Von Der Research Articles

Põrkuvad „ilmamaad“ 17. sajandi Liivimaal / Clashing “Weatherlands” in 17th-century Livonia

Johannes Gutslaffi 1644. aastal ilmunud teos „Lühike teade ja õpetus“ ja selles sisalduv „pikse palve“ kuuluvad Eesti varauusaegsete tüvitekstide hulka. Lugedes seda keskkonnahumanitaaria vaatenurgast, saavad ilmsiks seni tähelepanuta jäänud kliimaajaloolised kihistused ja seosed. Artikkel väidab, et „Lühike teade ja õpetus“ on üks varasemaid siinmail ilmunud teoloogilisi käsitlusi ekstreemsetest ilmastikutingimustest 17. sajandil. Raamatus on kirjeldatud esimest teadaolevat ilmastikutingimustest põhjustatud mässu Balti ajaloos. Artikkel pakub seega esimesi tõlgendusi Balti nn „ilmamaade“ sügavamatest kihtidest ning analüüsib „kliimamässu“ tekkimise probleeme, kasutades selleks keskkonnahumanitaaria ja kliimaajaloo metoodikat.
 Summary
 Johannes Gutslaff’s Kurtzer Bericht und Unterricht Von der Falsch-heilig genandten Bäche in Lieffland Wöhhanda ('Short Report and Lesson on the Võhandu River, Wrongly Regarded as Sacred in Livonia') that was printed in 1644, and the “Thunder prayer” included in it belong to the main corpus of Early Modern texts in Estonia. Hitherto, this material has been interpreted mostly from the perspective of cultural history. Reading the text from an environmental humanities perspective, we claim that so far unrecognised layers and connections to climate history can be found in it: the book and can be read as a scholarly piece about changing climate conditions and their different interpretations.
 Kurtzer Bericht belongs among Baltic theological reflections written in German about the extreme weather in the 17th century, which was marked globally by rapidly worsening climatic conditions and social unrest caused by these. In Gutslaff’s book we can also find a detailed description of the first climate-caused uprising in Baltic history known so far. In the Early Modern period, or during the peak of the “Little Ice Age”, the Baltic region, similarly to the rest of the world, was affected by a wider trend of cooling, with extreme fluctuations of temperature and precipitation proving to be the biggest problem for peasants growing crops. A look at climate history, however, makes it clear that cultural or social reactions need not be linked to particularly extreme weather phenomena, as they can culminate and explode at a favourable later moment. Climate does not dictate cultural behaviour, but the latter’s interweaving with climate needs to be studied more broadly on the basis of the existing regional sources. 
 When looking for traces concerning climate in Baltic German religious literature, we can contextualise Gutslaff’s text as belonging to Early Modern “weatherlands” (Tim Ingold) that transgress cultural and regional borders. The article offers first interpretations of the clashing Baltic early modern “weatherlands”, combining methods deriving from literary scholarship, environmental humanities and climate history. The interconnectedness of climate and culture makes it possible to see the challenges climate change poses to culture and social order. Thus weather can be a mirror of relationships and a “moral barometer” of society that can measure not only the state of relations between God and people or society, but also the tensions between people. According to such an interpretation, weather plays almost as significant a role in religious thinking as do measuring instruments in secular science. As weather phenomena are loaded with different societal and religious meanings, explosive conflicts can emerge in climatically extreme times, showing the tension between different layers of society. Conflicts around weather and climate can therefore be seen as inevitable in periods of climatic challenges.
 Johann Gutslaff's Kurzer Bericht is placed among the theological-meteorological literature that had spread across Europe and can be traced back to the Antiquity and the Bible. As phenomena related to vernacular religion are of a cross-ethnic nature and with migratory motivations, it is no wonder that the rebellion by the Võhandu was not limited to ethnically Estonian peasants, but linked representatives of different linguistic and social layers. It can be noticed that in interpreting the events Gutslaff attempted to attribute the power and competence to change the weather only to God, and the ability to react to the weather changes only to upper classes – the agency of peasants in reacting to climatic extremes was not taken seriously. They were left alone with their concerns caused by climate change due to the lack of a societal process of addressing climate fears. It was from here that the potential for the conflict that exploded on the banks of the Võhandu derived.
 The article shows that combined analysis of historical, cultural and natural sources that was started in Estonia about half a century ago, but has been forgotten due to the complexity of the phenomenon and for ideological reasons, is needed to explain the connection between climate and culture.
 

Bericht von der Namur‐Sitzung

CITplusVolume 25, Issue 12 p. 10-11 ReportFree Access Bericht von der Namur-Sitzung First published: 08 December 2022 https://doi.org/10.1002/citp.202201208AboutPDF ToolsExport 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 No abstract is available for this article. Volume25, Issue12December 2022Pages 10-11 RelatedInformation

(Re)framing Responsibility? Assessing the Division of Burdens Under the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism

As part of its highly anticipated Fit for 55 Package, in July 2021 the European Commission introduced a proposed regulation establishing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). The CBAM places a price on carbon embedded in imports from certain energy-intensive sectors, and is intended to combat the risk of carbon leakage arising from the gap between EU climate ambitions and those of trading partners. In the words of Commission President von der Leyen, ‘carbon must have its price – because nature cannot pay the price anymore’. This raises the question, however, of who should pay it instead. From the EU’s perspective, the proposed CBAM reflects the EU’s ‘responsibility to continue playing a leading role in global climate action’ through reducing its global GHG footprint in line with the Paris Agreement. However, several newly industrialised countries have attacked the proposal as discriminatory and contrary to the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDRRC). Against this backdrop, this article assesses how the EU’s framing of responsibility fits within the applicable public international law framework. First the article examines how the EU’s faming of ‘responsibility’ fits within the law of state jurisdiction, which conditions regulators’ competence to place burdens on actors beyond their territory. It then turns to the division of responsibilities under the UN climate agreements, with a particular focus on opportunities for incorporating a more equitable differentiation of burdens in line with CBDRRC. Such differentiation would only be feasible for regulators if it could pass the obstacles posed by the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Unpacking the challenges and opportunities, it is argued that these hurdles need not be insurmountable, though much would depend on the willingness of both the EU and the WTO dispute settlement body to accommodate competing trade and environmental interests.

A ‘Geopolitical Commission’: Supranationalism Meets Global Power Competition

AbstractThis article examines the origins and operationalisation of the concept of a ‘geopolitical Commission’, which has been promoted by President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen since 2019. This concept has been used to guide the stronger co‐ordination of the external aspects of the Commission's work. It is also symptomatic of the growing role of strategic considerations in the Commission's recent initiatives, particularly through the objective of strengthening the EU's ‘open strategic autonomy’. To explain this phenomenon, I combine three different theoretical perspectives: neorealism, neofunctionalism, and geoeconomics. I conclude that the geopolitical Commission should be understood as the result of the interactions between exogenous factors – the intensification of global power competition and the rise of geoeconomic strategies – and endogenous factors, such as the rivalry between the Commission and the European External Action Service and the functional link between the Commission's economic powers and international security issues.

The European Commission and the COVID-19 pandemic: a pluri-institutional approach

ABSTRACT According to a widely held view, the European Council decides how the EU should respond in times of crisis, since the European Council alone has the authority to lead. Other institutions, meanwhile, adopt at best a secondary role. An alternative perspective has emerged, however, which contends, first, that the European Council’s influence on the EU's crisis response is variable and, second, that other EU institutions, in particular the European Commission, are able to shape EU action, including through interventions made independently of the European Council. This article builds on this alternative view to argue that the respective role played by the European Council and the European Commisson is contingent, first, on the policy area where a crisis strikes and second, on leadership or agency on the part of the Presidents of the two institutions. The dynamics of the EU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic support this view. Acting on its powers in public health and other affected areas, and with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen taking a highly pro-active approach to outbreak of the virus, the Commission intervened early, framed the pandemic as a crisis, and set and then expanded the EU’s agenda. Although its decision-making role was important, the European Council largely followed the Commission's lead.

RNA pioneer Ingmar Hoerr: from entrepreneur to philanthropist

Charlotte Barker, Editor, BioInsights, speaks to Ingmar Hoerr, co-founder of CureVac & Morpho FoundationIngmar Hoerr founded “CureVac, the RNA people“ together with colleagues in Tübingen, Germany in 2000. His entrepreneurship was motivated by his surprising discovery during his doctoral research that naked mRNA can be expressed in vivo without the risk of rapid degradation, while exhibiting the ability to generate strong specific immune responses, in contrast to what had previously been believed. During his time as CEO until June 2018, Ingmar initiated with CureVac the first clinical human trials testing mRNA therapeutics, thereby contributing to the development of the mRNA industry. During this time, he and his colleagues raised approximately $500 million in equity and significantly grew the company. He held the position of chair of the Supervisory Board of CureVac AG until March 2020. Ingmar was advisor to former EU commissioner Carlos Moedas of the European Innovation Council. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. In June 2021 he and his wife Sara Hoerr initiated the MORPHO Foundation, together with Florian von der Mülbe, also Founder of CureVac and his wife Kiriakoula Kapousouzi. He is Honorary Senator of the University of Tuebingen and in November 2021 he received the Honorary Citizenship of the City of Tuebingen.Ingmar Hoerr played a key role in the development of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics, co-founding CureVac in 2000. After suffering an aneurysm rupture in 2020, he left CureVac and found a new passion in the non-profit Morpho Foundation. We caught up with Hoerr to discuss his early work on RNA, life in a startup, and future hopes.

1.A. Workshop: EU nutrition policies: from rhetoric to practice

Abstract Unhealthy diets result in over a million deaths each year in Europe, and over half the EU adult population is overweight or obese. Since it took office, the von der Leyen Commission published major policy documents which, amongst others, seek to tackle poor nutrition. The 2020 Farm to Fork Strategy claims that “European food is already a global standard for food that is safe, plentiful, nutritious and of high quality”. However, it also acknowledges that the European diet is typically high in fat, sugar, salt and calories and red and processed meat, but low in fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, legumes and nuts. The Strategy notes that the transition to a healthy, sustainable food system - and the concomitant health, economic, societal and environmental benefits this will bring - requires that the food environment should make healthy food easier to choose. Similarly, the 2022 Europe's Beating Cancer Plan accepts that about 40% of cancers in the EU are preventable and, prevention being more effective than any cure, places great emphasis on the promotion of healthier consumption. This workshop will consider two policy interventions that the WHO has recognised as key to the promotion of healthier food environments and that have been at the heart of the EU's strategic documents on nutrition and obesity prevention for now well over 15 years: food labelling and food marketing. This workshop will seek to contextualise the Commission's current proposals on food labelling, and its lack of robust proposals on food marketing, with a view to discussing the extent to which its actions are aligned with its rhetoric. It will also discuss how the Commission can move in the right direction to bring real improvements in these fields in practice. EUPHA-LAW has been supporting the development of effective EU policies on food labelling and food marketing through a number of initiatives. In relation to food labelling, EUPHA-LAW responded to three Commission consultations, members of the Steering Committee held a meeting with the Commissioner's team on the new proposals, co-hosted a major conference on regulating FoPNL with almost 300 attendees from over 39 countries, and participated in workshops specifically intended to inform the impact assessment accompanying the forthcoming proposals. In relation to food marketing, EUPHA-LAW is closely involved in the Food Marketing Initiative supported by over 20 pan-EU federations of public health, consumer and children's rights organisations. This Initiative has called on the EU to adopt a directive imposing EU-wide legally binding restrictions on the cross-border marketing of unhealthy food to children. This would allow the EU to go further than it has to date and therefore align the EU regulatory framework with international recommendations and adopt a children's rights-based approach to such marketing. Key messages • The Commission has recognised that front-of-pack nutrition labelling and food marketing are two necessary policy interventions to promote healthier food environments. • However, the EU’s actions in this field highlight a significant gap between rhetoric and practice which needs to be addressed through the adoption of rights-based approaches.

Tropes Revisited: Evert Sprinchorn'sIbsen's Kingdom: The Man and His Worksand Recent Historical Research in Ibsen Studies

Tropes Revisited: Evert Sprinchorn's<i>Ibsen's Kingdom: The Man and His Works</i>and Recent Historical Research in Ibsen Studies

Cybersecurity in the era of hypercompetitiveness: can the EU meet the new challenges?

In her 2021 State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need to improve EU cybersecurity. The threat landscape is diverse and changing, and includes disinformation and fake news, cyber-attacks on government infrastructure and interference in elections in third countries. With this in mind, in December 2020 the EU unveiled a new Cybersecurity Strategy that includes legislative and institutional initiatives: from the revision of the NIS Directive – the EU’s first cybersecurity legislation – to the establishment of a cybershield to identify large-scale cyber-attacks. To be effective in this field, which involves a multitude of actors, the EU will need to ensure robust cooperation and information exchange, both at national and European level, as well as with NATO.

The Production of Souls in International Relations

Abstract Global politics is exceedingly soulful, but the field of international relations (IR) astonishingly soulless. The world order is undergoing tectonic shifts: the “Western” unipolar moment is receding, China is rising, and geographies of “(Afro-)EurAsia” and the “Indo-Pacific” are emerging. To align with such shifts and remap the international geography, global actors are increasingly (re)producing narratives of civilizational “souls.” Putin views Ukraine as part of the “Russian world,” imbued with the “Russian soul.” Xi's “Thought,” instilled in China's schools and constitution, intends to “engineer” the country's soul as a “civilizational state.” Von der Leyen advocates strengthening the European Union's “soul.” Biden and Trump vied for “America's soul.” But what is even a soul? I define a collective soul as a historical–spiritual space, constructed materially and ideationally, and construed as a vital force that permeates, orders, and embodies—or transubstantiates—a body politic, and engraves in it a mythical Ursprung (origin) and telos. Adopting a critical geography approach, I map out several soul-making narratives by unpacking how they “graph” their (internal, regional, or global) “geo” through “space-framing assumptions” and “space-producing practices.” They include (1) “civilizational states,” focused on China and geographies of “Sinosphere” and “Afro-EurAsia”; (2) “civilizational crossroads,” focused on the “Iranosphere”; (3) the US-led “rules-based order,” as the latest iteration of the “liberal civilization” regraphing its soul onto the “Indo-Pacific”; and (4) two European soul-producing narratives: the far-right's “Judeo-Christianism” and the mainstream “European strategic autonomy.” Finally, I discuss the implications of soulcraft—as an indispensable yet unacknowledged component of statecraft—for IR theory.

The European Green Deal and technological determinism

In 2019, the Von der Leyen Commission made a grand entrance announcing an ambitious political agenda, the European Green Deal (EGD), combining its sustainability agenda and meeting environmental challenges with the pursuit of economic growth. In this paper, the author discusses the role of technology in the EGD through the lens of technological determinism. It is argued that, in many ways, the EGD overestimates the importance of technology, especially new technology. Unlike typical technological determinist views, the EGD recognises the importance of human agency. However, the success of human and social agency as drivers change in this project depends on preferences of actors involved in this green transition, including technological preferences. The author argues that the source of these biases lies with the economic policy foundations of the EGD which lead to prioritising economic interest over environmental needs. The article suggests that greater reliance on environmental regulation may restore the appropriate balance between economy and environment, and between the belief in the power of new technology and people's responsibility for the environmental and other consequences of technology production and use, and thus improve the prospects of the EGD in its environmental and sustainability aspirations.

Battered by Geopolitical Winds, Bulgaria Struggles to Restart Much Needed Reforms

Battered by Geopolitical Winds, Bulgaria Struggles to Restart Much Needed Reforms

After a decade, a new Venezuelan species of Corydalus Latreille (Megaloptera, Corydalidae, Corydalinae) is discovered.

A new species of dobsonfly from Venezuela, Corydalusralphi Martins, Azevêdo, Hamada & Contreras, sp. nov., was discovered a decade after the last description of a species of this genus in the country. The new species is morphologically similar to C.wanningeri Contreras-Ramos & von der Dunk, sharing a uniform reddish coloration of body and wings and similar male genitalic structures. Likewise, it shares this particular coloration with C.neblinensis Contreras-Ramos but the genitalic structure fits within the C.crossi Contreras-Ramos species group. Two specimens, one male and one female, were collected on Tarotá River, in the Gran Sabana region, Canaima National Park, in southern Venezuela. A key to identify males of the Venezuelan species of Corydalus is provided.

Three Odes in G#

Three Odes in G# Jeremy Jacob Peretz (bio) Everyday/Unspeakable/Ethics Red slaves (native-Americans) are used only for domestic work in Surinam because they are too weak to work in the fields. Negroes are thus needed for fieldwork. The difficulties in this case are not the result of a lack of coercive measures, but the natives in this part of the world lack ability and durability. —Immanuel Kant, "Von der verschiedenen Racen der Menschen" ["Of the Different Human Races"] The white is opposed to the red, while the black disappears from the picture. —Anita Jacobson-Widding, Red—White—Black as a Mode of Thought: A Study of Triadic Classification by Colours in the Ritual Symbolism and Cognitive Thought of the Peoples of the Lower Congo Everyday life, which is the backdrop, the hum, the private, and the quotidian of civil society, can only cohere by way of the imaginative labor which genocided and banished the object it constructed as "Savage" to the reservations of White ethics and by way of a simultaneous imaginative labor that keeps the gratuity of Black genital accumulation and destruction from occurring between White legs. —Frank B. Wilderson III, Red, White, and Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms Exxon Exxoff Mobilizetalk ground and doact flow like vinyasalike Mother's bloodthrough a pipelinea wave moving anoffshore rig like a [End Page 88] torrent from deepin the continent—from the Amazonstrong to knockthe mightiest drillswith force that somecorrupt parking meterscheme couldn't everimagine to rewriteA Projected Memory of theGuyanese Working Peopleas if born in the realitiesof Octavia Butler'sBacon's Rebellion—and the settlers demanddeath extracted offto the next moonMars or Venus' bodies,or relayed circuitouslysapping and sopping offall those many Others,sipping Coca-Cola orside-stepping a War onTerror/Drugs life/cokewhile others still prefermauby or coconut waterknowing patterns that havecome to make mined skyfruit and flesh morselized [End Page 89] into common comestiblesmust be a philosophy thatcannot be unquestionable. [End Page 90] Mixed(down) Methods(man) for Charlene Wilkinson Groundings over lands and seaTanzania (troubling Nyerere)To the UWI to UG (and Fatman)From Oriental and African Studies,UCLA too. What they did to you! Brother WalterYou take A View from beyondThe grave of The Third WorldAt the babylonian enterprise'sIsms & Schisms, says ProphetBob, at the Russian Revolution,Wreckage triangulating flowsOf force—coloniality of powerDrifting carbon-chain islandsMushroomed and myceliatedDirt rhizomated web-worksUndermining barriers andBoundaries, borders of bodiesLike vessels tipped just soTo release a precious fumeOf spirit to the still-presentDeparted sitting with us—Grounding. Cane-cuttersAnd Rastafari (when thatHere still was a dirty word, a [End Page 91] Dutty being/nonpersonthing)All men too, no auntie/anti-man,Among the partisan jumbi-scapesOf the Uptown World crisscrossingThe Dungles of UnderdevelopmentWith nerves jolting veins, necksNext necks, knees, rods clubsCutlass, Rod-knees and necksOf Black people who are BlackIn response to the call of Capital,That wild white-noise of burden,Black because we are not whiteIn this Land of Many Waters theEarth-over under sun and moon us"Recognisably African or Indian,"Or Dougla—with a split-neck caste,Stabilizing bodies' politicks with plaster (of Paris?)That's hardened heavy as if immoveable. I been in Camp Street, too,Like Brother Walter before.Rodded and trotted and kneed.Incient motioned to his shrineOf present tense memory, andThen I's able to catch myself.Outside just down HadfieldWhere he watched me onMy first date with who'dBecome my child's mother, [End Page 92] And put it in my heart to live,When I sighted Walter, and IRemembered—Oh, in LifeYou Do Good, and/not stupidness,Not 'cause you're looking like aY-T with a privilege pass of color/ismWhitey Red-Ras who brung AIDSSugar and slavery you must act soWith your...

GENOCIDE OF LAW - the neoliberal neo-fascist mafia of the Chamber of Private Enforcement and its chairman Private Enforcement Agent GEORGI DICHEV in Bulgaria and the full support of this mafia from the prosecutor's office, court, Ministry of Justice, National Assembly, Bulgaria - The mafia has a state and union - THE EUROPEAN UNION - the support of the EUROPEAN

Lord prof PhD PhD Momtchil Dobrev-Halachev developed 2008 “Theory of generating of crises”, 2010 “Theory and practice of the Mafiotism” and 2001 “Theory of the mafia”. Based on these two theories this paper explains the establishment of mafiotismus all over the world - principles, theory and praxis in the European Union, European Commission and in the Republic of Bulgaria.

The effect of modulated driving on non-rotating and rotating turbulent plane Couette flow

Direct numerical simulations of turbulent non-rotating and rotating plane Couette flow with a periodically modulated plate velocity are conducted to study the effect of modulated forcing on turbulent shear flows. The time-averaged shear Reynolds number is fixed at $Re_S = 3 \times 10^4$ , which results in a frictional Reynolds number of approximately $Re_\tau \approx 400$ . The modulating frequency is varied in the range $Wo\in (20,200)$ , while the modulating amplitude is kept fixed at $10\,\%$ of the shear velocity except to demonstrate that varying this parameter has minimal effect. The resulting shear at the plates is found to be independent of the forcing frequency, and equal to the non-modulated baseline. For the non-rotating simulations, two clear flow regions can be seen: a near-wall region that follows Stokes’ theoretical solution, and a bulk region that behaves similar to Stokes’ solutions but with an increased effective viscosity. For high driving frequencies, the amplitude response follows the scaling laws for modulated turbulence of von der Heydt et al. (Phys. Rev. E, vol. 67, 2003, 046308). Cyclonic rotation is not found to modify the system's behaviour in a substantial way, but anti-cyclonic rotation changes significantly the system's response to periodic forcing. We find that the persistent axial inhomogeneities introduced by mild anti-cyclonic rotation make it impossible to measure the propagation of the modulation adequately, while stronger anti-cyclonic rotation creates regions where the modulation travels instantaneously.

Nuclear and Mitochondrial Phylogenomics of the Sifakas Reveal Cryptic Variation in the Diademed Sifaka.

The most comprehensive phylogenomic reconstruction to date was generated on all nominal taxa within the lemur genus Propithecus. Over 200 wild-caught individuals were included in this study to evaluate the intra and interspecific relationships across this genus. Ultraconserved Elements (UCEs) resulted in well-supported phylogenomic trees. Complete mitochondrial genomes (CMGs) largely agreed with the UCEs, except where a mitochondrial introgression was detected between one clade of the diademed sifaka (Propithecus diadema) and the Milne-Edwards sifaka (P. edwardsi). Additionally, the crowned (P. coronatus) and Von der Decken’s (P. deckeni) sifakas belonged to a single admixed lineage from UCEs. Further sampling across these two species is warranted to determine if our sampling represents a hybrid zone. P. diadema recovered two well-supported clades, which were dated and estimated as being ancient as the split between the Perrier’s (P. perrierii) and silky (P. candidus) sifakas. The reconstructed demographic history of the two clades also varied over time. We then modeled the modern ecological niches of the two cryptic P. diadema clades and found that they were significantly diverged (p < 0.01). These ecological differences result in a very limited zone of geographic overlap for the P. diadema clades (<60 km2). Niche models also revealed that the Onive River acts as a potential barrier to dispersal between P. diadema and P. edwardsi. Further taxonomic work is required on P. diadema to determine if its taxonomic status should be revised. This first genomic evaluation of the genus resolved the relationships between the taxa and the recovered cryptic diversity within one species.

The Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM) – 150 Years of Enabling Scientific and Technological Breakthrough

The Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM) – 150 Years of Enabling Scientific and Technological Breakthrough

Französische Österreichbilder—Österreichische Frankreichbilder ed. by Marc Lacheny et al

Reviewed by: Französische Österreichbilder—Österreichische Frankreichbilder ed. by Marc Lacheny et al Katherine Arens Marc Lacheny, Maria Piok, Sigurd Paul Scheichl, and Karl Zieger, eds., Französische Österreichbilder—Österreichische Frankreichbilder. Forum: Österreich 12. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2021. 274 pp. The open-access volume Französische Österreichbilder—Österreichische Frankreichbilder, which features contributions in both German and French, is an excellent example of how francophone Austrian Studies enriches the field with theoretically sophisticated projects that transcend traditional limitations of the Austrian cultural studies. It originated in a conference held in late 2019 held at the Brenner-Archiv (Innsbruck) and organized by a team from Innsbruck (Sigurd Paul Scheichl, Ulrike Tanzer, and Maria Piok) and France (Marc Lacheny, University of Lorraine in Metz, and Karl Zieger, University of Lille). Four of these organizers edited this collection, which includes two contributions beyond the original presentations. The volume and conference were designed to counter the prevailing German point of view in considering germanophone images of France, to highlight the often very different relationship that France has with Austria, and to chart France’s understanding of Austrian culture as different from Germany’s. The volume’s “Vorwort” (in both French and German versions) outlines the theoretical premises of imageology that guided this event, “die Analyse des Bilds, das von der Kultur eines Landes, des eigenen oder eines fremden, durch die Literatur vermittelt” (6). Such images are centers for investigations of shifting power relations across time and across political realignments. They also provide evidence that (in Paris, at least) Austrian cultures were understood as different from German ones and that Austrians saw French culture as significant for their own country. These editors acknowledge a need to move beyond the limitations of research into germanophone Austrian texts and hope that the volume spurs further studies of French-Central European cultural relations—scholars of “Austrian” culture cannot only use German, and scholars of Slavic and Balkan cultures need to track influences from western Europe. The first contributions set the tone for this impeccably researched and argued and well-written volume. Veronika Studer-Kovács’s essay on “Nationale Typologien in Le Plaisir von Abbé Marchadier (1747) und Matthias Geiger (1765)” presents an early French-Austrian engagement with national stereotypes. A French play (a political allegory) originally performed at the Comédie française was adapted in French by a Hungarian Jesuit to celebrate [End Page 208] Joseph II’s second marriage and performed in Catholic Hungary. Studer-Kovács carefully compares the original and the adaptation to uncover its complicated engagement with cultural power (especially class and language). This spectacular case study models how texts respond to cultural-political networks—imageology at its best as cultural-political-aesthetic studies. The next essays address “official” representations: Norbert Bachleitner and Juliane Werner discuss “‘La grande nation’ als Exportgut: Das Frankreichbild in österreichischen Schulbüchern des späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts,” surveying primary school texts produced after the 1869 school reforms, some with French authors as collaborators. These readers inculcated very specific images of a democratic France (and, unfortunately, of the glories and profitability of its colonial missions). We learn how school curricula and school systems were (re)organized, how schoolbooks created images of ethnic groups within the nation (Stämme), according to the principles of Völkerpsychologie, and how and when German and Austrian views of France diverged significantly. This essay is a model for critical text-based cultural studies. Mayer tracks Austria’s representation in the Diderot/d’Almenbert Encyclopédie. After carefully explaining all aspects of the project’s planning and execution, she uses statistical analyses of the Austria-related entries. How Mayer contextualizes entries helps to establish how and why the encyclopedia evaluated nations vis-à-vis France—a sophisticated example of what big data can show about culture. Norbert Bachleitner thoroughly outlines the activities of “Gérard van Swieten, censeur de la littérature française sous l’impératrice Marie-Thérèse.” The essay serves as a history of the censor’s office, the important players and their roles, explaining how censorship norms were established and enforced, what happened in censorship meetings, and how records were kept (including developments like the censorship...

Jacob Hall and other Rope Dancers at The Hague, 1679–1681

ABSTRACT The present article is based on a number of unexplored notarial acts preserved in the City Archives at The Hague, which contain new evidence about Jacob Hall (fl. 1662–1681), the most famous of English rope dancers. Having become a citizen of The Hague in 1679, Hall envisaged continuing his career in the Low Countries, where in 1680 he entered into a partnership with Moritz von der Beck (ca. 1649–1694), a French manager-rope dancer. The archival records are also of interest for offering a glimpse of the lives of some British and French performers recruited by both managers and for the insight they provide into the provisions laid down in rope dancers' contracts. The continued presence of British and French professional entertainers who entered into co-operation agreements attests to the significance of the Low Countries as the meeting-point for cross-Channel cultural exchange.