fellows books

An important task for scholars of cultural studies and the humanities, as well as for artistic creators, is to refigure the frames and concepts by which the world as we know it is kept in place. Without these acts of refiguration, the future could only ever be more of the (violent) same. In close dialogue with literary and cinematic works and practices, the essays of this volume help refigure and rethink such pressing contemporary issues as migration, inequality, racism, post-coloniality, political violence and human-animal relations. A range of fresh perspectives are introduced, amounting to a call for intellectuals to remain critically engaged with the social and planetary.

Among the contributors:

Mieke Bal, Dominick LaCapra, Sunayani Bhattacharya, and more.

Die Arbeit schlägt einen neuen methodischen Ansatz in Bezug auf sogenannte ›frauenmystische‹ Texte des Mittelalters vor. Hierbei rückt die handschriftliche Überlieferung verstärkt in den Fokus, da der einzelne Textträger in seinen jeweiligen kultur- und literaturhistorischen Kontexten verortet wird. Am Beispiel der reichen oberdeutschen Überlieferung des Liber specialis gratiae der Mechthild von Hackeborn können auf diese Weise signifikante Einsichten in spezifische Rezeptionsdynamiken gewonnen werden. Die Arbeit ist daher nicht nur für die germanistische Mediävistik, sondern auch für die Geschichtswissenschaft, die Historischen Hilfswissenschaften, die Theologie und die Gender Studies interessant sowie für alle, die sich mit mittelalterlicher Religions- und Handschriftenkultur beschäftigen.

Dieses Buch analysiert das Verhältnis zwischen dem jemenitischen König Imam Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn und den Juden:Jüdinnen Sanaas aus islamrechtlicher Perspektive. Es beleuchtet sowohl Imam Yahyas Dhimma-Politik als auch die Handlungsmacht von Juden:Jüdinnen als Dhimmis. Es kombiniert erstmals jüdische Erinnerungsliteratur und jemenitische Historiographie aus dem 20. Jhd. mit zum Teil bis heute grundlegenden Texten zaiditischen Rechts (fiqh) aus dem 14.-19. Jhd.

By analyzing Warsaw’s Yiddish daily press, this volume reveals how Polish Jews gained and disseminated subversive knowledge of National Socialist Germany in spite of censorship and repression, and also initiated campaigns of protest and solidarity to the benefit of the people being persecuted there.

In this innovative study of everyday charity practices in Jeddah, Nora Derbal employs a 'bottom-up' approach to challenge dominant narratives about state-society relations in Saudi Arabia. Exploring charity organizations in Jeddah, this book both offers a rich ethnography of associational life and counters Riyadh-centric studies which focus on oil, the royal family, and the religious establishment. It closely follows those who work on the ground to provide charity to the local poor and needy, documenting their achievements, struggles and daily negotiations. The lens of charity offers rare insights into the religiosity of ordinary Saudis, showing that Islam offers Saudi activists a language, a moral frame, and a worldly guide to confronting inequality. With a view to the many forms of local community activism in Saudi Arabia, this book examines perspectives that are too often ignored or neglected, opening new theoretical debates about civil society and civic activism in the Gulf.

Southeast Asia Program Publications Cornell University Press

Indonesians and Their Arab World explores the ways contemporary Indonesians understand their relationship to the Arab world. Despite being home to the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia exists on the periphery of an Islamic world centered around the Arabian Peninsula. Mirjam Lücking approaches the problem of interpreting the current conservative turn in Indonesian Islam by considering the ways personal relationships, public discourse, and matters of religious self-understanding guide two groups of Indonesians who actually travel to the Arabian Peninsula—labor migrants and Mecca pilgrims—in becoming physically mobile and making their mobility meaningful. This concept, which Lücking calls "guided mobility," reveals that changes in Indonesian Islamic traditions are grounded in domestic social constellations and calls claims of outward Arab influence in Indonesia into question. With three levels of comparison (urban and rural areas, Madura and Central Java, and migrants and pilgrims), this ethnographic case study foregrounds how different regional and socioeconomic contexts determine Indonesians' various engagements with the Arab world.

Lina Nikou’s dissertation was just published byNeofelis: Besuche in der alten Heimat. Einladungsprogramme für ehemals Verfolgte des Nationalsozialismus in München, Frankfurt am Main und Berlin / Visits to the old hometown. Invitation programs for former victims of National Socialism in Munich, Frankfurt on the Main and Berlin.

Here you can find an interview with the author about her book (in German): Interview mit der Historikerin und Kulturwissenschaftlerin Lina Nikou über ihren Beitrag zur Aufarbeitung der deutsch-jüdischen Nachkriegsgeschichte v. Marcella Christiani (ZEIT-Stiftung, April 2020).

And here you can find her talk “Visits and Counter Visits Between German Cities and Their Former Citizens in Israel Since the 1960s” about an extract of her book which she held online at an event of the Leo Back Institute in Jerusalem on Mai 26^th 2020 (starting at minute 00:55).

Sammy Gronemann (1875–1952) is among the most famous German-language Zionist dramatists. His history extends from earliest foundation of the Zionist movement to its realization in the Jewish State, a process to which Gronemann contributed substantially. His complete dramas – excluding comedies – reflect this history and are analyzed in detail for the first time in this book.

Once in a while, the Israeli public learns from the news that a soldier has disappeared or died. Later on, it is reported that the soldier committed suicide. These deaths are usually tended through psychological concepts and procedures. However, a cultural perceptive unfolds the institutional and political aspects of military suicide. Examining the social order in Israel, Suicide in Uniform discusses questions such as: Why has the notion of "suicidality" gained its overwhelming explanatory power? What are the norms that  render commanders and mental health officers the main figures responsible for suicide prevention? What are the rules that prohibit some bereaved parents from receiving military compensations? How is suicide explained in relation to the sacrifice of life demanded of soldiers and in relation to contemporary military missions? This book illuminates seven decades of social negotiations with the meaning of military suicide, as Israeli society shapes its ideals of heroism, individuality and solidarity.

This volume considers the influential revival of ancient philosophical skepticism in the 16th and early 17th centuries and investigates, from a comparative perspective, its reception in early modern English, Spanish and French drama, dedicating detailed readings to plays by Shakespeare, Calderón, Lope de Vega, Rotrou, Desfontaines, and Cervantes. While all the plays employ similar dramatic devices for "putting skepticism on stage", the study explores how these dramas, however, give different "answers" to the challenges posed by skepticism in relation to their respective historico-cultural and "ideological" contexts.