Introduction

Despite being widely acknowledged as one of the most important German dramatists since Bertolt Brecht, Heiner Muller (1929-95) still remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking world. This collection of plays aims to change that, presenting new translations and opening up his work to a larger audience. Collected here are three of his plays - "Philoctetes", "The Horatian", and "Mauser" - that together constitute what Muller called an "experimental series," which both develops and critiques Brecht's theory of the Lehrstuck, or "learning play." Based on a tragedy by Sophocles, Philoctetes dramatizes the confrontation between politics, morality, and the desire for revenge. The Horatian uses an incident from ancient Rome as an example of ways of approaching the moral ambiguity of the past. Finally, Mauser, set during the Russian civil war, examines the nature and ethics of revolutionary violence. The plays are accompanied by supporting materials written by Muller himself, as well as an introduction by Uwe Schutte that contextualizes the plays and speaks of their continued relevance today.

Introducción

Sexualidad y Escritura (1850-2000) is a collection of thirteen essays which focus on the complex relationship between gender and writing in Spain from 1850 to 2000. This collection aims to provide a specifically Spanish cultural and historical context to the study of gender and writing and to challenge the effectiveness and validity of applying and adapting some feminist theory (based mainly in French and Anglo literary traditions) to works by both male and female Spanish writers. The introduction sets the tone of the essays it contains by discussing the Gilbert and Guar’s concept of female authors anxiety of authorship, and the reasons why their notions of the male dominated writing profession does not necessarily apply to Spanish literature of the nineteenth century in particular. The notable presence and success of female writers during the Romantic period and the way in which they in effect managed to feminize the writing profession illustrates how very different the Spanish literary context is from French, English or American models. The editors state that, rather than needing to work up the courage to take up the pen and publish their works, the issue facing Spanish women writers during parts of the last 150 years has been how to either maintain or regain their authorial voice and their place in letters, fighting to keep their heads above the rising and falling tides of literary trends.

Anger rumination and self-reported aggression amongst British and Hong Kong Chinese athletes: a cross cultural comparison

Previous work has determined relationships between provocation, anger rumination, and aggression in British athletes (Maxwell, 2004); however, the reliability of these findings and their generality across diverse cultures has not been examined. Therefore, a comparison of British and Hong Kong (HK) Chinese athletes’ propensity for rumination and aggression was undertaken. Provocation and thoughts of revenge were significantly associated with the self-reported aggression of both British and HK Chinese athletes. Frequency of aggression was similar across cultures except for a tendency for British male contact sport athletes to report greater frequency of aggressive behaviour. HK Chinese athletes tended to report higher frequencies of thoughts relating to understanding the causes of anger and higher incidence of perceived provocation. It was concluded that the pattern of aggressive behaviour was similar across the two cultures when opportunities for aggression are infrequent, but that HK Chinese athletes may inhibit aggressive responding even when opportunities are frequent.

Corporate cyberstalking:an invitation to build theory

Cyberstalking describes a relatively new form of stalking behaviour where technology is used as the medium of harassment. The term corporate cyberstalking is often used to describe incidents that involve organisations, such as companies and government departments. This paper uses a number of case studies in order to propose a typology of corporate cyberstalking. It is suggested that incidents involving corporate cyberstalking can be divided into two broad groups, depending on whether or not the organisation acts as a stalker or as a victim. Examining the motivations behind corporate cyberstalking allows these groups to be subdidvided further. The motives behind corporate cyberstalking can range from a desire for revenge against an employer to cyberterrorism. The paper also briefly discusses definitions of stalking and cyberstalking, concluding with a revised definition of cyberstalking that is more in keeping with the material discussed.

The idea of the hybrid texts and translation:contact as conflict

Intercultural communication in the global environment frequently involves recourse to translation. This generates new phenomena which, in turn, raise new questions for translation theory and practice. This issue is concerned with the concept of the hybrid text as one of these phenomena. In this introductory chapter, a hybrid text is defined as: „a text that results from a translation process. It shows features that somehow seem ‘out of place'/‘strange'/‘unusual' for the receiving culture, i.e. the target culture”. It is important, however, to differentiate between the true hybrid, which is the result of positive authorial and/or translatorial decisions, and the inadequate text which exhibits features of translationese, resulting from a lack of competence. Textual, contextual and social features of hybrid texts are postulated (see discussion paper). These are the object of critical reflection in sub-sequent chapters, in relation to different genres. The potential of the hybrid text for translation research is explored.

Cyberstalking:a new challenge for criminal law

Cyberstalking has recently emerged as a new and growing problem and is an area that will probably receive a higher profile within criminal law as more cases reach court (see Griffiths, 1999; Griffiths, Rogers and Sparrow, 1998; Bojic and McFarlane, 2002a; 2002b). For the purposes of this article we define cyberstalking as the use of information and communications technology (in particular the Internet) in order to harass individuals. Such harassment may include actions such as the transmission of offensive e-mail messages, identity theft and damage to data or equipment. Whilst a more comprehensive definition has been presented elsewhere (Bocij and McFarlane, 2002), it is hoped that the definition here is sufficient for those unfamiliar with this field. The stereotypical stalker conjures up images of someone harassing a victim who is the object of their affection. However, not all stalking incidents are motivated by unrequited love. Stalking can also be motivated by hate, a need for revenge, a need for power and/or racism. Similarly, cyberstalking can involve acts that begin with the issuing of threats and end in physical assault. We also make distinctions between conventional stalking and cyberstalking. Whilst some may view cyberstalking as an extension of conventional stalking, we believe cyberstalking should be regarded as an entirely new form of deviant behaviour. It is not surprising that cyberstalking is sometimes thought of as a trivial problem. A number of writers and researchers have suggested that cyberstalking and associated activities are of little genuine concern. Koch (2000), for example, goes as far as accusing those interested in cyberstalking as promoting hysteria over a problem that may be minuscule or even imaginary. The impression gained is that cyberstalking represents a relatively small problem where victims seldom suffer any real harm. Whilst there are no genuinely reliable statistics that can be used to determine how common cyberstalking incidents are, a great deal of evidence is available to show that cyberstalking is a significant and growing problem (Griffiths et al, 1998). For instance, CyberAngels (a well-known Internet safety organization) receives some 500 complaints of cyberstalking each day, of which up to 100 represent legitimate cases (Dean, 2000). Another Internet safety organization (Working to Halt Online Abuse) reports receiving an average of 100 cases per week (WHOA, 2001). To highlight the types of cyberstalking behaviours that take place and some of the major issues facing criminal law, we briefly examine four high profile cases of cyberstalking (adapted from Bocij and MacFarlane, 2002b).