Women in Europe between the wars:politics, culture and society

The central aim of this interdisciplinary book is to make visible the intentionality behind the 'forgetting' of European women's contributions during the period between the two world wars in the context of politics, culture and society. It also seeks to record and analyse women's agency in the construction and reconstruction of Europe and its nation states after the First World War, and thus to articulate ways in which the writing of women's history necessarily entails the rewriting of everyone's history. By showing that the erasure of women's texts from literary and cultural history was not accidental but was ideologically motivated, the essays explicitly and implicitly contribute to debates surrounding canon formation. Other important topics are women's political activism during the period, antifascism, the contributions made by female journalists, the politics of literary production, genre, women's relationship with and contributions to the avant-garde, women's professional lives, and women's involvement in voluntary associations. In bringing together the work of scholars whose fields of expertise are diverse but whose interests converge on the inter-war period, the volume invites readers to make connections and comparisons across the whole spectrum of women's political, social, and cultural activities throughout Europe.

Metaphors in Hugo Chávez's political discourse:conceptualizing nation, revolution and opposition

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of metaphors used by Hugo Chávez in his efforts to construct and legitimize his Bolivarian Revolution. It focuses on metaphors drawn from three of his most frequent target domains: the nation, his revolution, and the opposition. The author argues that behind an official discourse of inclusion, Chávez's choice of metaphors contributes to the construction of a polarizing discourse of exclusion in which his political opponents are represented as enemies of the nation. Chávez constructs this polarizing discourse of exclusion by combining metaphors that conceptualize: (a) the nation as a person who has been resurrected by his government, as a person ready to fight for his revolution, or as Chávez himself; (b) the revolution as war; and (c) members of the opposition as war combatants or criminals. At the same time, by making explicit references in his discourse about the revolution as the continuation of Simón Bolívar's wars of independence, Chávez contributes to represent opponents as enemies of the nation, given that in the Venezuelan collective imaginary Bolívar is the symbol of the nation's emancipation.

Die Poetik des Extremen. Ausschreitungen einer Sprache des Radikalen:excesses of a language of radical

Gibt es eine Traditionslinie extremistischer Poetiken in der deutschsprachigen Literatur? Uwe Schütte untersucht anhand literarischer Texte ab dem späten 18. Jahrhundert den Konnex zwischen historischen Phänomenen wie Revolution, Krieg oder Terrorismus und extremen biografischen Umständen wie Schizophrenie für die Herausbildung radikaler Schreibweisen. Die Spannbreite der behandelten Autoren reicht dabei von der Klassikertrias Kleist, Hölderlin und Büchner über Schriftsteller des 20. Jahrhunderts wie Ernst Jünger oder Hans Henny Jahnn bis zu den Gegenwartsautoren Ernst Herbeck und Rainald Goetz. The study investigates aesthetic representations of extremism in German-language literature from around 1800 to the present. Its aim is to examine the interplay between three different areas: historical circumstances, (auto)biographical issues, and literary texts. Discussed are texts by both major and marginal writers from various genres, ranging from classics such as Heinrich von Kleist or Friedrich Hölderlin to the marginalised poet Ernst Herbeck or the contemporary writer Rainald Goetz. Subjects and factors considered include extremist phenomena in modern history (such as revolutions, wars, terrorism) and extreme individual experiences (such as suicide or schizophrenia) on the aesthetic domain(s) with regard to the production of literary discourses that could be considered as extremist. These manifest themselves in the development of what can be viewed as ‘radical poetics’, decidedly innovative styles of writing and moral or political transgression in fiction. Being the first critical attempt to trace the history of radical discourses in German literature, the study explores the validity of creating an aesthetic category of 'literary extremism'.

War crimes, conditionality and EU integration in the Western Balkans

The baleful legacy of the wars of the 1990s continues to dog the states and societies of the former Yugoslavia and has overshadowed the disappointingly slow and hesitant trajectory of the region towards the EU. At the start of the new millennium, with the removal of key wartime leaders from the political scene in both Croatia and Serbia, it was widely hoped that the region would prove able to ‘leave the past behind’ and rapidly move on to the hopeful new agenda of EU integration. The EU’s Copenhagen criteria, which in 1993 first explicitly set out the basic political conditions expected of aspirant EU Member States, proved effective in the case of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe in supporting the entrenchment of democratic norms and practices, and stimulating reconciliation and good neighbourly relations among countries with turbulent histories. Building on this experience, the Stabilisation and Association Process, launched for the countries of the Western Balkans in 1999, included both full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and regional reconciliation among the political conditions set for advancing these countries on the path to EU integration. EU political conditionality was intended to support the efforts of new political leaders to redefine national goals away from the nationalist enmities of the past and focus firmly on forging a path to a better future. This Chaillot Paper examines the extent to which this strategy has worked, especially in the light of the difficulties it has encountered in the face of strong resistance to cooperation among sections of the former Yugoslav population, many of whom have not yet fully acknowledged the crimes committed during the 1990s. Key chapters in the volume raise the vital questions of leadership and political will. EU political conditionality does not work unless the EU has a partner ready and willing to ‘play the game’, which presupposes that EU integration has become the overriding priority on the national political agenda.

Ethnic conflict and war crimes in the Balkans:the narratives of denial in post-conflict Serbia

In the years following the fall of Slobodan Milo evic, Serbian social, cultural and political responses to the wars of the 1990s have fallen under intense international scrutiny. But is this scrutiny justfied, and how can these responses be better understood? Jelena Obradovic engages with ideas about post-conflict societies, memory, cultural trauma, and national myths of victimhood and justified war to shed light upon Serbian denial and justification of war crimes - for example, Serbia's reluctant cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Rather than treating denial as a failure to come to terms with the past or as resurgent nationalism, Obradovic argues that the justification of atrocities are often the result of a societal need to understand and incorporate violent events within culturally acceptable boundaries.

May the contact lens force be with you

FULL TEXT: Like many people one of my favourite pastimes over the holiday season is to watch the great movies that are offered on the television channels and new releases in the movie theatres or catching up on those DVDs that you have been wanting to watch all year. Recently we had the new ‘Star Wars’ movie, ‘The Force Awakens’, which is reckoned to become the highest grossing movie of all time, and the latest offering from James Bond, ‘Spectre’ (which included, for the car aficionados amongst you, the gorgeous new Aston Martin DB10). It is always amusing to see how vision correction or eye injury is dealt with by movie makers. Spy movies and science fiction movies have a freehand to design aliens with multiples eyes on stalks or retina scanning door locks or goggles that can see through walls. Eye surgery is usually shown in some kind of day case simplified laser treatment that gives instant results, apart from the great scene in the original ‘Terminator’ movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger's android character encounters an injury to one eye and then proceeds to remove the humanoid covering to this mechanical eye over a bathroom sink. I suppose it is much more difficult to try and include contact lenses in such movies. Although you may recall the film ‘Charlie's Angels’, which did have a scene where one of the Angels wore a contact lens that had a retinal image imprinted on it so she could by-pass a retinal scan door lock and an Eddy Murphy spy movie ‘I-Spy’, where he wore contact lenses that had electronic gadgetry that allowed whatever he was looking at to be beamed back to someone else, a kind of remote video camera device. Maybe we aren’t quite there in terms of devices available but these things are probably not the behest of science fiction anymore as the technology does exist to put these things together. The technology to incorporate electronics into contact lenses is being developed and I am sure we will be reporting on it in the near future. In the meantime we can continue to enjoy the unrealistic scenes of eye swapping as in the film ‘Minority Report’ (with Tom Cruise). Much more closely to home, than in a galaxy far far away, in this issue you can find articles on topics much nearer to the closer future. More and more optometrists in the UK are becoming registered for therapeutic work as independent prescribers and the number is likely to rise in the near future. These practitioners will be interested in the review paper by Michael Doughty, who is a member of the CLAE editorial panel (soon to be renamed the Jedi Council!), on prescribing drugs as part of the management of chronic meibomian gland dysfunction. Contact lenses play an active role in myopia control and orthokeratology has been used not only to help provide refractive correction but also in the retardation of myopia. In this issue there are three articles related to this topic. Firstly, an excellent paper looking at the link between higher spherical equivalent refractive errors and the association with slower axial elongation. Secondly, a paper that discusses the effectiveness and safety of overnight orthokeratology with high-permeability lens material. Finally, a paper that looks at the stabilisation of early adult-onset myopia. Whilst we are always eager for new and exciting developments in contact lenses and related instrumentation in this issue of CLAE there is a demonstration of a novel and practical use of a smartphone to assisted anterior segment imaging and suggestions of this may be used in telemedicine. It is not hard to imagine someone taking an image remotely and transmitting that back to a central diagnostic centre with the relevant expertise housed in one place where the information can be interpreted and instruction given back to the remote site. Back to ‘Star Wars’ and you will recall in the film ‘The Phantom Menace’ when Qui-Gon Jinn first meets Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine he takes a sample of his blood and sends a scan of it back to Obi-Wan Kenobi to send for analysis and they find that the boy has the highest midichlorian count ever seen. On behalf of the CLAE Editorial board (or Jedi Council) and the BCLA Council (the Senate of the Republic) we wish for you a great 2016 and ‘may the contact lens force be with you’. Or let me put that another way ‘the CLAE Editorial Board and BCLA Council, on behalf of, a great 2016, we wish for you!’

Metaphors in Hugo Chávez's political discourse:conceptualizing nation, revolution and opposition

This dissertation examines Hugo Chávez's choice of metaphors in his efforts to construct and legitimize his Bolivarian Revolution. It focuses on metaphors drawn from three of the most frequent target domains present in his discourse: the nation, his revolution, and the opposition. The study argues that behind an official discourse of inclusion, Chávez's choice of metaphors contributes to the construction of a polarizing discourse of exclusion in which his political opponents are represented as enemies of the nation.The study shows that Chávez constructs this polarizing discourse of exclusion by combining metaphors that conceptualize: (a) the nation as a person who has been resurrected by his government, as a person ready to fight for his revolution, or as Chávez himself; (b) the revolution as war; and (c) members of the opposition as war combatants or criminals. At the same time, the study shows that by making explicit references in his discourse about the revolution as the continuation of Bolívar's wars of independence, Chávez contributes to represent opponents as enemies of the nation, given that in the Venezuelan collective imaginary Simón Bolívar is the symbol of the nation's emancipation.This research, which covers a period of nine years (from Chávez's first year in office in 1999 through 2007), is part of the discipline of Political Discourse Analysis (PDA). It is anchored both in the theoretical framework provided by the cognitive linguistic metaphor theory developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson described in their book Metaphors We Live By, and in Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) as defined by Jonathan Charteris-Black in his book Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis.The study provides the first comprehensive analysis of metaphors used by Chávez in his political discourse. It builds upon the findings of previous studies on political discourse analysis in Venezuela by showing that Chávez's discourse not only polarizes the country and represents opponents as detractors of national symbols such as Bolívar or his wars of independence (which have been clearly established in previous studies), but also represents political opponents as enemies of the nation.

Post-communist recessions re-examined

We apply simple econometric methods to evaluate the factors that determined the length and depth of the post-Communist recessions. Early implementation of the stabilisation and liberalisation programmes made the recessions weaker. Wars had strong negative impact. Initial trade dependence made recessions more serious. The results are discussed with reference to the existing explanations of the 'transitional recessions', in particular Calvo and Coricelli (1992, 1993), Blanchard and Kremer (1997) and Blanchard (1997).

Asymmetric price transmission in EU petroleum markets

This research investigates the determinants of asymmetric price transmission (APT) in European petroleum markets. APT is the faster response of retail prices to cost increases than to cost decreases; resulting in a welfare transfer from consumers to fuel retailers. I investigate APT at 3 different levels: the EU, the UK and at the Birmingham level. First, I examine the incidence of asymmetries in the retail markets of six major EU countries; significant asymmetries are found in all countries except from the UK. The market share data suggest that asymmetries are more important in more concentrated markets; this finding supports the collusion theory. I extend the investigation to 12 EU countries and note that APT is greater in diesel markets. The cross-country analysis suggests that vertical and horizontal concentration at least partly explains the degree of asymmetry. I provide evidence justifying scrutiny over retail markets’ pricing and structure. Second daily data unveil the presence of APT in the UK fuel markets. I use break tests to identify segments with different pricing regimes. Two main types of periods are identified: periods of rising oil price exhibit significant asymmetries whilst periods of recession do not. Our results suggest that oligopolistic coordination between retailers generate excess rents during periods of rising oil price whilst the coordination fails due to price wars when oil prices are going downwards. Finally I investigate the pricing behaviour of petroleum retailers in the Birmingham (UK) area for 2008. Whilst the market structure data reveals that the horizontal concentration is higher than the national UK average, I find no evidence of APT. In contrast, I find that retail prices are sticky upwards and downwards and that firms with market power (majors and supermarkets) adjust their prices slower than other firms.

Women and peace in a divided society:peace-building potentials of feminist advocacy and reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Despite an improving international rhetoric highlighting the necessity of women’s participation in postwar settings, women still tend to be disadvantaged in peace-building processes (Chinkin and Charlesworth, 2006; United Nations, 2002). This chapter argues that women’s struggles for rights entail important potentials for peace-building in divided postwar societies. Women frequently are among the first who cooperate across ethnic divisions established and hardened during ethno-political wars. Feminist policy reforms often strengthen common state structures and their legitimacy, contributing to the overcoming of ethnic divisions. Women’s participation and contributions should, therefore, be much more recognized and promoted in peace-building processes. However, it is feminist advocacy that is key, not women’s participation per se. Women have often promoted nationalistic and violent agendas; yet, only if they champion the rights of women independent of their ethnic and political differences can peace-building potentials come into effect.