt. He was Vice-President and General Secretary for Research Committee 35 (COCTA) of ISA and professor at the universities of Mannheim, Augsburg and Essen. In 1997, he received his PhD in Political Science from Humboldt-University. His main books are “Social Acceleration” and “Resonance”.

Narrating Witchcraft: Agency, Discourse, and Power

Narrating Witchcraft:Agency, Discourse, and Power Esther Eidinow and Richard Gordon This collection of thirteen essays—three issues of a special volume of this journal—explores "witchcraft narratives" over time, place, and culture. Most of the contributions are based on papers delivered at a conference entitled "Narrating Witchcraft: Agency, Discourse and Power," held at the University of Erfurt at the end of June 2016, which took up the theoretical challenge of the Lived Ancient Religion project (LAR). This five-year research project, which ran from 2012–17 and which provided funding for the conference, was directed by Professor Jörg Rüpke of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany, and focused on the individual, situational, and larger global trajectories of the pluralistic religions of antiquity. This special volume, Narrating Witchcraft, takes a similarly multi-dimensional approach: scholars of different disciplines, including ancient, early modern and modern history, anthropology, and gender studies, introduced a broad variety of case studies. In acknowledgement of the theme of lived ancient religion, most of the contributions to this special volume—specifically, the articles that appear in the first two issues and that set up the thematic content—focus on malign magic as perceived and practiced in the "Ancient Mediterranean," which includes the Ancient Near East and connected areas over a time span of some thirty-five hundred years. Articles that continue to explore the theme in the early modern and modern worlds are contained in Issue 3. The original conference was explicitly framed as a project in comparative history with an emphasis on the ancient world. While the conference organizers and participants acknowledged the difficulties of cross-cultural translation, we worked with a shared understanding of the term "witchcraft" along [End Page 1] the lines of what Ronald Hutton recently described as standard scholarly definitions of witchcraft: causing "harm to others by mystical means," or "evil magic and sorcery."1 The papers presented at the conference did (and the articles across the volume do) discuss points of terminology (see especially the insights of Peter Geschiere in Issue 3), and work from a wide variety of primary material, introducing diverse methodologies. But they start from the assumption that the conceptual power of witchcraft beliefs and practices is both diachronic and cross-cultural, encompassing both local and global meanings, and with a historical trajectory that extends back to ancient Mediterranean cultures. This starting assumption has allowed them to focus on exploring witchcraft's dynamic, cross-cultural manifestations: in particular, the question of how, across and within widely differing discursive representations, these manifestations each maintain their own distinctive character, while still achieving a "family resemblance," as Esther Eidinow (this issue) describes it. The question of representations introduces the other key term of the conference and volume title—"narrating"—and our concern with the ways in which witchcraft is both engendered by narratives and, in turn, creates them. Narration here is considered as storytelling, and a narrative as a story; as Aristotle suggests of plot, it is a mimesis of a sequence of events with a beginning, middle and end, of a length that can be coherently remembered, of a size which permits a transformation to occur in a probable or necessary sequence of events, from adversity to prosperity, or vice versa. In terms of contemporary theory, we here orient ourselves toward the general theory of narrative elaborated by Albrecht Koschorke, which is useful because its framework is geared to adapting narrative theory to social science. It also considers cognitive processes, where, in an elementary sense, narrative is considered as a kind of "reduction" of knowledge, in which "narrative patterns thus function similarly to cognitive schemas allowing the surplus of unsorted empirical data to be reducted to typical, easily recognizable forms."2 The reduction is not limited to any particular core of real acts or real things; indeed, its interest for us, as for him, has to do with it the way it can both appear to be, and to manipulate, experiential truth; narrative has the capacity to create both orientation and nonsense, both order and disorder. As Koschorke writes, [End Page 2] Like thinking and speaking in general...

European Road Safety Policy 2016-2020: A Forecast on Topics and Activities

Objective25,500 people were killed on European roads in 2016. Thus, despite the achievements of the past, there is still need for action in order to reduce the number of people killed or injured in road traffic. Road safety will therefore certainly continue to be a part of the political agenda of the EU and its member states. However, the topics and activities of road safety policy that will determine the next few years are less apparent. Official programmes usually provide an insight on a very general level only. For this reason, the Austrian Road Safety Board (KFV) has asked the Erfurt University of Applied Sciences to carry out a policy analysis in order to clearly forecast the actions of the EU 2016-2020 in terms of road safety policy. The forecast aims at supporting the work programmes of public and private institutions as well as decision makers.MethodThe study was based on an evaluation of programmes and legal acts of the past years as well as on expert opinions. From the results, conclusions were drawn on the activities and actions to be expected till 2020.ResultsThe results were structured according to the seven objectives defined by the European Commission in its policy orientations on road safety 2011-2020. Among others, the following developments can be expected in the near future:- The EU Commission is revising several directives, most importantly the directive on initial qualification and periodic training for professional drivers (a proposal has already been published), the infrastructure directive (with a possible inclusion of all highways and a focus on motorcycles and ITS), and the tunnel safety directive.- Other directives have been or are currently being evaluated and will most likely be revised in the future. This includes the driving license directive and the cross-border enforcement directive. Apart from that, in the field of enforcement, only recommendations on the exchange of good-practice are expected.- Technical vehicle safety and the promotion of the use of modern technology will gain more importance. A report on advanced vehicle safety features was published in December 2016, a proposal can be expected in 2017. In 2018, new directives on technical vehicle inspection are going to be applied in the member states. A “road package” has been published in May 2017, targeting electronic road toll systems, competition in commercial road transport as well as social conditions of professional drivers. C-ITS (cooperative ITS) are becoming a priority: Based on a strategy published 2016, networked vehicles should be introduced by 2019. A review of the ITS action plan and directive is pending- Driver distraction and the safety of senior road users are a subject of EU-funded research projects. Results will be published within the next years. However, no legislative proposals are expected. - Reducing the number of seriously injured will be a core objective in the future: A reduction goal of 50% has been set by the Council of the European Union for the period 2020-2030.The results show that the developments of the last years point towards a full and active agenda till 2020 and beyond. This roadmap will support all stakeholders in road safety in their contribution.

In Search of the Ninth Discipline: The History of Pathophysiology, with an Emphasis on Pathophysiology in Varna, Bulgaria-Celebrating 100 Years of Pathophysiology in Bulgaria.

Pathophysiology is a medical science whose subject is the change in regulatory mechanisms related to the onset, development, and outcome of diseases. The first lectures on pathophysiology were held in 1790 at the University of Erfurt, Germany, by Professor Augustus Hecker, who in 1791 also published the first work on the discipline – "Grundriss der Physiologia pathologica" in 770 pages. The teaching of pathophysiology as an independent discipline was introduced by academician Viktor Pashutin at the University of Kazan, Russia in 1874. Academician Pashutin called this new discipline “Pathological Physiology and Experimental Medicine.” Despite the persuasiveness of Pashutin that pathological anatomy and pathophysiology are inseparable parts of a whole, his students, academician Nikolay Anichkov and Prof. Semyon Khalatov, implemented the so-called “divorce” due to the different, though complementary, approaches and methodologies of the two ideological fields. By Royal Decree on November 29, 1917, in the Bulgarian State Gazette, amendments were published in the law on the national education, which introduced new university “disciplines and departments”. Under number nine in the law is the discipline of “Pathological Physiology and Experimental Medicine”. Due to various factors, the Pathological Physiology and Experimental Medicine department was the only one of the first 25 departments not to be established. The beginning of the training for pathophysiology in Bulgaria was laid by Prof. Vassil Mollov and Assoc. Prof. Minko Dobrev, however due to their untimely deaths, the course lasted only three years (1936–1939) and was not continued in the next academic year. At the beginning of the academic year 1946/47, two assistants in pathophysiology were enrolled in the Department of Pathological Anatomy at Sofia University. The following year a separate department was formed at the newly founded Plovdiv University and shortly after at Sofia University. For the 100 years since its legislative establishment, 82 years since its unofficial start and 71 years since its academic establishment pathophysiology in Bulgaria has distinguished itself by scientific, administrative and clinical contributions. In its 57 years in Varna, Bulgaria pathophysiology has widely carried out that tradition with immense contributions.

Religion in the making: the Lived Ancient Religion approach

ABSTRACTFor the past five years (2012–2017), the Max Weber Center of Erfurt University has hosted a project on ‘Lived Ancient Religion: Questioning “cults” and “polis religion”’, financed by the European Research Council and embedded in the research group on ‘Religious individualisation in historical perspective’ (see Fuchs and Rüpke. [2015. “Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective.” Religion 45 (3): 323–329. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2015.1041795]). It was designed to supplement existing accounts of the religious history of the Mediterranean area at the time of the long Roman Empire, accounts traditionally centred upon public or civic institutions. The new model focuses on the interaction of individuals with a variety of religious specialists and traditions, taking the form of material culture, spaces and text. It emphasises religious experience, embodiment and ‘culture in interaction’. On the basis of research into the history of religion of the Roman Empire, this co-authored article sets out to offer new tools for research into religion by formulating three major perspectives, namely religious agency, instantiated religion and narrated religion. We have tried to illustrate their potential value by means of 13 short case studies deriving from different geographical areas of the central and eastern Mediterranean area, and almost all relating to the period 150 BCE to 300 CE. These short descriptions are summarising research pursued by the members of the team of authors, published or to be published in extended form elsewhere, as indicated by the references.

The Gods, the State, and the Individual: Reflections on Civic Religion in Rome. By John Scheid. Translated and with a foreword by Clifford Ando. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Pp. xxiii+174. $55.00.

<i>The Gods, the State, and the Individual: Reflections on Civic Religion in Rome</i>. By John Scheid. Translated and with a foreword by Clifford Ando. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Pp. xxiii+174. $55.00.

Nancy Fraser’s Zeitdiagnose: Capitalism after the Financial Crisis

Report on the workshop Justice, Feminism and the Critique of Capitalism, University of Erfurt, October 17– 18, 2016 ----- Bibliographie: Gook, Ben: Capitalism after the Financial Crisis, ZPTh, 2-2016, S. 260-264. https://doi.org/10.3224/zpth.v7i2.11

‘Mol v drahém rouše…’ [A Moth Clad in Goodly Apparel]. A Collection of Proverbs by Jakub Srnec of Varvažov and Its Latin Sources

In 1582, the first printed collection of Czech proverbs by Jakub Srnec of Varvažov, Dicteria seu proverbia Bohemica, was printed. It became the basic source of the material for later collections of this kind by J. A. Comenius, J. Dobrovsky and others. It was inspired by the Adagiorum chiliades by Erasmus of Rotterdam. Based on them, it was divided into centuria and decades. Unlike other early modern collections of proverbs, it does not contain only the Latin translation of the mentioned proverbs - its Latin explanatory component is much richer. This is connected with the fact that the collection was originally conceived as a teaching aid for Srnec’s private school for pupils from noble families. Each proverb is accompanied by a number of related, explanatory or antithetical sentences, which resembles the genre of the collections of sentences. The authors of the sentences are given in the margins. There is a large share of ancient classics, medieval anonymous proverbs and biblical quotations. Less than one-third are quotations from early modern authors. Logically, Erasmus is the most represented among them, followed by relatively unknown Christoph Aulaeus, a professor at the university of Erfurt, with his collection of moralistic distichs. The third in terms of the number of quoted statements is the popular early modern educationist Juan Luis Vives. Based on other quoted Humanists and their works, it is possible to infer when the core of the work originated. Most frequently, Srnec used quotations from educational and moralistic handbooks, more rarely also from theatre plays with religious themes. The main aim of the publication of the collection was to prove that Czech proverbs could match not only Latin and Greek ones but also those in other living languages that had already been published for a rather long time. Unlike some educational Lutheran collections of proverbs, Srnec’s collection was not only to enlighten but also to entertain and to make the subject matter taught more pleasant for the students. Not only in that but also in the title chosen and the graphic design, it could have been inspired by the contemporary German collection of proverbs Proverbialia dicteria by Andreas Gartner. The circumstances of the collection’s origin are explained by the author in an extensive preface, in which he deliberately quotes a wide range of proverbs taken from Erasmus’s Adagia. A Czech translation of selected passages of the preface is attached to the article.

Conflict Transformation as a Policy Change in South Asia: A Case Study of Balochistan

Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XL, No.3, Spring 2017 Conflict Transformation as a Policy Change in South Asia: A Case Study of Balochistan Moonis Ahmar* Introduction Conflict transformation is an essential part of conflict studies and aims to examine positive and negative transformation of conflict both at inter and intra-state level as a result of change in the interests, attitudes and perceptions of conflicting parties. This paper studies at length the approach of conflict transformation in the context of South Asia and examines the case study of Balochistan. The paper also draws a linkage between conflict transformation and policy change as an opportunity for moving in the direction of stability and peace in various conflict ridden parts of the world. Some of the questions which may be raised in the context of conflicttransformation as a source of policy change are: 1. How can conflict transformation cause positive change in conflict dynamics? 2. How conflict transformation impacted the South Asian conflicts. 3. To what extent state policies can result into positive conflict transformation ? 4. How the case study of Balochistan conflict can help seek a better understanding of conflict dynamics, its transformation and efforts for peaceful resolution. Four major themes examined in this paper are: First, the role of individuals, groups, organizations and states as far as conflict formation and transformation is concerned. Second, the positive and negative transfor57 *Dr. Moonis Ahmar is Dean Faculty of Social Sciences and Meritorious Professor at the University of Karachi. He is also Director, Program on Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution. From April 2010 till February 2012, Dr. Ahmar was a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Program) Visiting Fellow, Conflict Studies and Management Program, Wills Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt. He is the author of Conflict Management and Vision for a secular Pakistan: A comparative Study which was recently published by the Oxford University Press. 58 mation of conflict emanating from the absence of dialogue, breakthrough in the process of negotiations, seizing the ripe moment or the window of opportunity. Third, changed perceptions and positions of major stakeholders in conflict about the existence and dynamics of conflict and finally, mending of fences because of the disappearance of major actors in conflict. All the four themes will be examined in the context of conflict in Balochistan. A better understanding of conflict transformation would require four major components. First, the historical nature of conflict. Second, issues which are responsible for transforming from a peaceful to a violent conflict. Third, how the interests, attitudes and perceptions of parties involved in a conflict matter. Fourth, the ground realities and environment which influence the dynamics of conflict. These four components also include the role of state and society in managing or escalating a particular conflict. The literature on conflict transformation depicts how the writers view transformation process at four levels: individual, group, states and organizations . Furthermore, transformation of role and actors also significantly contribute towards seeking a better understanding of conflict. According to Peter Wallensteen in his book, Understanding Conflict Resolution War, Peace and the Global System, “concepts like conflict transformation and peacebuilding bring us into a wider array of concerns. They are all important for the durability of the settlement and the creation of new, ‘normal’ conditions.1 ” Another vivid explanation of conflict transformation is given by John P. Lederach in his study which argues that conflict transformation can also be defined in terms of ‘constructive change processes’ as “it emphasizes the capacity of the transformation of approach to building new things. Conflict transformation begins with a central goal: to build constructive change out of the energy created by conflict. By focusing this energy on the underlying relationships and social structures, constructive changes can be brought about. The key here is to move conflict away from destructive processes and toward constructive ones. The primary task of conflict transformation is not to find quick solution to immediate problems, but rather to generate creative platforms that can simultaneously address surface issues and change underlying social structures and relationship patterns beyond intractability.2 ” Creative platform, as suggested by 1 Peter Wellensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution War, Peace and the Global System (London: Sage publications, 2002...

Max Weber in der Welt: Rezeption und Wirkung (review)

278 Max Weber Studies© Max Weber Studies 2016. Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrč’s argument that there is only one world, which is blob- or jello-like with enough internal variability to allow for statements that are true in the sense that they are assertable under ‘contextually operative semantic standards’,20 but have no real parts to which the semantic distinctions correspond, is more austere and physicalist than Gabriel’s, but ends up with the same implication: there is no world to which we can match our categories. There are two lessons from this. The first is that Gabriel does not escape the problem that his is only one ungrounded and ungroundable choice of a fundamental ontology among others. The idea that we are fated to live in an unlimited plurality of fields of sense is a variation of the neo-Kantian philosophy that preceded Weber. The second is that Weber’s assertion that the world is a meaningless chaos, which is also ungroundable, doesn’t sound too bad as an explication of the ontology relevant to the human epistemic condition . Indeed, a meaningless chaos is not an inclusive whole of the sort Gabriel wants to reject, precisely because it does not allow us to match our categories to it. Stephen Turner University of South Florida Michael Kaiser and Harald Rosenbach, eds., Max Weber in der Welt: Rezeption und Wirkung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), xii + 243pp. (hbk). ISBN 978-3-16-152469-1. €39.00. This collection of thirteen essays is the product of a conference organized in 2012 by the Stiftung Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland—an umbrella organization that includes, among others, the international German Historical Institutes and Orient Institutes—to celebrate its tenth anniversary and official renaming as the Max Weber Stiftung. The foundation now joins the ranks of at least two other major institutions, both founded within the last twenty years, that have chosen the polymathic German scholar for their aegis.21 This trend signifies what is arguably the Michel Serres, Genesis, trans. Genevieve James and James Nielson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995 [1982]). 20. Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrč, ‘Blobjectivism and Indirect Correspondence ’, Facta Philosophica 2 (2002): 253. 21. The Max-Weber-Kolleg at the University of Erfurt and the Max Weber Postdoctoral Program at the European University Institute. Book Reviews 279© Max Weber Studies 2016. ultimate stage in canonization, when an intellectual’s name can serve to brand the widest domain of publicly funded academic inquiry. There cannot be many intellectuals, besides Weber, who enjoy such status today: acknowledged as a founding father by a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences; read, translated, and debated the world over; and, though certainly not uncontroversial, still sufficiently associated with the values of individual freedom and intellectual integrity to serve as the figurehead of an international institution . It is a fate that the irascible, idiosyncratic Weber could have hardly imagined for himself.22 The aim of this volume, in keeping with the global mission of the Max Weber Stiftung, is to explore Weber’s relationship to ‘the world’. The contributors have chosen to engage this evocative theme in several different ways; a selection will be discussed to exemplify the variety of perspectives.23 One approach is to investigate the significance of ‘the world’, understood as a conceptual counterpoint to Europe or the Occident, as the object of Weber’s empirical or theoretical reasoning. For example, Marta Bucholc illuminates the central role that the ‘Polish question’ (Polenfrage) played in Weber’s understanding of Occidental modernity, persuasively showing how Polish Catholics functioned as the foil against which he constructed his ideal type of ascetic and ‘demagified’ Protestantism. Another approach is to consider what it meant for Weber to be a scholar in the world, guided in his inquiries by ‘value-relations’ (Wertbeziehungen) to topics with distinct cultural resonances. Sam Whimster’s chapter examines the formative impact of Weber’s childhood experiences on his political world-view and methodological self-understanding. Through a close reading of Weber’s early letters and essays, Whimster reveals a precocious mind that was attuned to the strange pageantry of the Kaiserreich’s public commemorations, with their blend of...

XXI Congresso Mundial da Asociação Internacional de História das Religiões

This paper is a brief of an academic event, that is, the XXI. World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religons, that took place August 22-29, 2015 at the University of Erfurt, Germany, presenting the general structure of the congress and an overview of some of the main themes that have been worked out during the conference.